Idiomatic expressions related to eggs

Many people who are learning English as a second language, as well as those who have moved to a different part of the USA, struggle with learning the meaning of certain idiomatic expressions.
 In honor of the upcoming Easter and Passover holidays this weekend, here are idioms related to
eggs, a common theme in both holidays.

"A good egg" means someone you like. "Put all your eggs in one basket" means that you are assuming a higher level of risk by putting all your money in one place, or depending on only one option.

There are many more such "egg"related idioms. For a great list of them, go to http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/egg. Have a wonderful holiday!

Learning idioms is only one piece of learning English (or another language).  Another piece of this is improving pronunciation skills. Business Speech Improvement offers intensive seminars and also hourly sessions on this. To learn more about this, click here..

Easily confused words in English

English has many words that are similar, and this can be confusing for both native and non-native speakers.  Examples are accept vs except,  advise vs advice, insure vs ensure, corps vs corpse and many more. The problem comes when a writer sends a document or e-mail to a person who knows the difference between the right and the wrong word.

To improve your knowledge of easily confused words, start with a list of them. There are many such lists of easily confused words online. One to start with is http://www.alphadictionary.com/articles/confused_words_english.html  .

Choose 5 word pairs that you yourself often use and confuse, write them down where you can see them, and study them briefly twice a day. When you have learned them, choose 5 more pairs. It's important to choose words that you are likely to say or write, so you will learn them faster and get more benefit out of this effort.

Great communication requires the choice of the proper words to convey your meanings. Make up your list of easily confused words today!

Speech improvement: "Why doesn't my speech improve when I work on it by myself?"

As a speech coach, I get this question often.

A person decides to change some aspect of his speech. He tries to say a word differently, and sometimes sounds better. Then when he has a conversation, he sounds like he always does.

Does this sound familiar?

Here's what's wrong with this approach. A baby does not go directly from babbling to having a conversation, and neither should anyone else changing his speech.

Instead, make sure you are working on the right skills to change your speech.

(Many people don't know exactly what to change.) Then practice the skill in the same sequence as when you learned to talk: sounds, words, sentences, short and longer conversations. (Reading aloud can fit in well before conversations.) Over-practice each step, and listen to yourself on a recording, to make sure the skill is truly learned well.

How does having a speech coach help?  An expert speech coach knows  the right skills you need to develop, uses correct exercises to do it efficiently, and gives you sufficient feedback on how well you are doing. A speech coach has the expertise to get you through the process as efficiently as possible, so you don't waste time and effort,  and has the experience to know alternatives to use when needed.

Business Speech Improvement provides intensive speech coaching, customized to your specific needs.  If your own efforts to improve your speech didn't work, visit Business Speech Improvement for expert help!

American Slang and Idiomatic Expressions: Between the Insiders and Everyone Else

Have you ever wondered what a group of people was talking about? The words did not seem to fit their literal meaning. "What's up, man?" ,"Sorry, Charlie!" ,  "Bless your heart", "Table it!", and "Mash it" are all examples.

Idioms and slang are ways we distinguish between linguistic insiders and outsiders of a group. For those on the outside,  and that can be people new to English, new to a community, or new to a small work group, there are such things as idiom dictionaries, which are free and online. Although not all slang is included, it's worth checking to see if a particular expression is included. One we recommend is http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/. Note, though, that this covers slang from the UK as well as the USA; be sure to check the location where a given expression is used.

Sometimes the meaning of the expression varies depending on the person's tone of voice, as in the expression "Bless your heart". In that case, it can mean a sarcastic "you poor thing" (with the sarcasm showing the person means the opposite of that) or "you did something wonderful".

Sometimes the expressions are regional or even local, with outsiders left to wonder the true meaning.

Business Speech Improvement provides intensive coaching in American English Pronunciation Improvement for Non-native Professionals, and includes coaching in the use of idioms if requested.

Performance appraisal: solutions for poor verbal skills

Are you a manager who is working on performance appraisals now, or dreading them in the future? One of the toughest training decisions a manager can make is how to help genuinely talented employees who struggle with a skill set such as communication.

The first step is to be clear about the skill that needs to be improved, and how it impacts the individual's career progress. List a few examples of what the employee said that were incorrect. How does this impact the employee and company?

There are several basic options for improvement:  e-books, books,  mp3 files,  online webinars, and coaching (individual, small group and online).

To change communication skills, the person needs practice and expert feedback. While e-books, books, mp3 files and online webinars are economical ways to impart knowledge, which is good, usually skill practice with a coach is necessary. The feedback provided by the instructor is also vital to determine if the skill was done correctly.

If your employee needs to improve his or her pronunciation, speech rate, telephone skills,  presentation skills, communication skills for leadership, or other verbal skills, Business Speech Improvement offers a wide variety of options. The training is intensive and customized, designed for each learner.

When training is done intensively, less review time is needed because lessons quickly build on each other and there is less time to forget! Employees seem to stay more engaged in their learning, and there are few excuses to skip a session. Little or no travel time is also required, beyond arriving in the first place.

A seminar on American English Pronunciation Improvement for Non-native Professionals is now enrolling learners.

Past learners have been amazed at how much they've learned in a mere three days!

As one person mentioned, "I want to speak better - but I don't know how."

Business Speech Improvement  provides that intensive guidance to better speech! Visit us to check out the options today!

American English Pronunciation: Which "th" sound ( ø or ∂) do I use?

                          

English has two "th" sounds, and there is a phonetic symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet for each one. Attendees in the seminar on American English Pronunciation Improvement for Non-native Professionals often ask me which "th" sound they should use for a given word.

