Accent Amazing

06/06/2026

Last week, I spent spent five days at the Polyglot Gathering in Brno meeting other language learners, enthusiasts, and entrepreneurs. It was great seeing old friends and making new ones.

Some key highlights included learning of a dictionary-map of Wu Chinese and the regional & dialectal pronunciations of words, learning and practicing Interslavic, learning more about the linguistics of sign language, and just spending nights over beers discussing linguistics in general

Live, laugh, learn languages!

06/02/2026

Why do you sometimes ignore practice notes right in front of you?

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The reason may be because you lack a cue to practice

A cue is a trigger that starts your habit

A 𝗵𝗮𝗯𝗶𝘁 𝗹𝗼𝗼𝗽 is made up of three parts: the 𝐜𝐮𝐞, the 𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧, and the 𝐫𝐞𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐝.

The cue triggers you to act. The action is the habit itself. The reward is what keeps you coming back.

So when you’re practicing a word, you need a real cue that actually stops you. Don’t put your practice / language reminders somewhere you’ll get used to seeing it.

Put it somewhere it’ll interrupt you every time.

No cue, no habit. It’s that simple!

Send this to a friend who needs this tip!

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Follow me for more best accent practice tips!

05/21/2026

What’s up with Spotify’s new disco ball logo?

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Yea I dunno either, but what I do know is that some of y’all pronounce those words incorrectly!

I know the three words all have letters, but because of the words’ morphophonological structure they’re pronounced differently: /ɑ/ like “father” in “Spotify”, and /oʊ/ like “go” in the other two.

This is because “logo” and “disco” have the letters in open syllables, meaning the syllables end with a vowel, as opposed to closed syllables, where the syllables end in a consonant.

Compare:

“logo” (lo-go), which has two /oʊ/ sounds

vs

“lotto” (lot-to), which has an /ɑ/ followed by an /oʊ/ because the first syllable is closed syllable “lot”

(side note: this is a simplification, but it works for this explanation)

Now, you might be thinking: isn’t the in “Spotify” in an open syllable, (spo.ti.fy)?

And you’d be sort of right.

However, English speakers mentally view the word morphologically as (spot.i.fy), with “spot” being the root.

And so that is the vowel we take!

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Hope that helped, my accenteers!

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What other words spelled with have different pronunciation than you expected? Let me know in the comments

And follow to make your accent amazing!

p.s. did you like my logo disco-ball-ified?

05/19/2026

The letter represents DIFFERENT VOWELS depending on stress!
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The word “safari” has twice, but each is pronounced differently

The first is unstressed, and so it is reduced to /ə/ with the mouth more closed

The second is stressed, and so it is pronounced /ɑ/, with the mouth more open

In English, all vowel sounds have a stressed and unstressed form, despite being spelled with the same vowel letter
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Can you think of any words with the same vowel letters but with different pronunciations?

Write them below!
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Follow so you can stress vowels correctly!

05/12/2026

Beware of hidden glide sounds!

A glide is a type of sound that borders a vowel and even may seem like a type of vowel.

This makes sense since glides are also known as “semivowels”

These include sounds like “y” or /j/, and “w” or /w/.

These are fairly obvious when the world is spelled with or like in words such as “yap” and “win”,

However, they are also found in a few other situations, such as…

At the end of tense vowels like /i/, so words like “he” and “tree” actually have a bit of a “y”-like sound at the end.

Between vowels, such as “neon” [niʲɑn] or in “doer” [duʷər]

This is quite a subtle sound, but it does play a part to make your accent sound amazingǃ

Can you think of any other words that have hidden glide sounds? Comment them belowǃ

📲 Follow for more accent tips

03/04/2026

I've been seeing this neologistic recently and I can say I'm neither, over- nor underwhelmed, maybe just a little whelmed (!)

We hope this post leaves you gruntled.

11/17/2025

The Language Business Retreat 2025 in Zhutian is over but the memories we made will last forever!

While I had previously heard many of the ideas we learnt in the retreat, meeting language educators of different businesses and listening to them talking about their experiences, advice, and even questions helped put things in context and helped me understand more about myself and where I want to take my business.

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Some ideas I took away from the Language Business Retreat include the following:

1. Find the why:
While we often like to get mired in the details, it’s important to understand what motivates people from a bigger perspective. Find the motivation, find the why. People often resonate better with big-picture transformative ideas, and at the very least, your approach to teaching (and selling) will depend on people’s goals!

2. Don’t be afraid to ask for help:
While for now, you might feel you can do everything yourself, at some point, it becomes easier to get some help, or even automating it. Whether it’s mentorship for business (or accent), hiring some extra help, you’ll find you have more time to focus on things that matter, and things will just run way more smoothly!

3. Work-life balance and calm:
Running a business is hard and we sometimes forget to breathe. But after the relaxing breathwork, a wheel of life exercise, and some rather assertive Taichi sound therapy, I think we got the message that balance in life is important!

4. Have fun and be yourself
I started the retreat wondering whether it’s important to act a certain way since veroyne else seemed to be doing it that way. But perhaps it was the diversity of business models, the funny impersonations, or a particularly unorthodox spicy comic idea, I realized you gotta be you! That’s what makes you unique!
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And besides these, it was great to meet and learn from others. I came away from the retreat with more ideas, a clearer vision of what I have to do, and most importantly, more confidence in where I’m headed.

Great meeting you all and thanks for the memories!

10/29/2025

A fascinating video about a variety of American English you often encounter if not in real life, then definitely in popular media! Check it out if you're feeling a bit more sciency today

Get started with LingoPie today, with 55% off the annual plan: https://learn.lingopie.com/languagejonessI saw a question recently, asking if Black American ...

09/23/2025

😂 Some ways of saying “I don’t know” in English aren’t even real words!

There are at least 5 different versions—from polite and formal ➡️ to straight-up sounds.

From the clear “I do not know” to the shruggy *“nngngng”* 🤷‍♂️ … native speakers switch between them depending on the vibe: formal, casual, or just lazy.

👉 You can sound natural with just one or two, but mastering all of them will take your English to the next level.

🔥 Pay attention in TV shows, movies, or real conversations—you’ll hear them everywhere.

👇 Which one do YOU use the most?

07/24/2025

Dictionaries don't give you a word's full pronunciation, but why?

That's right, the transcription you see , usually in / slashes / doesn't give you the full picture, but just the bare minimum.

This is known as a Broad Transcription, as opposed to the Narrow Transcription, which gives you the tiny details that really help you sound native.

Well the reason is because dictionaries aim to be more inclusive of the various dialects, such as, in the case of English, American, British, Australian English and more.

If it were to be accurate, it would have to pick a specific accent.

Learn more in my newest podcast episode!

When you check a word in the dictionary, the transcription it gives is not the full picture. It's just the general reading. If you were to read it exactly as...