Dialects and Accents Development

Accent Reduction Workshop for Professional American Speech

(paperback, 3 CDs)

by Ginny Kopf

Have casting directors told you “you’re perfect, except for that accent?”. Well, you don’t have to keep the speech patterns you were born with. In this 3CD workshop, noted voice and speech trainer, Ginny Kopf, helps you with clarity and pronunciation in stage, or Professional American English.

Ginny Kopf has designed a program for anyone who wants to improve the clarity and fluency of their American speech, for your most professional image. In each exercise, Ginny demonstrates the words and sentences several times, gives coached instructions, and then leaves a space for you to repeat the phrase.

The accompanying 63-page book helps you to follow along, as well as offering additional instruction. The first section of the book is a Quick Guide to Using the Accent Reduction Workshop, in which she gives you suggestions on what parts of the CD you should focus on, according to your native language or American regionalism.

CD #1 Includes

* WARM-UPS for JAW & TONGUE to release the jaw and increase tongue flexibility.

* CONSONANT drills for all of the major trouble spots (t, d, l, v, w, th, s, j, etc.).

* INFLECTION & STRESS PATTERNS--sentences to demonstrate American English patterns.

CD #2 Includes

* VOWEL SENTENCES--drills for all of the American vowels, AND “r” drills.

* Sentences and phrases to help you distinguish between similar sounds.

* PRONUNCIATION LIST of the most commonly mispronounced words.

CD #3 Includes

* Common errors in enunciation (from too-casual to more professional speech).

* PRONUNCIATION “RULES” for which syllable to stress in longer words.

* Rules for “-ed” endings and “-s” endings.

If you want to learn a dialect, look to David Alan Stern acclaimed CDs and manuals or Robert Blumenfeld’s CDs and books; but if you want to to develop professional American speech, you need Ginny Kopf’s book.

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