Overcome Difficult Sounds in English

Pengfe, originally from China, has been living in San Francisco for almost twenty years. Working for a multinational conglomerate, he is considered a subject-matter expert in futures and has published numerous industry-leading articles on how Fortune 500 companies could minimize their risks by developing investing strategies around the future markets.

However, pronunciation caused him great stress when working with native English speaking colleagues—including external clients.  The more his esteem grew in the industry, the more people wanted to hear from Pengfe, but he spoke in muddled and mumbled tones. His subconscious thought process was: “if no one understands me, no one can hear my mistakes.” Mumbling became a habit, and he was challenged when delivering presentations or when speaking on the phone. Worst of all, he was asked to speak every morning on a microphone to the department to let them know the futures outlook for the day.

Pengfe lacked confidence and know-how. He thought his problem was with accent and knew he had particular problems with vowel patterns. Pengfe was intrigued when he began his MCIN coaching sessions and was told that his accent was just fine and that he should not try to change it. Rather, he worked on his articulation, volume, intonation, and speed. Instead of endlessly drilling him to change sounds that were ingrained in his muscle memory, the coach helped him with a few workarounds. For example, Pengfe could not correctly pronounce the word pool which is an important word in finance: “pool of investments” or “pooled funds.” Pengfe—instead of avoiding the important word—learned to help his audience understand it by using workarounds.  One way was to spell it out; another way was to create a reference such as saying “pooled funds—you know, like a swimming pool of funds.” Once the audience heard the reference, they understood.

Pengfe began to build confidence, and his communication struggles diminished. The reason for his success—he used an intelligent tactic: instead of endless sound-production drilling exercises, he learned a few workarounds and felt more secure about speaking in English.