Hi everyone and welcome to this special edition of Seattle Learning Academy's American English pronunciation podcast.

In the coming months, I'll be publishing these special podcasts to help direct certain language group to the resources that group will find the

most helpful. This podcast is an overview of issues that Japanese speakers are likely to face when

they are learning to speak English. The transcripts for this show are online at www.orgoncion.com, and all the episodes mentioned

during this podcast will have direct links from this show's transcripts. Also, I'll put links

at the top of the page to all of the sound lists mentioned during this show. Japanese speakers have a number of difficult challenges when speaking English.

Many of these issues I've already created podcasts about, so you can pick and choose which

areas you would like to work on first.

Although there are lots of sounds to work on, I have taught many Japanese students

who have made wonderful progress in their pronunciation skills through practice, practice, and

more practice. Remember, you need to train your ear just as much as the muscles in your mouth.

Spend plenty of time listening to audio files, especially at the beginning of your practice.

If Japanese is your first language, I'm sure you already know your personal difficulty with the R sounds and L sound. This includes all the R-controlled vowels.

Be sure to listen to episodes 4, 5, and 6 for specific instructions for those sounds.

Remember, your tongue touches the inside of your mouth directly behind the upper front teeth during the

L sound, and it does not touch anything during the R sounds.

Almost all of the consonant fricatives give the Japanese speaker problems.

Fricatives are sounds created when air is forced out of the mouth through a small opening.

These include the voiced and unvoiced TH sounds, the ZH and S-H sound, the S and Z sound, the F and V sound, and the H sound.

Episode number one covered the very important TH sounds.

It's a good idea to practice the word lists for both the voiced TH as well as the unvoiced

TH sound.

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