78. Why is language considered crucial to human development?

By Olga Smith

Language is a mystery to me.

Some writers believe that language is given to humans by God, scientists suggest that language is a part of human evolution. I agree with both viewpoints. I will explain why. When I read masterpieces of literature I feel the magic and beauty that cannot be connected just to the brain. At the same time, I see how our brain development is mirrored in the language we speak.

We communicate our thoughts and feelings through language. From our childhood, we learn by means of language. Later we understand the abstract concept by means of language.

When I was a secondary school pupil my Dad would not let me go out to have fun unless I read 50 pages a day. I was a hyperactive child and that felt so boring for me. However, today I am grateful to my Dad as I understood that reading was crucial for the development of my soul, my character, my personality. Reading helped to expand my imagination, my consciousness and to become creative.

Since I was a child, I started to learn foreign languages. To date, I speak five languages and I have co-authored five books on English speech. Due to their enormous success, the books were converted into nine iOS and nine Android apps.

Our books help people to master English pronunciation, fluency and vocabulary. Our books also help with the use of 4Ps, Power, Pitch, Pace, Pause; techniques for voice modulation and public speaking. 4Ps help us to connect with our feelings and our unique way of expressing ourselves. 4Ps help to communicate in a beautiful and artistic way.

I regularly receive feedback from the students who study with our apps and books and see, how with their help, they grow as humans, professionals and leaders.

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77. The most effective method of teaching English pronunciation

By Olga Smith

There are a number of different strategies for teaching English pronunciation. I would like to offer the method that we use in our apps and books. It was developed by Linda James, LRAM, R.A.M. Dip. Ed. Linda has been teaching speech (Received Pronunciation), which in the past was called the Queen’s English, Oxford English or BBC English) in leading London drama schools for more than 20 years and elocution lessons to foreign professionals for more than 30 years.

In our elocution apps and books, each lesson begins with an illustrated description of the speech organ position, followed by practical exercises. The exercises consist of words, phrases, sentences, tongue twisters, verses and passages.

Here are some essential tips for teachers of English pronunciation:

  1. Start slowly with the list of words and concentrate on the target sound, then move to phrases and sentences without losing the sound

  2. Use the rhythmical exercises to develop fluency

Students who took elocution lessons based on our apps and books told us that they really enjoyed them due to the following reasons:

  • Its' an amazing language from classical literature and poetry as well as everyday English which students find extremely effective and interesting.

  • Each chapter has a substantial volume of exercises to master one English sound or a particular speech pattern such as consonant elision, for example.

  • The way this book is written is fun, easy and effective. Many English textbooks are written in a dull and boring way. We use non-predictable sentences and lots of rhymes which are wonderful for teaching English pronunciation.

In conclusion, I would like to say that when students have fun when they find the material interesting and amusing they are more likely to enjoy the learning process and to achieve better results.

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76. What are my 12 rules for life?

By Olga Smith

  1. I always have goals and tasks to achieve these goals. Small steps or tasks to achieve my goals should be performed on a regular basis until the goal is reached.

  2. I value my time and ask myself a question: does what I do now lead me towards my goal or away from it? Time is the most valuable resource, or as they say: time is money. I would add to that time is also an opportunity in a certain period of time.

  3. I focus my attention and energy on my goals and get rid of people and actions who take you away from your goals. In the time of the internet, social media and access to millions of people there is a danger that I can be strayed away from my goals and end up wasting my time on other people goals.

  4. Honour my feelings. All I have is a present moment. What do I feel right now? Am I comfortable? What can I do to feel even better? Am I relaxed or tense? Feeling good in the present moment improves the quality of my life.

  5. I do sport for 1–3 hours a day. It is an investment in my health and beauty, looking and feeling great.

  6. I immediately defeat the fearful thought. Fearful thoughts are the most dangerous foe a person can have.

  7. I make decisions quickly and act confidently. I might make mistakes along the way which I can correct. When I feel that my thinking process becomes too long and leads me to inaction and paralysis I decide and act. This way I avoid being just a dreamer and become an achiever.

  8. If I have nothing nice to say I say nothing. I avoid discussing negative things and do not allow other people to drag me into negative discussions. The thing is that I want to stay in high energy and do not want negativity to lower it.

  9. Business first, pleasure second. I prefer to complete my business tasks first and use pleasure as a reward for my work.

  10. I sleep a lot. Fo me, my sleep is the source of good mood, good health and beauty.

  11. I follow the sun. I make sure to spend time in the sun, it is the source of my happiness.

  12. I am honest with myself and sincere with others.

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75. The way to enhance our self-esteem and social standing

By Olga Smith

What is the best way to feel good about ourselves and stand out in a social or professional environment? 

