English pronunciation can make you look good or dumb!

Have you ever watched a TV interview of your favorite athlete just to hear them butcher the pronunciation of a word so bad that it makes you cringe? I ran across this past article by Justin Brown and wanted to share with you 10 commonly mispronounced English words that can make you look dumb! Do you have any that you hear often to add to this list?

http://www.primermagazine.com/2008/learn/10-words-you-mispronounce-that-make-people-think-youre-an-idiot

A little fodder for conversation with family and friends around the Thanksgiving table!

Enjoy!

Davie

A little voice-over fun!

I stumbled on this and thought it was pretty fun and brings up a very important question.  Do you have a regional accent? If so, what have you done about erasing it?

Lot’s of voice-over talent myself included, have had coaching just to get rid of that regional accent and get that neutral American English that is most widely accepted in professional voice work. True, there is that occasional job that prefers the regional accent of a given area. One of the hardest things to do is to switch between a regional accent and neutral English when needed.

For fun I invite you to take this test linked below, share your results in the comments below, and share what training  you have done or tricks you use to control your regional accent.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/spl3/american-accent-quiz.html

Why you should have a pro voice on your business voicemail.

Hello everyone,  I would like to share an article  written by Jill Tarnoff that was posted on the voices.com website concerning the use of a professional voice for  your business voice mail and IVR systems. Quite frankly there are many businesses that could benefit from this and, with all the different stops in different communities where I work events this could prove to be a tremendous opportunity to have these types of recordings completed.   I often travel with my portable recording gear capable of broadcast quality recordings while I am on the road!  The important thing  to remember is that this valuable resource is available at a very reasonable cost for your business.

Voice talent and speech coach Jill Tarnoff shares her experiences calling in to book appointments with a healthcare provider and how the voice on an automated telephone system recording sets tone for the remainder of a call and speaking with a real person.

Here is the link to the complete blog article http://blogs.voices.com/voxdaily/2011/06/voices_for_business_voicemails.html

Have you ever thought of having a professional voice record your phone prompts?

Davie