Procrastination Factors “It’s never too late to procrastinate.”  My daughter pointed out a message on a humorous sign at Chicago restaurant.   The message is very true.  HUMAN NATURE can be to procrastinate.  I procrastinate.  Have you ever procrastinated with: projects at work, cleaning the house, hiring someone to clean the house, or perhaps looking for a […]

Straight-forward Psychology Behind Foreign Accents Communicating with a professional who speaks with a foreign accent can be frustrating.  You can overcome accent barriers in your work environment.  There is a psychology behind accent reduction.    It’s practical psychology worth discussing.  Both the person with the accent and the person with whom the accented professional is […]

If you’ve been caught in this situation, you’re not alone.  Do you ever notice someone being ridiculed, degraded, stereotyped, or discounted due to judgment; due to someone’s opinion of them?  This is in fact what a pulmonologist shared with me at a recent presentation that I gave.  His comment was different than those that are […]

Signs of International Communication Barriers You’ve probably been in this position.  You are trying to communicate with an intelligent professional who speaks with a strong accent.  You are expending more and more effort trying to understand them.  You lose focus on what they’re saying and start focusing on HOW they’re saying it.  You try to […]

One of the main reasons that former clients have hesitated to purse accent modification is “I don’t have enough time”.  Do you have the attitude,” I want to completely and fully commit to accent modification so I do it right!  I don’t’ have enough time right now in my life to be able to do […]

Visual Learning Watch and Practice!  View the VIDEO to this blog by clicking here:  https://masteryouraccent.com/videos-2/pronunciation-instruction-and-practice-for-voiced-th/. 2 Commonly Mispronounced Sounds Two of the most common English sounds that challenge English as a second language learners are the two sounds made by the combination of two letters; “t” and “h.” Those two sounds are /θ/ as in the word […]

Welcome to part four of Achieving a More Natural Sounding Accent with Articles!  You’re on your way to MASTERING use of the definite article “the” and the indefinite article “a!” In  Part 3, we learned about exceptions to using articles. In this blog, we summarize all the circumstances for using the definite article “the.” We […]

In the FREE Transform your Accent: Transform your Life Kit at www.masteryouraccent.com, we share three mistakes of accented professionals that ultimately limit earnings.  The BEAUTIFUL REALITY is that there are SOLUTIONS  to avoid continually making those mistakes!  If you haven’t downloaded that kit, go ahead and do it.  Consider it another INVESTMENT in your CAREER […]

In “Achieve a More Natural Sounding Accent with Articles: Part 2,” we learned that mass nouns use the article “the” when we don’t add information.  We use the article “a” when we add information to a mass noun.  We also learned that many English language learners omit the indefinite article before singular predicate nouns (meaning the noun […]

Review In Part 1, we noted that in general, we use articles to describe a noun or a noun phrase.  They either limit or make the nouns they modify more precise. We use “the” (considered a definite article) when we want to classify the noun as definite,  identified, or specific.  Furthermore, we use “the” to […]