ACCENT NEUTRALIZATION-2

Posted by girish seshamani on July 5, 2010

In the first part of my article, I had introduced you to the importance of having a Neutral Accent, and where we stand as of now.

In this article, I shall cover the common issues with Indians and the steps to be taken to come to a Neutral Accent.

I will list down the common problems with Indian speakers in general:

Indian speakers of English are known to speak much faster than people in the West. This means that in many cases Indian speakers of English will make business communication difficult. We need to ensure that we understand and are understood.

Indians do not speak with their mouth fully open. As a result, the speech muscles get tight over a period of time, and the pronunciation gets severely affected. In other words we are not able to articulate properly.

Indians have a very fast rate of speech. The ideal speaking rate is between one hundred forty and one hundred sixty words per minute. Indians speak at anywhere between one hundred eighty to two hundred forty words per minute. At this speed, the listener is bound to lose the message. Take any article from a newspaper or magazine and work on your speed by reading it regularly. Read it for one minute. Keep a count of the number of words you read in one minute. Over a period of time you will automatically come to the right pace.

In the English Language, the vowels give the sound and therefore the stress has to be on the vowel sound, taking the syllable into consideration. Indians stress on the consonants because of which the word gets horribly mispronounced and this creates a huge communication barrier.

The consonant B is pronounced as P and vice versa

The consonant D is pronounced as T and vice versa

The consonant L is pronounced strongly

There is no distinction made between V and W sounds

The vowel U is pronounced without opening the mouth

There is no distinction made between the words, their, there and they while pronouncing it

The ‘th’ sound is not clear

The consonant T is not pronounced sharply

STEPS TO BE TAKEN TO COME TO A NEUTRAL ACCENT

To learn a new accent you need to listen to English again and again. It is not what you say, but how you say it, therefore, get familiar with the feel, tone and delivery of the accent. That adds a lot more meaning to what you say, rather that just the actual words.

Learning a new accent is making your subconscious mind conscious.

The critical thing to remember is to relax and speak in a flow, instead of speaking each word separately, to sound clear.  Pronunciation is governed by two factors, syllable stress and the vowel sound articulation.

Vowels and consonants come together and form syllables. Syllables give the word its pronunciation. Each syllable has a vowel sound and can have one or more consonants

Let us take an example:

Chair – This word is pronounced in one breath of air. It has only one syllable

Moment – This word cannot be pronounced in one breath of air. We take a pause while pronouncing the word. The place where we pause is exactly where the first syllable ends. It is broken down into parts,

Mo \ ment (2 syllables)

We can see that the first syllable has the vowel ‘O’ and the second syllable has the vowel ‘E’

Deliver – This word is broken down in three parts.

De \ li \ ver (3 syllables)

In this word, the first syllable has the vowel ‘E’ the second syllable has the vowel ‘I’ and the third syllable has the vowel ‘E’

As a rule of thumb, if a word has two syllables, stress on the first syllable. Likewise if a word has three syllables, stress on the second syllable.

Received Pronunciation is the most widely understood pronunciation. It is also referred to as Queen’s English or Oxford English.

The English Language uses over 45 basic sounds but has only 26 letters in the alphabet to represent them. This means that a word is not pronounced in the way it is written, unlike our mother tongue.

The International Phonetic Association (IPA) has laid down the pronunciation for each word. Special phonetic symbols are used to represent sounds. There are several accepted pronunciations for each word.

The Oxford Dictionary is very useful. The pronunciation is clearly mentioned for each word. Take the help of a professional who speaks the language well and practice your pronunciation.

Most poor pronunciations happen due to the omission of a sound altogether or swallowing of the last one or two alphabets.

Just to cite an example, if we take the word ‘going’ speakers often drop the last ‘g’

The ‘ch’ sound also creates lots of problems. If we take the word, chair, the ‘ch’ sound is strong whereas if we take the word, champagne, it is pronounced as ‘sh’ not ‘ch’

The ‘k’ is silent in the words, knight, knife and know

The letters ‘gh’ are silent in the words, height, might and right

The letter ‘l’ is silent in the words, should, could and would

Kindly note that the words mentioned above have been given purely for the purpose of understanding. Apart from the above words, there are lots of other words also where the ‘k’ is silent. The same applies to all the other examples also.

We need to breathe correctly for good modulation and rate of speech.

If we do not breathe properly, we cannot speak long sentences. An effective voice is possible only with an effective breath. Indians on the whole have a very poor breathing pattern which needs to be worked on.

BREATHING EXERCISES

Sit up straight

Relax your shoulders and arms

Drop your neck down with your chin touching the chest

Open the mouth and let the breath go in and out gently without exercising any kind of pressure

Do not make any noise while pulling in the breath

Take a quicker breath and then release it slowly

Repeat this exercise at least ten times

OTHER EXERCISES

Take a deep breath. Pronounce each alphabet from A till Z by throwing the air out. Initially you will feel lot of pressure on the chest. Do not give up. Keep on practicing this exercise.

With the tip of your tongue touch the back side of each tooth.

Hum any song which you like. Over a period of time you will notice a perceptible change in the quality of your voice.

As I have mentioned earlier, our goal should be to come as near as possible to the British Accent. In our country English is the second language. It is very critical to interact or listen to native speakers of English. The best channel is BBC News. Observe very carefully how the news readers pronounce the words, as in, the movement of the lip and the tongue.

Record your voice regularly which will help you to understand how far you have progressed and where you are going wrong.

To conclude, a poor speaker is often considered to be inept in all other areas also. People judge you not only by what you say, but how you say it.

HAPPY SPEAKING