If you were born in China but now live in the United States, you are part ofa large and talented group of people. According to the latest censusinformation, there are over 1.6 million Chinese immigrants in the UnitedStates. Of these, two-thirds are of adult working age and two in five have acollege degree or higher; however, two-thirds have limited Englishproficiency.

This means that, if you are Chinese and living in the United States, thereis a good chance that you are a highly educated person who has come to theUnited States expecting to succeed, but you may have trouble advancing in yourcareer because you have not mastered the nuances of the English language.

ESL classes are a wonderful place to start and they do a terrific job ofteaching the basics of English vocabulary and grammar. I highly recommendthem!

The problem comes for many people who have learned to speak and writeEnglish but find that they still cannot communicate with nativeEnglish-speaking Americans. Have you experienced this? Have you had someone askyou to repeat yourself when you thought you had been perfectly clear? It can befrustrating and disheartening, especially for someone who has worked so hard,to find that it is not a lack of education or effort that is holding them back,but the difficulty in being understood.

So, if you have taken ESL classes and you speak English every day, what canyou do to be understood more easily? One of the best things you can do is tofocus on reducing your accent. You can ask American friends to gently correctyou when you mispronounce a word. Write down words you have trouble sayingcorrectly and practice them at home.

Every language has rules to its pronunciation, and understanding those rulesis vital to reducing an accent. There are some rules in English that are verydifferent from the Chinese rules,so they can be quite confusing to Chinesespeakers of English. Some of these include:

distinguishing between the r and l sounds

distinguishing between the n and ng sounds

knowing when to pronounce final consonants

understanding the difference between voiced and unvoiced consonants, such ask and g, p and b, and t and d

You will probably experience the most rapid results by working with anaccent reduction specialist, either locally or over the internet through webcamclasses. Webcam classes typically provide the most private, flexible, andcost-effective option. Accent reduction specialists with a background in speechpathology have been specially trained to teach people how to hear the subtledifferences between sounds and how to position their lips and tongue to producecertain sounds. They can recognize where you are having difficulty and teachyou new speech patterns that will make speaking English much lessfrustrating.

Comments are closed.