How can we upgrade ourselves? There are several tools people often use: they buy a house in a smart area, or a fancy car, a new suit or shoes. They go to Cambridge or Oxford. I can continue this list. But, when they open their mouth and start speaking their image and social standing can be destroyed if their speech is uneducated or dull and boring. On the contrary, if you possess the art of rhetoric and have beautiful speech, people will inadvertently respect you almost on a subconscious level. In England, speech stamps a person’s identity like a brand. It reveals our social and emotional intelligence, education, social class and economic position. That is why people have elocution lessons.

What are the aspects of speech we need to think about to enhance our social image and increase our self-esteem. I would like to online two main aspects of speech: 

  1. What do we say?

  2. How do we say it?

The number one skill to develop is to think before we speak. 

Before we start a sentence, let’s answers a few questions first: 

1. What outcome do we want to achieve as a result of what we say? 

2. Will our words be appropriate in the current situation and for people in this situation? 

Sometimes it is best to not say anything and just remain a pleasant listener. Often it is better to answer a question with “I don’t know”, instead of saying something in a rush.

The second thing to consider is our vocabulary. Do we use vivid language, metaphor and specific descriptive words or do we just use a minimalistic vocabulary? A minimalistic vocabulary will be understood by most. However, if we want to sound specific and articulate, express a certain range of feelings and emotions we need more words.

Tried and tested method to enrich our vocabulary is reading books, writing down new words and expressions and using them in our daily speech. Having elocution lessons is another way to master your speech. I have recently purchased a dictionary of metaphors because I realised that using a metaphor and symbolic language is a perfect way to sound interesting, be understood and influence others on a deeper level.

How you say it can be more important than what you say. Let’s consider a few questions. 

  1. Is our speech clear and easy to understand?

  2. Are we often being asked to repeat ourselves because people cannot understand what we said? 

  3. Do we speak too fast or too slowly? 

  4. Is our voice too loud or too quiet? 

  5. Do we use pauses or speak in paragraphs?

  6. Do we know how to stress key points in a phrase or sentence or do we drone on in a monotone and don’t stress anything or stress everything?

  7. Is our speech interesting and engaging or dull and boring?

  8. Is our tone of voice pleasant or there is something offputting about it?

How can we answer these questions? Very simply: choose a topic to talk about and records your speech. Then playback your recording and answer the questions above.

Speech mastery is a skill and it takes time and effort. To help you with this skill we have developed 9 iOS and 9 Android apps based on our bestsellers in the series Get Rid of your Accent. We can help you on this journey with your individual speech analysis and elocution lessons.

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74. Speech fluency in English

By Olga Smith

By Olga Smith

In this blog post, I will outline a very important area of elocution lessons: techniques for developing fluent and connected English speech. There are three main skills you need to master in order to speak fluent English:

  1. Contractions

  2. "Throwing away" skill, an expression used by actors.

  3. Connected speech patterns or liaisons

1) In good fluent speech the particle “not”, verbs “to be” (“am, is, are”), “to have” (“has, had”), “will” and “would” are shortened. The shortened version of a word is called a contraction. It’s important to use contractions if you would like to sound fluent, natural and more like a native speaker of English. Contractions are not usually used in written English except in dialogues and in informal writing.
There are several types of contractions. Here are examples from our book Get Rid of your Accent for Business and our app Business English Speech, a contraction of the verb “will” becomes a contraction ”ll” :

“You’ll need to find a better way to deal with your boss.”

If you do not use contractions in your speech, you will not sound like an advanced English speaker.

2) In natural speech, it’s important not to emphasize or stress too many words in a phrase or sentence. As a general rule, English tend to pick out the words which convey the meaning and lean on them, giving them a little more vocal energy. The rest of the words, English “throwaway”, an expression used by actors. This often means neutralising vowels, increasing the pace and diminishing the volume. In other words, “throwing away” means these unimportant words are not given the same length and vocal energy. “Throwing away” is a skill and it takes time and effort to master it. We deal extensively with this skill in our book Get rid of your Accent Part Two, Advanced Level and in our app Fluent English Speech. Here is an example of “throwaway words” which are underlined:
”At the end of the day, Linda was right about that.”

As you can see from this example, unimportant words are often articles, prepositions and verbs “to be", etc. To sound fluent connect prepositions and articles to the main word and pronounce them as one word.

