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 two courses in this series, the Vowels of American English and Comparative Contrasts in Usage with the Vowels of American English, you are ready to learn the Consonants of American English: how to make them, how to distinguish them, and how to practice using them.

This course focuses on discovering which of the 25 spoken consonants 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 consonants 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, consonants, vocabulary, finance words, accounting words.

Learning Objectives

  • Explore and learn the 25 consonants of American English using phonetic symbols of the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA).
  • Discover and understand what makes a vowel different from a consonant and how to articulate sounds differently based on their properties: point of articulation, voicing, and airflow.
  • Discover and determine which consonants take more voice time and require more breath and what type of breath a consonant requires: quick and short, buzzy and short, long and breathy, or long and buzzy.
  • Identify and learn to release and relax your jaw when you speak for clarity, comfort, and fluidity.

Last updated/reviewed: August 23, 2023
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    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 Consonants in American English3:01
      How to Speak Like an American10:20
      The Consonants of American English16:26
      Consonant Stop Sounds16:14
      Continuant Sounds in American English12:01
      Affricates, Nasals, Liquids, Glottal Stop & Practice12:44
      Conclusion2:56
    CONTINUOUS PLAY
      The Consonants in American English1:13:42
    SUPPORTING MATERIAL
      Slides: The Consonants in American EnglishPDF
      The Consonants in American English Glossary/ IndexPDF
      Manual - Finance and Accounting Accent ReductionPDF
    REVIEW AND TEST
      REVIEW QUESTIONSquiz
     FINAL EXAMexam