AccentHelp Blog

Boston vs New York City Accents

There are a number of distinctions between vowel sounds between a Boston accent and a New York City accent. One of them really stands out: This is ...

Strut Vowel in American and British Accents

This UH sound often causes some confusion between American and British speakers, and can be a challenge for ESL English speakers to sound clear to ...

Hell's Corner IPA: [ɑ] [ɒ] [ɔ] Vowels

Jim leads you through a REALLY important vowel distinction that is helpful to know more about for almost ALL accents! These are the Palm/Father, Lo...

Nurse Vowel for American and British Accents

Jim Johnson takes you through the challenge of how the "NURSE" vowel + R sound happens for many Americans, and how to shift your thought when dropp...

British Isles Accent Map

British Isles Accent Map When people talk about a ‘British accent’, they tend to be thinking of the upper class Received Pronunciation accent. But ...

Linking R

Most non-rhotic speakers - which is a term for people who "drop the R sound" after a vowel - bring that R sound back if that word goes into a vowel...

"I Need to Learn a British Accent"

I get enough inquiries from people who ask about learning a British accent, that it seems to be important to clarify that this is too broad of a st...

Trap & Bath [æ] Vowel Changes for Various ESL Accents

The [æ] vowel sound, as in trap doesn't exist for many ESL (English as a Second Language) speakers, so they will tend to shift to a more familiar v...

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...

Russian Accent Intonation

Accent Help coach Jim Johnson leads you through some techniques for learning the intonation for a Russian accent when speaking English. It's alwa...

Aspiration on Plosive Consonants

Jim gets into how plosive consonants can have varying degrees of aspiration (explosion) and how to note those with the phonetic alphabet. You can n...

IPA Symbols for the R Sound

Jim gives an overview of the phonetic symbols that represent the various R sounds that occur in accents from around the world. Here's a transcript ...

Rhoticity and the Norm in English and American Dialects

Rhoticity is all about the after-vowel R sound. Jim Johnson explores the tendency towards rhoticity in the US and non-rhotic accents in England - t...

[ɪ] to [i] Before [ŋ] and [ɚ]

--- otherwise known as KIT to FLEECE before NG and R In many parts of the US, the [ɪ] sound, as in kit, shifts upwards in the mouth towards [i], as...

Accents Based in British or American English

When learning the accent of a speaker for whom English is a second language, you have to consider what kind of English they learned, which can infl...

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...

Merry Mary Marry Pronunciation Map Accents

Merry, Mary, and Marry

Most Americans will say merry, Mary, and marry the same, but in some parts of the US - especially the northeast - and in many other countries, they...

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...

London Dialects Overview

There are four major accents/dialects of London, which Jim covers in this London dialect overview. Received Pronunciation or Standard British Est...

Front Vowel Lowering in Northern Irish Accents

The front vowels in Northern Irish accents tend to lower, having a cascading effect on the one that typically occurs below. When one vowel moves, i...

Intonation for Classic RP & Standard British

Jim Johnson covers four major intonation elements of classic Received Pronunciation (RP) or Standard British. These are not appropriate for conte...

Nasalizing Vowels and Dropping Nasal Consonants

When a vowel is followed by a nasal consonant, it's very common to nasalize the vowel and then completely drop the nasal consonant. We don't alwa...

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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