American English pronunciation errors made by speakers native to Japan

Common
American English
Pronunciation Errors

Vowel Errors

Japan

Pronunciation will be improved dramatically by correcting 3 or 4 critical Vowel errors.

Problem:

Long and short vowels are confused:

The "ih" sounds is pronounced like "ee"

i.e.

“sit” sounds like “seat”

i.e.

“bat” sounds like “beat”

Others

i.e.

“fool" sounds like “full”

i.e.

“man" sounds like “men”

i.e.

"beat” sounds like “bat"

i.e.

“bone” sounds like “born”

i.e.

“late” sounds like “let”

i.e.

"cap” sounds like “cup”

Solution:
AAP Vowel Tutorial

Techniques Taught :

- Tongue Position
- Lip Position
- Jaw Position
- Tongue Tension
- Vowel Length
- Compound Vowels

Targeted Exercises

- Vowel Reductions
- Vowel Sounds
- Vowel Pairs
- Vowel Length Drills

Consonant Errors

Japan

Pronunciation will also be improved by correcting a few critical Consonant errors.

Problem:

Sounds mispronounced:

“lake” is mispronounced as “rake”

“balloon” is mispronounced as “bah-room”

“bet” is mispronounced as “vet”

“west” is mispronounced as “vest"

“rise” is mispronounced as “rice”

“fill” is mispronounced as “hill”

Solution:
AAP Consonant Tutorial

Techniques Taught :

- Placement
- Airflow
- Voicing

Targeted Exercises

- Consonant Sounds

24 different sounds

- L Drills

Blends
Sound combinations

- R Drills

Beginning
Middle
Ending

Intonation Errors

Japan

Using the correct stress and rhythm will immediately improve your ability to be understood.

Problem:

Rate - Speech is very fast

Pitch - Flat - the voice must go up and down to create the proper "melody" of American English.

Stress - Often incorrect syllable and word stress

Intonation - Patterns are often incorrect

Linking - words are separated slightly, creating "choppy" speech.

Solution:
AAP Intonation Tutorial

Techniques Taught :

- Stress
- Pitch
- Steps and Glides
- Duration

Targeted Exercises

- Intonation Patterns
- Compound Nouns
- Heteronyms
- Word Reductions
- Sentence Level Intonation
- Contrastive Intonation
- Response Drills
- Tag Questions