3)The English tend to speak in phrases, often linking the words together. To sound fluent in English, liaise words that belong together in a phrase gliding from one word to another, almost pronouncing them as one word. How to liaise? It is very simple, connect the last sound of the first word with the first sound of the next word. In our book Get rid of your Accent Part Two, Advanced Level and in our app Fluent English Speech we outline several types of liaisons that you need to master to sound fluent.
Below is an example of one:
Liaise preposition to the following word: ”in addition, from London, in town, from home, in context

In our elocution lessons, we teach students all these skills:

  • contractions

  • which words they need to “throw away”

  • how to connect words in a phrase or sentence

  • what to stress in a phrase or sentence

We have also published a video course with elocution lessons to master fluency. In conclusion, I want to stress the importance of connecting words in English speech. Quite a few of our students were under the impression that separating words in a phrase or sentence makes their speech more clear which is wrong. In order to develop clear and crisp English speech, you need to work on phrase and sentence stress and articulation and at the same time linking words.

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71. How do you run an English corner in China?

By Olga Smith

You can run an English corner with apps in the series Get Rid of your Accent. I recommend offering the app Elocution Lessons to people who start learning English. There are also tips for teachers in this app for various group activities. You will master the most commonly used words and phrases, verses and passages with correct pronunciation and perfect use of English. You can listen, record yourself and then compare your speech with the model - all in one app.

I also recommend that you use the app Get Rid of Chinese Accent to bring your students’ English to the next level. With Fluent English Speech, they will master connected speech patterns and sound more like a native English speaker, because English speak linking words in a phrase. They will also learn lots of idiomatic and colloquial expressions used by native English speakers with this app. Many students make the mistake of memories separate words and create expressions with them. We believe that it is more useful to memorise phrases to avoid phrasal mistakes.

Once they sorted out your fluency, vocabulary and pronunciation, I recommend that you download the app Power, Pitch, Pace, Pause to master your presentation skills in English necessary to advance in your career and study.

Get Rid of Chinese Accent is the number one app to master articulation and clear speech. Students need to have at least an intermediate level of English to work with this app as it was designed for native English speakers who go to London drama schools to master Received Pronunciation; it contains lots of verses and sentences from English literature. This app will immensely enrich your vocabulary as well.

To get the best results with these apps, download the video courses Get Rid of your Accent Part 1 and Get rid of your Accent Part 2.

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70. Turn a boring way of speaking into an interesting one

By Olga Smith
26 July 2020

In many professions and in social life, the way we speak often defines our success. In this blog post, I will first outline the main features of a boring way of speaking. Secondly, I will give you practical tasks from our elocution lessons to turn your speech into an interesting one.

What makes us sound boring then? Below, I would like to layout 7 reasons that make one sound boring:

  1. When we speak too slowly

  2. When we have poor articulation

  3. When we use a lot of empty words, words fillers and parasite words and predictable cliches

  4. When we speak monotonously, without emotions and feelings

  5. When we are not connected to our listeners on an intellectual and emotional level

  6. When we do not get to the point and, to coin a phrase, go in circles without really saying much

  7. When we speak on one level of pitch and never move the voice up and down

How do we change that? How can we speak so that people listen to us with interest and attention? An obvious answer is taking elocution lessons. Below are the tips from our elocution lessons.

  1. Stress important words and messages. I recommend that you sentence stress and use schwa to “throw away” unimportant words such as auxiliary verbs, articles and some prepositions like “for, from, to, of”.

  2. Make sure you have crisp consonants. Practise muscular, rhythmic and articulation exercises with the app Get Rid of your Accent. Read our blog about articulation.

  3. Record your speech for 5-10 minutes and check that you do not use a lot of words and phrases that do not carry important meaning; those are parasites words and cliche phrases. For example, my parasite word is “basically”, my cliche phrase is “do you see what I mean”. I repeat them like a parrot thus making myself sound a bit boring. I have decided to start collecting, creating and using metaphors instead.

  4. Avoid speaking monotonously, learn how to modulate your voice using the 4Ps, power, pace, pitch, pause with our app.

  5. Take into account your listeners, do a bit of research about them and practise 3D listening, Try to connect to their level. NLP will give you more techniques about how to do that.

  6. When you speak, stress your key messages, practise speaking in a concise way.

Read our blog about the 5 top benefits of elocution lessons to get more insights. More on www.batcsglobal.com

69. It is not the dog in the fight, but the fight in the dog

By Olga Smith

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In this blog post, I would like to talk about how can we reach our full potential by enhancing our willpower with simple practical steps. First of all, let’s define willpower. Willpower is the ability to exercise one’s will. I was asking myself a question: I have willpower, but why I am not an Olympic champion then? Why I was struggling with weight loss for many years and once I dropped a kilo or two I gained them back the next week?
I am a keen tennis player and I have noticed that most tennis players who compete have good technique, but why then the same four of them (Federer, Nadal, Djokovic, Murray) win Wimbledon year after year? I had dined with Madona, our famous pop Queen in London Kaballah centre and I have noticed that she is not that good looking, she does not have the most amazing voice, she does not come from a rich family, but she is a millionairess and I am better looking and come from a wealthy family and I do not even have one million yet???

