AccentHelp Blog

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 (...

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...

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...

Introduction to Accents 6: Prioritizing Learning Accents

What accent should you learn when it's not immediately demanded by a project? Coach Jim Johnson leads you through a list of which accents and di...

Introduction to Accents 5: Helpful Hints

Often there are little shortcuts or tricks that help you to jumpstart learning an accent. Here, Jim Johnson leads you through a number of possible ...

Introduction to Accents 4: Intonation

Intonation is primarily about musicality and rhythm. There tend to be recurring musical phrasings, such as lifts at the ends of phrases, that are b...

Introduction to Accents 3: Placement

Placement refers to the sensation of where the sound "lives" in the mouth, which can commonly lead to a mouth posture that helps with an accent. Th...

Cockney & Australian Confusion

I was contacted by someone who is struggling to nail the Cockney accent, and he keeps slipping into what sounds more like an Australian accent. Thi...

Northern Irish Accent Intonation

Here's an introduction to the upward lilt of the Northern Irish accent - maybe not what you'd expect from an Irish accent if you're used to thinkin...

Dark-L vs Light-L

An L at the beginning of a word is commonly a "light-L" whereas an L at the end of a word is commonly a "dark-L" - pulled back in the throat. It's ...

Introduction to Accents 2: Phonetics

The International Phonetic Association created a system to represent the sounds of world languages. The Phonetic Alphabet is a useful tool for lear...

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