New Accent Reduction Series - Accents with Amy.. and Alex!

Hi guys!

I'm back with some resources that I hope you like. As you may know already, Amy Walker is an American actress, singer, writer and teacher of accents with and incredible gift. She has recently launched a new Accent Reduction Series to ESL Speakers. This series is completely in-depth and it is composed by several videos, some of them are for free and you can find them in her channel in YouTube, and some of them are for rental and purchase, and are available on 21accents.com and vimeo.com/amiablewalker.

This series works the different vowel sounds, the consonants, the rhythm and the melody. It is very useful if you're an actor, or if you just want to get a nice and clear american accent.

So here they are, directly from her website 21accents.com, Accent with Amy - American Accent Tutorials:

Fun, In-depth Tutorial for the Standard American Accent – Accents with Amy 

Accents w Amy! Learn in real time. Hear first-hand how quickly you too can sound like a standard (neutral) American with Amy’s fun, unique techniques. Speak and learn along with us!

Diphthongs “A” “I” “U” 

Part 5:

diphthong eɪ (say, day, thanks, favorite, play)
diphthong aɪ (rice, wild, child, time)
diphthong uː (you, few, view, human, usual)

Schwa and long ä | Basis of American Vowel sounds

Part 4:

Vowel “ə” (the, love, was, today, money, word, for, for you, forever)
Vowel “ˈɔ” (always, all, party, darling, awesome)

American “T” and “S” | Accents with Amy

Part 6:

“T” (time, tint, trick, after, afternoon, tape, hat, mat, between, best, left)
“S” (sip, sand, same, sale, serious, stretch, smart, smile, pass, mass, pace, juice)

American “oh” “oo” “ow” ( oʊ uː ʊ æʊ) | Accents with Amy

Part 3:

diphthong oʊ (oh, no, grow, phone, home, road)
long uː (room, bloom, move, blue, you)
short ʊ (good, book, cook, would, wooden, look)
diphthong æʊ (how, now, out, about, house, powder, shout)

“ee” and “i” ( iː v. ɪ) – American Accent Tutorial | Amy Walker

Part 2:

Long iː (me, need, reason, tea, people)
versus: short ɪ (pick, lift, win, dinner, mint)

“a” and “eh” (æ and e) – fun, essential tips! – American Accent Tutorial | Amy Walker

Part 1:

Short æ (back, have, cat, can, man)
versus: e (bend, men, head, every, left)

The goal is that by listening to any difference between the correct way and another way, you will develop your ability to hear any differences in your own speaking -thereby learning faster and more completely.

Hope you enjoy the videos!

See you!

Studying English Abroad: Tips to Improve Fast while Being Abroad

Hi everyone!

So now that summer is almost here, and we're all ready for it, I thought I'd write a post about studying abroad. Do you have your trip already planned? I do!

For those of you who haven't traveled abroad to learn English, here is all you need to know:

TIPS ON HOW TO IMPROVE YOUR ENGLISH WHILE STUDYING ABROAD

DON'T HANG OUT WITH PEOPLE FROM YOUR COUNTRY

When you travel abroad, you're likely to get along with people from your country more than with other people. Why? Because you share the same culture. You share the same language, know probably the same kind of food, have a lot of things in common. That's a problem.

If you feel comfortable with them, you're

more possibly gonna end up hanging out just with them, speaking in your own language and using English just in your classes at school. But then, you will go back to your country feeling like living abroad didn't help you very much with your English (or any other language). 

While if you get to meet people from other countries who you don't share a culture with, you are gonna end up speaking English all the time, and you will come back to your country feeling like you really "worked your fingers to the bone" and improved a lot, and you can get to know different cultures, really interesting people and wonderful places. And you will have friends all over the world after your coming back home!

DON'T SPEAK YOUR NATIVE LANGUAGE!

This is specially hard for foreign speakers with a very low level of English but, hey!, you can make mistakes while speaking in English. That's how we all learn, by making mistakes. Try to meet people who don't speak your own language and try to get some native speaker friends, that will help you a lot!

STAYING IN A HOST FAMILY IS ALWAYS BETTER!

It will help you much more with your English than staying on your own, and it is always important to have someone caring about you when you're out of your country. They will help you if you need it and they will make your experience more enjoyable, because they probably know interesting places to visit and fun things to do.

GO TO CLASS!

It is hard to attend your classes when there are lots of things you want to do, but it is important for you to go to class. You've paid for the classes and you have to go to your school everyday, or you may not be able to get your certificate at the end of the course, or even worse, you may not learn anything at all.

CHOOSING YOUR ENGLISH SCHOOL CAREFULLY

The quality of teaching has to be good so you can learn as fast as possible. You should check if your school is accredited by the institution of the country you're gonna study in. For example ACCETS for schools in the US and the BRITISH COUNCIL for school in the UK.

I will write a post about different English schools that I would recommend for you to study at. 

I hope you find these tips useful and that you learn a lot while being abroad, as it's the best way to learn!

See you!