Calibrated Speech

The pronunciation companion to Professional English Practice. Forty-four units on the sounds, stress, rhythm, and intonation of clear American English, every example spoken and ready to record against.

This is Calibrated Speech, the pronunciation companion to Professional English Practice. The main series trains what you say. This one trains how you sound while you say it, because a correct sentence still costs you the room when the listener has to work to decode it.

Forty-four units. They start with single consonants and vowels, move into word stress and the music of connected speech, and end on the intonation that carries a meeting. Each unit stands on its own, so you can work the book start to finish or open straight to the sound that is getting in your way this week.

Every unit runs the same cycle.

The symbols. A short strip of the sounds this unit teaches. Tap one and you hear it.

Why it matters. What this sound does to a listener, and what it costs you when it slips.

What your language does. The interference from your first language that pulls you off target.

How to make it. The physical instruction for mouth, breath, and voice, with a diagram of what your tongue is doing.

Practice and a game. Word banks, minimal pairs, an ear-training game, and full sentences, every item spoken by a calibrated American voice at natural and slow speed.

Record and compare. At the foot of every unit you record yourself and see your own voice drawn in red over the model in gray. You are comparing shapes, not chasing a score.

Two ways to work through it. Start to finish, for a full path from the sounds up to intonation. Or unit by unit, opening directly to whatever is holding you back right now.

Do not skip the record and compare. Reading about a sound changes nothing. Saying it, hearing it back, and adjusting is the whole method.

I started The Concept Method because I kept meeting brilliant professionals whose English was already good, and who were still not being heard. They had the words. What slipped was the sound: a vowel that turned one word into another, a stress that landed on the wrong syllable, a flat line where the meaning needed a lift. The ideas were right. The delivery was quietly costing them the room.

That gap is not a talent problem, and it is not about losing your accent. Your accent is yours to keep. This is about being understood the first time, without the listener working for it, and about carrying the small signals of stress, rhythm, and melody that tell people you mean what you say.

So that is what this book teaches. Not a performance and not an American mask. Control: the handful of sounds that change whether you are understood, and the music underneath your sentences that decides whether they land. Every clip here is calibrated, so the target you copy is the right one, every time.

Mind your future. It is closer than you think, and it is going to need people to hear you clearly the first time you speak.

Pedro Gigollotti NettoFounder, The Concept Method

Find your unit

Try: th, the r sound, schwa, word stress, linking, intonation.

Part One · FoundationsA1 to A2

01The map of English consonantsYou already have most of themA1-A2 02TH, as in think and thisYou say it constantlyA1-A2 03Clean word endingsA vowel you add is a beat you addA1-A2 04Clusters at the startThe first sound of your sentenceA1-A2 05The HIt carries meaningA1-A2 06The little puff on P, T, KThe puff is the cue, not the consonantA1-A2 07Soft and hard endingsBad and bat, prize and priceA1-A2 08W and VWest and vestA1-A2 09The NG soundA hum, not a hard gA1-A2 10The L, light and darkOne letter, two soundsA1-A2 11The map of English vowelsVowels are where most accents liveA1-A2 12Ship and sheepThe highest-value vowel in EnglishA1-A2

Part Two · Building accuracyA2 to B1

13Yes, chair, share, measure, majorFive sounds close togetherA2-B1 14The American RTwo things can be wrongB1 15Full and foolThe same problem, at the backB1 16Cat, bet, cut, cartThe largest collapse in the vowel spaceB1 17The schwa, English's laziest soundThe most common vowel in the languageB1 18Vowels that moveA vowel that changes while you say itB1 19The five R-vowelsFive points that must stay apartB1 20Word stressOne strong beat, not two, not noneB1 21Thirteen and thirtyThe most expensive small unit in the bookB1 22The -ed endingOne spelling, three pronunciationsB1 23The -s endingThe same rule, one unit laterB1

Part Three · Natural speechB2 to C1

24Long words and their beatsWhere professional English livesB2 25A GREENhouse and a green HOUSEThe stress carries the meaningB2 26Turn it OFFTwo verbs that look identical on the pageB2 27Strong words and weak wordsEnglish sorts every word into two pilesB2 28Weak formsWhy Americans sound fastB2 29ContractionsThe normal form, not the casual oneB2 30Thought groups and pausingWhere you pause is grammarB2 31English rhythmThe strangest fact about spoken EnglishB2 32LinkingThe spaces are on the page onlyB2 33The four American T soundsOnly one of them is the t you were taughtB2 34Wouldja, gotcha, and other fusionsWhere listening actually breaks downB2-C1

Part Four · Music and deliveryC1 to C2

35Where the main stress goesThe rule nobody taught youC1 36Old news and new newsStress follows the newsC1 37Falling and risingThe same words, two meaningsC1 38Lists, choices, and tagsThree patterns, three fixed tunesC1 39Bird, and the sounds Americans have joinedDoing less, for onceC1-C2 40The fall-riseThe most useful tune in professional EnglishC1-C2 41Making a point with stressNine words, five accusationsC1-C2 42Asking rather than orderingPolite words, demanding deliveryC2 43Presenting and running a meetingManaging a room, not a sentenceC2 44Sounding the way you intend to soundThe frame around your wordsC2

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