Two Vowel Shifts in Almost All ESL Accents

In addition to sharing useful information about shifts to the /ɪ/ and /ʊ/ sounds, I use an example word that fills me with regret and joy. I love t...

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Subtle Variation in Articulation

Sometimes it's about figuring out the big sound changes for accents, but some speech variations can be tiny! Here, Jim gets into the minuscule vari...

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Rhotic vs Non-Rhotic Accents

One major subdivision of accents/dialects is whether they are rhotic or non-rhotic: do they drop their R's or not? When the R's drop after vowels (...

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Broad vs Narrow Transcription of R

  I had a question from someone about why they see different symbols for the R sound even though people are talking about the same one... The symbo...

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Nasalizing Vowels

  There are three nasal consonants that are common for English speakers, but often we carry over that nasality into vowels, especially the vowels t...

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