About Us - Speak Easily - the voice speech and accent specialists

Accent Reduction

Why do I have an accent?
We learn to speak through mimicry. We copy the precise sounds of a language from the people around us. We do this by copying the muscle movements needed to make those sounds.

Because the brain is efficient, it begins to focus exclusively on what it knows. It no longer identifies speech sounds outside the original set. And the speech muscles become locked into the original patterns of movement. So you keep your accent in new languages or cannot change it at will.

So how can I change my accent?
By retraining the brain to hear sounds and differences outside of its original patterns. Also by loosening and re-educating the movements of your speech muscles.

You will not lose your normal accent in your native language. And you will maintain the ability to speak in your regional accent whenever you wish. However, you will now have a new choice. You will hear the sounds of RP accurately, outside of the filter of your native accent. And you will be able to make these sounds accurately and in linked, natural sounding speech.

Who can help me do this?
You need a voice and accent coach, preferably one trained at CSSD (Central School of Speech and Drama, London), the leading training institution for this kind of teacher.

An English language teacher will help you with grammar and vocabulary, but they have very limited ability to change your accent at this level. Whilst a speech therapist is appropriate when there is a serious inability to form speech in general. To speak in a new accent, you need an accent coach trained in both phonetics and voice production.

All our coaches are CSSD trained as well as widely experienced in accent reduction. They are also trained in the use of Morwenna Rowe's Speak Easily Method - a comprehensive and efficient accent reduction training course distilled from over a decade's experience.

How we work with you

We work on your vowel sounds
Vowels are the open sounds we make in the middle of syllables. In English we have 20 of them. Most accents have less. We also have long, short and moving vowels (called diphthongs). Get these wrong and you simply say an alternative word. For example in cup, cap, carp and cape, the only difference is the vowel.
We work on stress and intonation
Stress is when a syllable is louder, longer and higher. If you get the stress wrong in a word, we can't understand it. But more than that, if you don't stress as we do in English throughout the whole sentence, that also obscures the meaning. You also need to learn to emphasise the key words as we do to really communicate and begin to have a native rhythm and expression. These three interlocking layers of emphasis are the difference between being understood or leaving your listener totally confused.
We work with your consonants
These are the sounds that form a barrier in your mouth. Every accent and language has a slightly different set of consonants. For example 'th' doesn't exist in most languages and yet is one of the commonest sounds in English. We train you to pronounce English consonants easily and precisely.
We work with your 'muscles'
Every accent has a kind of facial expression which is logical to produce all the speech sounds in that accent effortlessly. This posture also gives the 'resonance' or particular sound quality of the accent. Using physical exercises and our unique 3D vowel system, we can train you to speak English RP as if you had learned it as a child. It will become effortless and sound as close to native as possible.

The result of all this precise work in the hands of our skilled coaches? Accurate listening. Muscles that adapt to English sounds. And the skills to continue to improve and refine your accent for years to come.