Finance & Accounting Professionals need to communicate in English on a daily basis, and if you work with the US or live and work in the US, it’s important that everyone understand you clearly. It can hurt your credibility, confidence, and ability to do your job if people either misunderstand you or misinterpret what you say. In order to be clear in American English, you’ll want to master the key components of the language.

Now that you have completed the first course in this series, the Vowels of American English, you are ready to learn how to compare and contrast vowels more fully and discover your own patterns so you can create sustainable improvements in your speech.

This course focuses on discovering which of the 23 primary spoken vowels of American English are most challenging for you and creating meaningful ways to assess yourself and address the challenges. Depending on your first language, you may struggle with different vowels than someone else does, and you’ll need a reliable method to figure this out and create a way to practice on a regular basis so you can enact and sustain real change.

This course also uses finance & accounting vocabulary so that when you learn the concepts of English, you’ll also learn to say the words that come up for you every day at work.

Course Key Concepts: English, pronunciation, pronounce, American, vocabulary, finance words, accounting words.

Learning Objectives
  • Identify, review & compare all 23 vowels of American English using phonetic symbols of the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) to assess which ones are most challenging for you.
  • Discover which vowels to focus on and how to compare and contrast them in real-life scenarios.
  • Explore and master the length of vowels and the movement of the lips, tongue, and jaw.
  • Recognize and create custom word lists to guide you with your own challenge issues.
  • Discover and gain more familiarity with recognizing which sounds are hardest for you, predicting where you will have challenges, and designing a way to practice on your targeted sounds.
Last updated/reviewed: August 10, 2023

Included In Certifications

This course is included in the following Certification Programs:

8 CoursesFinance & Accounting English For Non-Native Speakers of American English - Certification Program

  1. Finance and Accounting English for Non-Native Speakers: The Vowels of American English
  2. Finance and Accounting English for Non-Native Speakers: Comparative Contrasts in Usage with the Vowels of American English
  3. Finance and Accounting English for Non-Native Speakers: The Consonants in American English
  4. Finance and Accounting English for Non-Native Speakers: Comparative Contrasts in Usage of Consonants in American English
  5. Finance and Accounting English for Non-Native Speakers: Endings on Words in American English
  6. Finance and Accounting English for Non-Native Speakers: Word Stress in American English
  7. Finance and Accounting English for Non-Native Speakers: Intonation & Presence in American English
  8. Finance and Accounting English for Non-Native Speakers: A Crash Course in Finance & Accounting Vocabulary for American English
Prerequisites
Course Complexity: Foundational

No advanced preparation or prerequisites are required for this course.
This course will help to have access to a phonetic / pronunciation dictionary for American English that uses the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), such as Longman’s Cambridge or Oxford for American English.

Education Provider Information
Company: Illumeo, Inc., 75 East Santa Clara St., Suite 1215, San Jose, CA 95113
Contact: For more information regarding this course, including complaint and cancellation policies, please contact our offices at (408) 400- 3993 or send an e-mail to .
Instructor for this course
Course Syllabus
INTRODUCTION AND OVERVIEW
  Introduction to Comparative Contrasts in Usage with the Vowels of American English3:30
  How to Speak Like an American7:34
  Reviewing, Comparing and Contrasting the Vowels in American English-Part 19:05
  Reviewing, Comparing and Contrasting the Vowels in American English-Part 28:06
  Reviewing, Comparing and Contrasting the Vowels in American English-Part 310:28
  Reviewing, Comparing and Contrasting the Vowels in American English-Part 49:15
  Create Custom Word Lists13:06
  Conclusion3:16
CONTINUOUS PLAY
  Comparative Contrasts in Usage with the Vowels of American English1:04:20
SUPPORTING MATERIAL
  Slides: Comparative Contrasts in Usage with the Vowels of American EnglishPDF
  Comparative Contrasts in Usage with the Vowels of American English Glossary/ IndexPDF
  Manual: Finance and Accounting Accent ReductionPDF
  Handout: IPA Vowel ExercisePDF
REVIEW AND TEST
  REVIEW QUESTIONSquiz
 FINAL EXAMexam