My Star Student in Articulation and Accent Reduction

When I'm not teaching accent reduction, I like to teach my African Grey, Valentina Diniro how to speak, clear articulate English. Valentina is 8 years old with a 500 word vocabulary. (Of course, what can you expect? Her mommy is a speech and English teacher!)

Valentina has mastered those S and Z sounds that get confusing to Spanish Speakers. In English, we like to fool people and use an S in spelling the word, and a Z in saying the word. Valentina especially likes these two sounds.

For example, words like his, is, as, was, design, pleasant, all have a Z sound! Words like store, receive, amiss, and lonesome all have an S sound.

Then English can really get confusing because we give Cs and Xs a S sound also: words like icy, race, decimal, excellent all have an S sound.

So English is not spoken like it is written, and that's why it's confusing to people who speak English as a second language.

But of course, Valentina Diniro can't read, so she only knows the sounds. Since she is a perfectionist in pronunciation, as most African Greys are, she gets mad and screams if she pronounces the word wrong. But mommy has a lot of patience, so we practice until she gets it right, just like I do with my accent reduction clients.

Valentina especially likes combining the S sound with a consonant. Her favorite words are special, store, taps, cats. She loves to say, "You're wistling TAPS!" She often says, "You're special!" Then follows it with "Go to the pet store!"

When I'm off coaching or teaching classes, Valentina goes to her own "job". I like to say she's in the entertainment business. I take her to a nursing home, where she has her own cage in the lobby, and talks to the residents, the staff, the ambulance drivers, and the UPS people all day long. Everyone loves her, and she loves them. She's been going there for 8 years, since she was 6 months old. She knows everybody's names, and loves to have her friends call her on her own "cell phone" sounds. (She has about 10 different ringtones.)

Once I taught a speech class with Valentina on my head. I found out that wasn't (NOTE THE Z SOUND) a good idea. While Valentina is an excellent talker... she's not a very good listener, and totally missed my lecture by piping out the song "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star!

Here are some more tricky Z sound words:
boys, fleas, please, rise, and whose...

An Accent Can Get You in Trouble Sometimes...

Once I said the the wrong thing in France.

In 1995, I made a speech to 5,000 people in Nice, France (In French). I mispronounced one word...

When I meant to say,
"I came to Monaco to get my Masters Degree," with my poor American accent in French, I said,
"I came to Monaco to get my UTERUS."

The audience was sweet and charming and forgave me. I just heard a murmur run through the crowd. But after the speech when a friend told me what I had actually said, I melted like a stick of butter. It took months to recover. Maybe years.

I am one of the few, if not the ONLY accent reduction coaches in America who has actually gone through it herself in another language. I worked in a PR firm in Paris and Monaco and was TERRIFIED to talk on the phone, but I had to. I know your fear, personally.

I have unique insights into what you are facing with your accent reduction challenges, and know how to help you. You can find accent reduction coaches all over America. Most of them are speech trainers, some might be college speech teachers, but not all of them. None of them has been in your shoes: lived and worked and tried to succeed in a foreign country in another language.

I know what it means to improve an accent:
- I had to make speeches in France to thousands of people in French
- I am a University Speech and Communication Professor
- I am a former TV and radio broadcaster
- I am a motivational speaker
- I am a business woman
- I am the famous Valentina's mommy

The Magic City of a Million Magnificent Accents

And then she said...

In South Beach, you can walk down Lincoln Road and hear dozens of languages, hundreds of accents, and plenty of "blah, blah, blah" and "bleh, bleh, bleh." You can watch amazing characters with their birds, dogs, lizards, even snakes going for a Sunday sashay down Ocean drive.

While some people know me (Lisa), EVERYBODY knows my famous African Gray Parrot, Valentina. She speaks very elegant English, with a 500-word vocabulary. (Of course she does, her mommy is a speech teacher!)Valentina even has a job. She works in the entertainment business. She's the lead entertainer, comedian and "conversationalist" in a nursing home. So while mommy is teaching people how to speak better and reduce their accent, Valentina is telling stories to the nursing home residents, bossing around the staff, and flirting with ambulance drivers -- oh sorry, doctors, paramedics, and mail carriers too.

In Miami, we understand accents. But if you want to communicate with the rest of the world, you have to speak clearer English. You have to speak with distinction.

Studies show that only 3 out of 100 Americans articulate properly, so foreigners have to try to learn English from people who speak bad street talk. In fact, 1/3 of Americans need some kind of voice and articulation training, but most of them don't ever get it.

If you speak with an accent, you can't afford to speak "street talk" if you want to get ahead. You have to speak with distinction and elegance. Then you'll get selected for the job in that interview; you'll sell that client your product or service, because they LIKE listening to you!

We forgive Americans for saying "gunna" and "wanna" but we do NOT forgive foreigners. So you have to learn to be BETTER, CLEARER.

You don't want to lose your accent; you want to use it as an ASSET!

I can help you. In either private coaching sessions or scheduled workshops, I guarantee results that you will make a breakthrough in your accent reduction. To find out more of how I can help you, visit my website at: www.crossingborderscommunication.com.