I have researched the topic of willpower and I have also analysed my attempts to live to my full potential and what mistakes I was making with regards to willpower.

My findings:
1. Will power is energy. Self-control requires a lot of energy, it is psychological and physical energy.
2. To live to our full potential we need to set up new heights and new goals regularly. Little victories lead to sabotage. We tend to stop our efforts.
3. We are stronger than we think or feel we are.
4. Regularity, consistency and repetition are more important than anything thing else.
5. If we surround ourselves with people who are high achievers and have strong willpower, by mirroring them as we all do subconsciously because we have mirror neurons in our brain, we can learn how to be more strong-willed.
6. Relaxation and meditation free our energy and allow us to exercise more self-control.
7. There is no tomorrow, there is only here and now.

My mistakes or how I lose self-control:
1. I felt sorry for myself too quickly and the moment I felt discomfort I eased my effort.
2. Once I gained a little progress I was making two steps back thus sabotaging my success
3. I drunk alcohol
4. I didn’t sleep well
5. I had a bad diet
6. I wasted a lot of my energy on YouTube videos about Russian Politics and on drinking tea (I love tea a lot)
7. I was procrastinating the next time, the next day and so on.
8. I didn’t have an end goal in mind and was hanging out aimlessly
9. I was not careful who I surround myself with.
10. My attention was not always on my goals and objectives. I tended to waste a lot of my time on things that do not contribute to anything, such as shopping for clothes, talking too much on the phone, absorbing too much information. My idle mind became insatiable and wanted more and more information. When we develop a habit to absorb information without acting upon it our action habit weakens. In modern times, we are bombarded by information and it is easy to lose focus and therefore self-control. Information obesity almost always leads to inaction and as a result to weakening the will to do anything.
11. I did not plan properly

This was my past. From now on I will do simple regular steps.

Practical steps to enhance my willpower and to live up to my full potential:
1. Good sleep: get up before 9 am and go to bed before midnight.
2. Good food: organic, fresh, rich variety, minimum or no alcohol.
3. Start with one new habit a month, for example, I want to reduce my talking time by 50 %. 8. I create this new habit and make it my automatic behaviour.
4. Relax regularly, I stretch 3 times a day.
5. For mediation, I will read my prayers in the morning and evening and ask God to help me with my goals.
6. Do little steps that I do not like doing, for example, set 5-15 minutes for the task I do not want and do it.
7. To focus my attention on my objectives:
a) I write a list of tasks to do for a day and allow a certain amount of time to do each task.
b) I look in my list after completion of a task and cross it.
c) I switch off my phone when doing a task
d) I imagine the result of my task completion to feel motivated
e) When playing tennis I focus on the ball
f) When walking I focus on my posture and breathing
g)When eating I focus on chewing
h) When talking I focus on pauses and inflection
j) When running I focus on lifting my upper leg higher and feeling a little pain.

8. I create information, for example, high-quality content for blogs instead of absorbing information.

In my opinion, enhancing my will by making small yet regular efforts is achievable. The trick is to continue increasing the effort gradually and regularly. When I watch Rafa Nadal playing tennis I am full of admiration for his best effort for each stroke. I was a cheater and often my strategy was “just do it”, which resulted often in bodging and later re-doing. Since I started playing tennis I realised that each stroke needs my 100% effort. Now is the time for a new strategy “do your best in every step.”

In conclusion, I want to share with you my observation. I have always had a choice to feel sorry for myself and to not use my full potential OR to stretch my limits and live to my highest potential. Each choice has a consequence. If I give in I get weaker, if I stretch myself I get stronger.

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50. The most important sound in English: [ə] - schwa, as in "the"

By Olga Smith

The schwa is the most used sound in English. It is important to sound fluent and natural. In our experience, almost all students of English make many mistakes with the schwa. Let’s have a look at this sound and sort it out once and for all! The schwa is highlighted in all examples below.

5 most important characteristics of the schwa [ə] are:

  1. It is the shortest sound in English.

  2. The schwa is always unstressed. It is pronounced in unstressed syllables and in a multi-syllable word there can be more than one schwa as in “conclusion, announcement, effortless”.

  3. It is a very neutral sound; when pronouncing the schwa, remember that your speech organs should be relaxed and neutral

  4. The schwa is used to make the speech more fluent because many unstressed syllables and even unimportant words are pronounced with the schwa.

