by Heather Chetwynd | Sep 29, 2022 | Language Training
Over COVID, a close friend and videographer, Sue Mitchell helped me put together a series of videos about the most common vowel in English, one you likely have no knowledge of, even more so if you are a native speaker. It is called the schwa, what I refer to as “the...
by Heather Chetwynd | Apr 27, 2022 | Accent Modification
Many things influence how what we say is perceived. (See our recent blog post entitled, 3 Things You Probably Haven’t Considered About Clear Communication.) In that post, I focused primarily on interpretation and cultural assumptions. In this post, I want to focus on...
by Recommendation of Heather Chetwynd | Oct 19, 2015 | Accent Modification
This is a good overview of English stress, both syllable stress and sentence stress (which words are stressed in a sentence.) It is directed towards Spanish speakers but useful for anyone who wants to learn more about this area. Stress out! Pronunciation is the cause...
by Heather Chetwynd | Aug 16, 2011 | Accent Modification
In Music & Accent-Part 1-Transitioning between Sounds, I discussed how learning to adjust your accent is very similar to learning to play an instrument. I focused on how to create smooth transitions using a technique commonly applied to music studies. This posting...
by Heather Chetwynd | Apr 22, 2010 | Voice to Word Post - Other
So, a woman walks into a yoga studio to ask about their classes. She sees a class in progress and asks the administrator who it was for. The administrator smiles confidently, and answers: “It’s a divers’ group.” The woman is confused. “Divers?” she asks. She also...
