Chapter / American intonation o Use staircase intonation Let those sound groups floating on the wavy river in the figure flow downhill and you'll get the staircase. Staircase intonation not only gives you that American sound, it also makes you sound much more confident. Not every American uses the downward stair case. a certain segment of the population uses rising staircases--generally, teenagers on their way to a shopping mall: Hi, my name is Tiffany. I live in La canada. I'mon the pep squad What Exactly Is Staircase Intonation? In saying your words, imagine that they come out as if they were bounding lightly down a flight of stairs. Every so often, one jumps up to another level, and then starts down again Americans tend to stretch out their sounds longer than you may think is natural. so to lengthen your vowel sounds, put them on two stairsteps instead of just one Were here The sound of an American speaking a foreign language is very distinctive, because we double sounds that should be single. For example, in Japanese or Spanish, the word no is, to our ear clipped or abbreviated Standard american When you have a word ending in an unvoiced consonant one that you""(t, k, s, x, f, sh)you will notice that the preceding vowel is said quite quickly, and on a single stairstep. When a word ends in a vowel or a voiced consonant--one that you""say"(b, d, g, z, v, zh, j), the preceding vowel is said more slowly, and on a double stairstep eat Unvoiced Voiced There are two main consequences of not doubling the second category of words: Ei ther your listener will hear the wrong word, or even worse, you will always sound upset