  5. It is used in contracting unimportant words for the meaning of the sentence or phrases.

    5 main classes of words that have the neutral vowel shwa [ə]:

    1. Endings of names: Linda, Michael, Olga, Richard, Spencer.

    2. Auxiliary verbs in unstressed position will often have the schwa: have, has, had, were, was, are, am.

    3. Articles, prepositions and particles in unstressed position will often have the schwa: a, the, to, of, as, for, from.

    4. UK counties ending in “shire”: as in Oxfordshire, Berkshire

    5. Names of places ending in “ford” as in Stamford, Stratford.

Below are the most common mistakes people make when they do not know how and when using the schwa:

  1. They pronounce the words the way they are spelt. Many Latin words ending with “tion”,”sion” as in “emotion, confusion” are pronounced with the schwa at the end, but people whose native language is based on Latin, like Spanish for example, do not use the schwa and pronounce words the way they are spelt. English spelling and pronunciation are not the same. English pronounce unstressed ending “tion” , “sion” with the schwa. Prefix “con”, “ob” as in “conclusion”, “oblivious” are also pronounced with the schwa. But many wrongly pronounce [ɒ] as in “box”, instead.

  2. They make the schwa too long. Remember that the schwa is so short, it is almost not there.
    When you make the schwa too long it is not good English and even the stress in a word can change to the wrong one.

  3. Sometimes they pronounce [i:] as in “please” in the article “the”, they say thi: table. It is important to use the schwa. The only time you can pronounce “the” with a short sound [ɪ] as in “big” is when the next word starts with the vowel, for example, “thɪ illness.”

  4. They pronounce the article “a” as diphthong [eɪ] as in “pay”. The article “a” is always unstressed and should be pronounced with the schwa.

  5. They pronounce prepositions “of” and “from” with the sound [ɒ] as in “box”, these prepositions should be pronounced with the schwa.

  6. Quite often, they pronounce “r” which is in spelling in words with the schwa as in “doctor, sponsor, wondered”.

    We teach the schwa in all our books and apps. Practice lessons 6 with the following apps:
    Elocution Lessons, Get Rid of your Accent UK1, Business English Speech; practice the schwa in lessons 5 and 6 with the app Fluent English Speech.

    Olga Smith

    www.batcsglobal.com

48. How do I get rid of my native accent and get an American accent?

By Olga Smith

In order to get rid of your accent you need to:
1. Learn and practice how to pronounce sounds of General American pronunciation
2. Do articulation exercises to make your consonants clear and crisp.
This process has several stages:

The first stage is to make sure that you put your lips, tongue and jaw in the right position for the learned sound. If you fail to do so, the sound will not be precise and may be different altogether. Follow the instructions on the speech organ position given at the beginning of each lesson. Pronounce the sound several times, looking in the mirror to make sure you do it correctly.

When you have just started working on a sound your speech organs are not trained; therefore, they might not go automatically for correct placement. When you use the mirror, you can see yourself and adjust lips and jaw positions. When it comes to the tongue position, you need to think about its position and adjust it. When you feel that your sound is correct, start pronouncing the words, sentences and verses in the lesson.

The second stage is aimed at helping you learn a sound by repeating and imitating after the teacher. This exercise will help you to make the sound as correctly as possible and train your speech organs for the particular sound. The more you repeat, the better your pronunciation becomes.

The third stage gives you an opportunity to practice the sound on your own American accent app. You will be hearing yourself and mastering the sound. This stage is essential before recording yourself. We recommend that you practice each sound for about 20-40 minutes a day, with little breaks in between.

The fourth stage involves recording yourself and listening to the recording. It helps you to see whether you have progressed in mastering the pronunciation and to identify where you still make mistakes.

The fifth stage focuses on eliminating mistakes. Correctly repeating the words where you made a mistake will help you avoid repeating the same mistakes in the future.

The sixth stage has the purpose of helping you incorporate the learned sound in your everyday speech. It’s about paying attention when you speak. We say: think before you speak and slow down for the period of mastering your speech.

If you speak fast, you are likely to speak in your autopilot mode, with your accent. After the lessons, you will be able to correct yourself. This stage is also trying to find the learned sound in the newspapers, on the radio, on TV and when people are speaking English.

The next step in eliminating your accent is to develop fluency, by speaking in phrases rather than in separate words, while knowing how to correctly link words together. You can practice this with the app Fluent American Speech.
Finally, learn the patterns of American/English intonation and vocal techniques so that your speech is more close to native speakers.

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45. Queen Elizabeth II pronunciation and how it changed over time

By Olga Smith

In 1956 Nancy Mitford wrote in her book Noblesse Oblige: “It is solely by their language that the upper classes nowadays are distinguished – since they are neither cleaner, richer, nor better-educated than anybody else.” Indeed, the British aristocracy tends to speak with a particular accent, that is RP. But with time their RP is changing. Let’s see how.