If the word has a long vowel sound, use the voiced "th". An example is the word "bathe". If the word has a short vowel sound, use the unvoiced "th", as in the word "bath". If you are not sure,  use whichever sound comes naturally!

 

For more on Business Speech Improvement's seminars and e-books on verbal communication, click here.

Surprising rules of American English Pronunciation

Surprising rules of American English Pronunciation

American English comes from many other languages and countries. Non-native speakers are often surprised by some of our silent letters and exceptions to the rules.

There are  5 words in English with a silent "th" in them. They are asthma, clothes, months (but not month), isthmus and northeaster (which is a type of blizzard).

Five words in American English pronunciation have a silent "h" at the beginning of the word. (There are many more with a silent "h" in the middle of the word.) These 5 are heir, honor, honest, hour, and herb (although some people do pronounce the "h" in herb).  Many words have a silent h in the middle of the word, in English. When ""gh" and "rh" are at the front of a word, such as ghost and rhinoceros, the "h" is silent.

Do you want to learn more of these rules and exceptions? A seminar on American English Pronunciation Improvement for Non-native Professionals is now enrolling learners! Get the details and enroll today at www.Business SpeechImprovement.com/accents !

Make your speaking vocabulary more powerful - today!

Whether you give presentations to large audiences or simply answer the question, "How are you?" with a single word, you have the opportunity to be a memorable speaker.

Words have power - if  you choose the right ones. Here are two ways to do that.

First, consider the power of the simple adjective. For example, most of the country today is experiencing record low temperatures.  Some might describe the temperature as "cold", but a more powerful way would be to use words such as below-freezing, frigid or numbingly cold. You could use many more options, found at http://thesaurus.com/browse/cold.

Try an experiment. Think of some synonyms for "good", such as fabulous, fantastic, excellent, and wonderful. Use one of them enthusiastically when someone asks you how you are, instead of saying the boring "good". Watch the other person's reaction of surprise, which may be non-verbal. Keep using that synonym all day, and try another one the next day.

Second, write down words you hear and read that seem powerful to you. They may be short or long, but often they are not commonly heard.  That's why we notice them. Try using a few of them yourself. Often the sports headlines in newspapers have powerful words, or you can use an online thesaurus. 

Business Speech Improvement (www.BusinessSpeechImprovement.com) provides customized training in many aspects of communication, including public speaking. Both coaching and an economical e-book, Public Speaking - You Can Do It!  are available. Public Speaking - You Can Do It! includes 15 pages of easy, practical strategies, including the use of more powerful vocabulary,  for delivering better presentations.

How people can learn to speak American English more clearly - in only three days

People in the corporate world from other countries may want to learn to speak American English more clearly - and fast. Possibly they are going to a meeting in the USA, or to give a presentation there. People in the Raleigh-Durham area of N. Carolina (USA) will now have the chance to experience this. Business Speech Improvement will soon be moving there! The first step, as in solving any problem, is to determine what needs to be changed. What sounds are mispronounced? How are the rate of speech and the intonation pattern (how the voice goes up and down for questions, excitement, etc)? An expert corporate speech pathologist has years of experience and education to determine this quickly. Certain sounds are easier to change than others are. A customized plan is designed, considering the difficulty level of the specific sounds, which may have to do with where the errors are being made, the person's native language patterns and other factors. Finally, the training can start. Using the customized plan for each learner, the group learns the process of change and specific exercises needed to make the sounds correctly. Each learner receives a lot of feedback, to give him knowledge and confidence. Throughout the process, each learner has practice in rating his own attempts, so he can later judge his speech patterns accurately. Finally, when many new sounds have been mastered, learners practice on simulations of their own work situations, such as doing an interview, giving a lecture, making telephone calls or a business presentation. Doing this intensive process for eight hours a day, with frequent feedback and a variety of exercises, has helped many people make real progress. As a satisfied client, an engineer, reported, "Our speech, like our products, should be right - the first time!" People wanting to enroll in the small group and individual coaching programs offered by Business Speech Improvement should visit here. For those living elsewhere, click here for information about our e-books and mp3 files. Training in other speech topics is also available.

Clients ask, "Why don't Americans help us?"

Many clients from other countries in the Pronunciation Improvement for Non-native Professionals seminar offered by Business Speech Improvement ask the same question: why don't native-born Americans help them improve their pronunciation of American English? In their native countries, their work groups naturally help the newcomers with various aspects of their job, including their communication skills. In the USA, though, native-born Americans are afraid this would offend their non-native co-workers; in addition, many people don't have the time or skill to know how to make corrections efficiently and effectively.

If you yourself or your valued employees want to improve your American English pronunciation,
learn about upcoming seminars at www.BusinessSpeechImprovement.com/accents .
What would better pronunciation do for you or your employee?

New to the USA?

Whether you are coming to the USA as a visitor, an immigrant, a student, a professional or on a special visa, American customs may be different than you expect. Coming to the USA: American Cultural Differences, http://businessspeechimprovement.com/enabler/scripts/e_books. pl is a down-loadable e-book. It covers differences in time, writing dates, temperature, greetings, American workplace culture, and many more categories.

Visit http://businessspeechimprovement.com/enabler/scripts/e_books.pl to buy this invaluable
e-book today!

Pronouncing American English more clearly

"I want to speak (American) English better but I don't know what to do to sound clearer" is a comment of many of the clients of Business Speech Improvement. They (or their companies) are often calling about the intensive course, Pronunciation Improvement for Non-native Professionals. They or their companies are frustrated about the difficulty they are having communicating clearly.

This three day intensive course offers instruction that focuses on pronunciation. Learners receive an individual assessment and a customized program, which includes some professional vocabulary.

Open enrollment, company-specific and individual classes are available. For details, visit www.BusinessSpeechImprovement.com.