Hey guys! It is Aiko with Schwagirl. I am an American English pronunciation coach.

Welcome to my podcast “The Voice of English” Season 2.

Season 2 focuses more on communication. In each episode, I bring a guest and he/she will give us tips to become a better communicator as a person who speaks English as a second language.

In Episode 19, I invited Pete Smissen based in Australia.

Pete Smissen – Owner and host of the Aussie English Podcast

He started the Aussie English Podcast in 2015 as a distraction whilst he was finishing his PhD in evolutionary biology. At the time, he was learning French in his own time using podcasts and online resources, and noticed the lack of resources for Australian English. The podcast had over 1 million downloads in the following year and become his full-time job after he graduated from university and decided to leave academia and focus on creating English-learning content. He plans on doing this as long as he can as It’s an absolute pleasure to wake up every day and help students all around the world improve their English.

Pete’s social media links:
Website – http://www.theaussieenglishpodcast.com
Twitter – https://twitter.com/Aussie_English
Youtube – https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPIAvE0MO9pyWGNh5OoYInQ
Facebook – http://bit.ly/2yXyWsv
Instagram – http://bit.ly/2n1UNdB

Here are my notes

  • Australian “can/can’t” sounds different from American English.
  • “ou” sound in Australian English makes Australian Australian. Practice it with me in this episode. Pete was teaching me how to pronounce it.
  • Tips for Asians – Train your lips to move inward.
  • Short single-syllable words are the difficult ones!!
  • Work on minimal pairs, for example, “it” and “eat.”
  • Don’t look at the spelling. Read “through, tough, thorough, thought, though” out loud and notice the pronunciation is different.
  • Laugh when you made mistakes.
  • Failing is winning!

I took Pete’s advice. I usually record the opening and ending multiple times because I want to perfect. But you know what? This time, I recorded it once!! Thanks Pete;)

If you have any questions regarding English learning or pronunciation, living in the US, working in the US, or if you would like to be a guest on this show, please contact me through http://schwagirl.com/contact

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If you are interested in learning American pronunciation, visit https://hatsuonkyosei.com（次の３ヶ月のグループ発音コースは４月２日スタート）