I have been listening to the Queen's 21st birthday speech which was recorded in 1947. She speaks very much like her mother. Her vowels and diphthongs are rather tight.

If we listen to her latest speech of the opening of the Parlament, we can see that her speech changed. It has become more relaxed and natural. I assume that after the death of the Queen Mother, the Queen communicated with people whose RP is more general and now her RP sounds less tight and more relaxed.

When I have published my previous blog Elocution Lessons based on RP, I have mentioned Refined RP, which the Queen and her generation and class speak. Some of our students wrote back to me and said that they would like to have Refined RP. I remember when I started my elocution lessons in 2004 I also wanted to learn Refined RP as it seemed so beautiful to me. When I was listening to the Queen’s speeches I thought it would be a good idea if I learn to speak like the Queen. But my tutor Linda James told me that if I do I will become a figure of fun because no one speaks like that anymore, and I will sound very unnatural.

In fact, if you listen to the Queen's grandchildren Prince Wiliam and Harry, you would see that their speech is very different from the speech of their ancestors. There is a general tendency, nowadays, in aristocratic circles to sound more relaxed. In contrast, I have noticed, that some aspiring social climbers, who are not of aristocratic background, but who would like to mingle with the aristocracy try very hard with their RP and sound rather unnatural.

At the same time, not trying at all, such as not pronouncing word endings, not stressing important words, etc, sounds lazy and lacks clarity. Based on General RP and recorded by highly professional actors, our apps and books will make your speech clear by:

  • Articulating consonants well

  • Pronouncing the vowels and diphthongs correctly

  • Mastering the flow of speech

The purpose of our elocution lessons is to help you sound educated and feel at ease in any environment.

Read our popular blog about the benefits of elocution lessons.

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41. How can improve my speaking skills in 3 months?

By Olga Smith

3 months is a perfect time to achieve this goal. Here is how you do it efficiently:

  1. Speak every day for 10–30 minutes preferably to native speakers of English, or non-native speakers with good English. This will help you to overcome the barrier to speak. Don’t think about the grammar when speaking, think of the free flow of your speech.

  2. Listen to an audiobook several times. When you listen to the book for the first time, you just get the main ideas; the second time write down words you don’t know; the third time and repeat a small section at a time after the audiobook. This way you will also learn new vocabulary. I like the books in the series Get Rid of your Accent as they help to learn new words and expressions quickly and with the correct pronunciation.

  3. Write a few sentences about yourself, choose topics that you talk most about: your name, education, work, study, hobbies and interest. Write down a list of your professional vocabulary and practice it out loud. Then record yourself, listen to your recording and make a note of your mistakes. Correct them and then Record yourself again. Do these recording exercises for each topic.

  4. After you have mastered the pronunciation of your most commonly used vocabulary, think about sentence stress and use of pauses in the correct places with the apps Fluent English Speech and 4Ps, Power, Pitch, Pace, Pause. The content of these apps are in the book Get Rid of your Accent Part Two, Advanced Level

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37. Why is it hard to get rid of an accent?

By Olga Smith

"The most difficult thing in life is to get rid of long-term habits," goes a Russian saying. Getting rid of a foreign accent requires hard work, repetition, and perseverance. The keys to success are the right teacher and the right accent reduction book and app!

The accent reduction process is very individual. It depends on several factors:

 1. When did you start learning English? If you have started working on your accent in your teens, then it will be easier than if you have started in your forties, which can be more difficult.

 2. Your hearing abilities and the ability to copy what you hear.

 3. How much time and effort you are prepared to invest in accent reduction training.

 4. What is your native language? For example, in our experience, people with a native language that has sounds similar to English can get rid of their accents faster. There are languages that are very different from English, such as Japanese and Chinese. For speakers of these languages, it might take a little longer to get rid of accents.

 5. How focused you are during the lesson and how much time you invest in doing your homework.

 6. How good your teacher is. There are not that many trained teachers who can help people to get rid of their foreign accents. There are many teachers who can help one to learn basic and intermediate English, but to improve pronunciation requires a qualified speech tutor.

 7. On the method of training. Apps and books in the series Get Rid of your Accent have proven successful and helped thousands of people to reduce and eliminate their foreign accents over decades of time.

This is what students experience when working on their accents: First, I reduced my accent to the point where people understand me clearly. Then I reduced it again so that people can no longer tell what country I am from. This is the level most of the students want to get to. They are not pretending that English is their native language, but it is easy to have a conversation and it’s not all about them being French, Spanish or Russian. They are not put in a box.

