Switch to which? Does it work to have ‘two accents?’
Does it work to have 'two voices'? Or do you have to settle for one sound, one accent, in order to truly be yourself?
‘What?? I’ve only had a couple…’ how your voice can let AI know you’re too drunk to drive
Using tongue twisters to gauge whether someone is too drunk to drive is just another way of telling us what we already know: people judge our competence based on how easy it is to understand us
Should you change your accent? My review of You’re All Talk by Rob Drummond
There's some challenging ideas here for me as a practitioner of what I still call 'accent reduction' and sometimes 'elocution'
Have these top politicians had speech coaching? (and how you can tell)
This week I was featured in an article in the Daily Telegraph, one of the UK's main national newspapers, to talk about politicians' voices, and whether it’s possible to tell if they’ve had public speaking coaching.
How to sound ‘authentic’
Working with voiceover artists, I’ve learned that ‘authenticity’ is everything: it’s the same for people I see one-to-one for accent reduction and confident speaking
How to speak well: cut through the brain fog and stay focused
'Brain fog' is another way of describing how it feels when we lose focus. How do we stay ‘in the moment’ and keep focused on what we want to talk about?
Accent Bias in Britain: what about foreign accents?
Bias: you can try to be colour-blind, but how about accent-deaf? I took a quiz on accent bias to find out whether I can overcome my own inherent biases…
Give a wedding speech they'll remember (and not because you upstaged them)
If you avoid public speaking, but can’t when it comes to weddings… here’s my favourite thoughts or tips about how to give the big speech on the big day - and make a special day even more special
How do you tell someone they need accent reduction? SHOULD you?
People often tell me about someone at work whose accent they can't understand. But almost never mention their difficulty to the strongly-accented person. Why not?
‘Ats us nai’: an accent tour of Northern Ireland
I’ve recently come back from my first trip to Northern Ireland, and I learned some things about the famous accent… especially when I tried to do it myself…
‘How long does it take?’: 5 tips for changing your speech habits (for busy people who live in the real world)
Results: why changing your speech habits isn’t like getting a nosejob
What’s an ‘RP’ accent?
Everyone has an accent. I don’t believe there is such a thing as a ‘correct’ way to speak English: it just needs to be clear. Most people around the world are familiar with the ‘RP’ accent - but what is it and how do you make that sound?
‘Performing’? or just talking?
What we call ‘public’ speaking doesn’t have to feel like performing - it should feel like a conversation where you do most of the talking