Mike B
Mike B
German and English trainer
German and English trainer
How I can help you
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Upgrade your school English
Many German speakers in particular tell me that they can't really understand native speakers and that they can't find the words when they need to when speaking.
This is because often the teachers in previous classes or in school were not able to support students listening and so focused on endless grammar worksheet or writing tasks. So
Accent training
There is no factor that contribues more strongly to speaker confidence than having a good accent.
As a trumpet player and singer, I have a deep understanding of sound productiong and am able to guide your understanding and awareness of how sounds are created in German and English so you are able to develop an accent that you are proud of.
A common misconception is that accent is something that you are unable to change, but that is simply not true. It is just like any other skill such as tennis or playing piano. First, we create awareness of the movements required and discuss the position of the tongue and then we practise specific sounds in isolation.
Training and development in this area focues on the three ares:
- sound level (e.g., the individual sounds within a word)
- word level
- sentence level
Learn to understand almost everything you hear effortlessly.
Do you find some speakers difficult to understand? Do you avoid certain situations because you are worried about not understanding the speaker?
There are predictable things that happen when speakers speak quickly—words come together, consonants appear to disappear, vowels are weakened.
Through analysis of other speakers it is possible to train your ears to hear and understand "reduced" versions of certain words. Then after a while, you began to understand so much more so effortlessly.
E.g., the word "interesting" is mostly pronounced "intresting" but might also be pronounced in a way that sounds more like "instring".
In German, the word "zusammen" is usually pronounced "z'samm". If you don't realise this, you won't recognise it when you hear it.