30. Accents face discrimination

By Olga Smith

 On 27 November 2019, Sky News revealed accents that face the most discrimination in the UK. https://news.sky.com/story/revealed-why-your-accent-could-be-holding-you-back-11871382

 Although some activists want to think that an accent should not be a decisive factor, people with strong foreign and regional accents miss out on wonderful opportunities. Since the times of George Bernard Show's play Pygmalion and up until now, people who aspired to get ahead in life realized that without RP many doors will never be opened to them.

Received Pronunciation is a Pronunciation taught for many decades since it was popularised by the BBC. In the past, it was called Queen’s English and Oxford English. Therefore, this accent is associated with a certain social and economic position and the quality of one's education. It is interesting to note that a study revealed, that the more refined is the RP of a person the higher is their social status. A higher social status often means a better economic situation.

There are two main types of Received Pronunciation:

1. General RP, which is used as a teaching model and used in pronouncing Oxford and Cambridge dictionaries. Therefore it is the most understood version of the English accent. General RP is also a compulsory accent to learn in London drama schools.

2. Refined/heightened RP is associated with the aristocracy, certain professions such as officers in the navy of a certain generation. It is spoken, for example, by the Queen. General RP is spoken by the Queen’s grandchildren.

In the article, Fiona Hill, a British-born US security adviser suggested that "her accent would have held her back if she still lived in the UK". My American ex-husband lives and works in the USA now and is often involved in recruiting IT specialists in Silicon Valley. He told me that many Indian and Chinese born IT specialists get lower paid positions because of their strong accents. He added that a strong accent distracted him from focusing on his work and was hard to deal with during conference calls.

When I had a very strong Russian accent I felt that people looked down on me. I was also very annoyed that people often asked me to repeat myself, as they didn't always understand what I was saying. But after I studying with Linda James, one of the top RP teachers in the UK, I noticed that people started to treat me differently, with respect and consideration. I was very surprised. Also, my communication with people became much more enjoyable.

 I thought that there are many people like me in London who might benefit from learning RP. Linda and I wrote a book, and to my amazement, it became an international best-seller. Today we have published five books and eight apps in the series Get Rid of your Accent. Recently we have also published two video courses on Udemy to support our books and apps with demonstrations of the speech organ positions for each RP sound, sentence stress and English intonation.

Many people benefited from our books, apps and video courses. The most successful of our students book their speech analysis with us and enrol on accent reduction courses to be more effective in their study.

29. Prince Andrew technical speech analysis

By Olga Smith

Speech has always been the number one tool for ruling classes. Today everybody is talking about Prince's Andrew speech content. I have analyzed his speech from a technical point of view. I was paying attention to sentence stress, the use of schwa to throw away unimportant words and even whole expressions. In my opinion, his speech is a great resource for speech raining.

I receive a lot of questions about how to make one's speech less monotonous, what to stress, how to stress important messages and which words convey the most important meaning. There is a number of speech techniques that you can learn from our books Get Rid of your Accent Part Two and apps Fluent English Speech and 4Ps, Power, Pitch, Pace, Pause. Michael Knowles, the actor in our audiobooks and apps sounds very similar to the Prince.

In this blog, I will outline a few of these techniques.

1. In natural speech, it’s important not to emphasize or stress too many words in a phrase or sentence. As a general rule, we tend to pick out the words which convey the meaning and lean on them, giving them a little more vocal energy. Prince Andrew's speech is a good example of it. He is very economical with the stress, but when he stresses a word it really stands out. He stressed words:"never", "absolutely not", "certainly", "always", "sole", "inappropriate", etc.

2. There is no consistent rule as to which words to stress and which "to throw away". It depends on what message a speaker wishes to convey to his/her listener.

3. “Throw away” unimportant words. This often means neutralizing vowels, increasing the pace and diminishing the volume. It is a difficult skill to learn, particularly for non-native speakers of English. and one should take time to master it. Prince Andrew threw away "fill in" expressions such as: "as it were", "if you see what I mean", "you see, this is the problem", "that would be", etc.

The quickest way to master your speech is to book your speech analysis and follow up with a few Skype sessions.

27. 5 tips to change a monotonous speech into an engaging one

By Olga Smith

The Greek word for "one tone" is monotonia, which is the root for both monotone and the closely related word monotonous, which means "dull and tedious." A continuous sound, especially someone's voice, that doesn't rise and fall in pitch, is a monotone. When someone speaks in a monotone, his voice is flat and boring — plus listeners don't know how the speaker is feeling when everything sounds the same.

