“What sets worlds in motion is the interplay of differences, their attractions and repulsions. Life is plurality, death is uniformity. By suppressing differences and peculiarities, by eliminating different civilizations and cultures, progress weakens life and favors death”. – Octavio Paz, Mexican poet, writer and diplomat; 1914-1998 I love this quote. So why would I start…
Remembering Sam Chwat
I worked with Sam Chwat at New York Speech Improvement (later known as the Sam Chwat Speech Center) for about 6 years. Sam passed away in March 2011 and when his business closed shortly thereafter, I opened AccentsOff Speech and Voice Improvement. How to describe Sam Chwat? He was warm, well-read and erudite, charismatic, VERY…
IPA: A Roadmap for Accent Reduction
The International Phonetic Alphabet, or IPA: a universal roadmap of the speech sounds of all languages. Unlike alphabet letters, the symbols (or phonemes) of IPA are unique representations of speech sounds used in all languages. It takes the guesswork out of pronouncing irregularly spelled words, a notorious feature of American English. For example, the word…