Learn More than 200 English Accents with The Speech Accent Archive

The Speech Accent Archive is a website that compares different English accents.This website looks like Map your Voice that I have covered in an earlier post except that this latter offers an interactive map where you can check others accents or add up yours. The Speech Accent Archive is normally a study carried out by Geoge Mason University that aims at aggregating and comparing accents of non native speakers. Participants both  native( Scottish/ Irish )  and  non native, were asked to read out parts of a paragraph. These readings were then recorded and later on compared to American Accent.

Currently The Speech Accent Archive has over 600 different samples with around 200 different accents.  if you want to hear how anyone from any particular nation speaks English you can access the archive of this website and you will be amazed at the grandeur of this work.

VocabSushi The Easiest Way to Expand your Vocabulary

VocabSushi is a good tool for English language learners. It helps its users build up their vocabulary in such an interactive way by seeing word usage in daily news. It is conventional fact that words are easily memorised when  used in real world  contexts than if they are provided in single definitions. VocabSushi offers several techniques to help users enrich their vocabulary. Here is what it can help you do :

1. Practice new words by filling out the sentence completion questions
2. Learn the correct pronunciations of words by playing MP3 audio files
3. It tracks the general progress of your vocabulary
4. Based on your learning abilities, it will skip words you already know and suggests new terms that are more challenging
5. It provides words in real world context and in easy to understand sentences.

VocabSushi is free but requires a registration. Just head over to its main page and sign up for a free account.

Watch this video to learn more about VocabSushi


VocabSushi Video Tour (Main Site) from Vocab Sushi on Vimeo.

Wordstash is a Great Vocabulary Learning Tool

Wordstash is a cool online tool that help learners expand their vocabulary. It offers innovative and intuitive ways to enrich your linguistic repertoire without getting bored. Wordstash helps users grow their vocabulary by providing word definitions together with the ability to " statsh" words on a list manager for a later study or review.

If you are a language teacher then this website can be a very good learning  tool to introduce to your students.Show them how it works and they will surprise you. Let technology help you some in your teaching.

How does Wordstash work ?

First, Wordstash requires a registration. Click on sign up and open an account there. This service is completely free. Once logged in you can then key in a word to read its definition, hear its pronunciation or toggle its synonyms. You can also get tweets for the word you entered and see how it is used in a sentence from an online article.

On the right side of the website you will see a list of the most popular wordlists including "the 100 most common SAT words, World Capitals, Vocabulary From Jeopardy, and more"




 Head over to Wordstash and give it a try.

Learn Different English Accents Using Map your Voice

Map your Voice is a great website for English language learners. It allows its users to have access to a plethora of English accents. Mastering English pronunciation is one of the most difficult things about learning this language. I have been teaching English for eight years and I know exactly how hard it is for students to decode vocal messages uttered by native speakers particularly from countries such as  Scotland or Australia. With Map your Voice you can give your learners a chance to learn the different accent of English in such an easy way.

How does Map your Voice work ?

It is very easy to use and does not require any sign up or software installation. All you need to do is to head over to Map your Voice page and there you will see a map with red and green dots all over it. These dots indicate a recording and Google map is your navigational tool. The red dot indicates someone reading a list of six words while the green dot indicates someone reading a childerm's story labelled "Mr Tickel ". Hover your mouse over any dot and you will be able to read the details about the recording like the country where it is recorded etc. Just click on any dot and the recording will instantly get started. There is a smal audio player on the site's right pane that will play these recordings.

What is even awesome about this website is the fact that you too can add your own voice recording with your accent and specifiy which part of the world you are from. Your dot will be availabe and visible on Google map for others to listen to.