When I started my speech training, one of the first things I wanted to learn was how to avoid sounding monotonous. I wanted to be popular and felt that I have wonderful ideas to share, but I felt that no one wanted to listen to me. I was listening to some native English speakers and their ideas were not more interesting than mine, but the way they spoke was so engaging, so they could easily manage to grab people's attention. I said to myself I want to speak like that.

in 2004 I found Linda James, a drama school speech tutor with 35 years of experience. My speech and my life changed in a month. I found Linda's speech training so useful that I have decided to share this knowledge with others and to write and publish a book. To date, Linda and I have published six books and eight apps for English speech mastery.

In this blog post, I would like to share with you a few tips about how to break from monotone and make your speech interesting to listen to. 

 First, I would like to outline the main patterns of a monotonous speech.

1. Number one is that all words in a phrase or sentence unstressed, or all words in a phrase or sentence stressed. Namely, all words are pronounced with the same vocal power, with the tone of voice and with the same pitch level.
2. Number two is the incorrect use of pauses or no pauses at all.
3. Number three is that there is the speaker doesn't show the colour or the emotion of words.

 What you can do to overcome these unhelpful patterns:

1. Stress words, which are important for the meaning of a phrase or sentence.

2. "Throw away" unimportant words.

3. Liaise prepositions and articles to the main word.

4. Use pauses in place of a comma, full stop and before stressed words.

5. Think about the meaning of words and put appropriate emotions to make words alive.

You can practice these speech tools with our apps "Fluent English Speech" and "4Ps, Power, Pitch, Pace, Pause" and with the book "Get Rid of your Accent Part Two, Advanced Level" by Linda James and Olga Smith.

16. Business English Speech is our new app

Olga Smith

Tuesday, January 1st, 2019

Here at BATCS, we work hard to bring you the latest and greatest books and apps for accent reduction. So we’re very proud to announce the availability of our newest app, Business English Speech. It’s the best single tool on the market to help you get a job and perform well in your current job and throughout your career.

The thing that makes BATCS stand out the most is our full line of apps, which complement our books. In some cases, we even have several apps to go with a single book.

It took us longer than usual to get this new app, Business English Speech, ready. Why? Because it’s one of our most ambitious apps.

The business book and app both use the speech style and vocabulary of leading business professionals, as you see in leading publications such as the Financial Times (also called “the FT”), The Economist, and The Times of London. And it’s the same speech style and vocabulary that you hear on the BBC and Sky News. The book and app include interviews with top UK professionals in areas such as finance - still the leading business in London - marketing, politics, diplomacy, and the law.

As you use this app, your speech will increasingly resemble what British people see and hear every day on TV and the radio, and read in the British press. This is the style of English that’s historically been called the King’s English or the Queen’s English, depending on whom was regnant at the time, and more recently called BBC English.

 The improvement in your speech makes people more open to and interested in the ideas you are expressing. You become more influential and more effective. As you use the app, it becomes much easier to get a new position and to advance in the role that you already have.

 Our lead app developer, Yury Kravchenko, has made this deep and interesting content available within the same app framework used across all of our Get Rid of your Accent apps, as shown in our app video.

 In the app, you can easily find the most troublesome sounds for your national language of origin. Then, you drill on those sounds, using business-oriented and professional-level vocabulary. The app will record you and help you compare your own pronunciation to pronunciation in a crisp and clear British English accent.

 For the book, we have been told again and again by customers that it immediately helps them to improve their performance at work. The app is exactly what you need as a professional who would like to succeed in this competitive world.

Note: We also recommend that you use our other apps and books to complement your work with the Business English Speech app. Why? Because you will get more complete training. In particular, we recommend two topics. The first is our Beginner book and app because they have the most-used vocabulary that will help in all of your conversations. The other is the advanced level, specialty app, Power, Pitch, Pace, Pause. This app will improve your speaking skills in meetings and presentations.

9. What some English people feel when there hear foreign accents

By Olga Smith

We have recently conducted research. We contacted native English people who work with non-native English speakers. We asked them what they thought about colleagues with a foreign accent that is difficult to understand.

These were their replies:
· Frustration
· Anxiety;
· Doubt if they are being understood;
· Accent distracting them from what is being said.

We run courses for diplomats and professionals in London. We have had people on our courses who have been living in England for many years, but because they never learned how to pronounce English sounds correctly, they sounded as if they had only just arrived in this country. They told us they felt inadequate because they were being asked to repeat themselves because of their bad pronunciation. Only a few days ago, on 24 September 2017, there was a BBC program about a Polish lady who decided to get rid of her accent. Here is the link:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/magazine-41361662/i-want-to-get-rid-of-my-polish-accent

Find more information and tips on www.batcsglobal.com