Success Story of an Italian Native Speaker
How Samuele Went From “Can You Repeat That?” to Leading Briefings with Confidence
My First Contact With Samuele
When Samuele first reached out to me, I could hear the frustration in his message before we even got on a call.
He’d moved to an English-speaking country for work – one of those career opportunities you can’t pass up. He was a Monitoring and Evaluation Officer in international development, the kind of role where communication isn’t just important, it’s everything. Coordinating with field teams. Presenting to donors. Training local staff. Synthesizing complex program data for stakeholders who needed to trust your analysis.
And people kept pointing out his accent.
Not in a malicious way, usually. Sometimes it was the classic “Where are you from? I love your accent!” Sometimes it was more direct. But every single time, it was a reminder that his Italian roots were showing more than he wanted them to.
The Real Issue Wasn't What He Thought
In our first session, Samuele told me he wanted to work on his TH sounds. “Think” versus “tink.” “This” versus “dis.” The classic Italian struggle that everyone knows about.
I listened to him speak for about five minutes and realized we had a lot more to work on than TH.
Don’t get me wrong – the TH sounds were definitely an issue. But what was really making him sound recognizably Italian wasn’t just one sound. It was a pattern of ten different elements all working together.
The vowels were a big one. Italian has five vowel sounds. English has fifteen. Samuele was trying to fit English words into Italian vowel slots, and it wasn’t working. “Bad” and “bed” sounded the same. “Caught” and “cot” – same thing. When you’re presenting data and talking about “baseline assessments,” those distinctions matter.
His L’s were too light. His T’s too crisp. The way he said “book” made native speakers do a double-take.
But the biggest issue? Rhythm and intonation.
Italian flows in a specific way – more even, more staccato. Every syllable gets roughly equal weight. English is different. It bounces. It has stressed syllables and unstressed syllables creating a musicality that native speakers expect. Without that rhythm, even perfectly pronounced words sound choppy and uncertain.
When I explained all this to Samuele, I saw his face shift. This wasn’t going to be a quick fix.
Building the Plan
I was direct with him: three months, minimum. Daily practice. We’d work systematically through each sound, each pattern, each element of rhythm and intonation that was marking his speech as foreign.
We started with the vowels that were causing the most confusion in his professional context. Then moved to the consonants where he was having to repeat himself: TH, L, T. Each week, new sounds. Each session, new practice sentences built from his actual work vocabulary: “implementation,” “stakeholder,” “baseline assessment,” “monitoring framework.”
But sounds were only half the battle. We worked on connected speech – how words blur together in natural English. How “going to” becomes “gonna” in flow, not in writing. We worked on sentence stress, on which words to emphasize to convey meaning clearly.
I had him record himself constantly. Reading his own reports out loud. Practicing presentations. Then listening back to identify where his rhythm fell flat or his vowels drifted back to Italian patterns.
Watching the Transformation
Here’s what I love about working with motivated professionals like Samuele: they show up.
Some days were frustrating for him. He’d nail a sound in our session and then lose it in a real meeting when he was focused on content. That’s normal. That’s how muscle memory builds. But he kept showing up. Kept practicing. Kept recording himself.
The accountability piece was crucial. Samuele would send me voice notes between sessions – sometimes recordings of himself practicing specific sentences, sometimes clips from actual work calls where he noticed he’d slipped back into old patterns. That direct feedback loop meant we could course-correct quickly instead of waiting a week between sessions.
Around week eight, I noticed something shift in how he talked about his progress. He wasn’t just working on the sounds anymore – he was catching his own mistakes in real time. Mid-sentence, he’d notice his rhythm falling flat or a vowel drifting back to Italian patterns, and he’d self-correct without breaking stride.
That’s when you know the work is really taking hold. Not when someone speaks perfectly, but when they develop that internal awareness.
By the end of three months, Samuele had built something more valuable than a “perfect” accent: he’d built the ability to monitor and adjust his own speech. When he noticed himself reverting to Italian patterns in high-stakes moments, he could catch it and correct it faster. The constant background anxiety about pronunciation didn’t disappear entirely, but it shifted from paralyzing to manageable.
What Actually Made the Difference
When Samuele left his final review, he said something that I think captures the work perfectly: “Of course, you need to practice and do some work daily to improve.”
He’s right. I gave him the tools, the structure, the feedback, the accountability. But the transformation came from him showing up every single day. Recording himself. Drilling the sounds that felt unnatural. Practicing real work scenarios, not generic phrases from a textbook.
The voice note system made a huge difference for him. Instead of waiting for our weekly sessions to get feedback, he could send me a recording whenever he was struggling with a particular sound or sentence. I’d send back targeted feedback within 24 hours, and he’d incorporate it into his next practice session. That tight feedback loop kept him from practicing mistakes and reinforced correct patterns faster.
And having lifetime access to the practice library meant he wasn’t just improving during our three months together – he had the resources to keep working on his accent long after our sessions ended. I still get voice notes from him occasionally when he’s preparing for a particularly important presentation and wants to make sure his pronunciation is on point.
Today, Samuele is more confident in professional settings. People still hear his Italian background in his speech – that’s not going away entirely, and honestly, it doesn’t need to. But he’s no longer anxiously avoiding certain words or restructuring sentences on the fly. He can catch his own mistakes and self-correct. He knows which sounds to watch for when he’s stressed or tired.
And most importantly, his accent doesn’t dominate the conversation anymore. It’s there, but it’s not the thing people remember from meetings with him.
That’s the real win.
Individual results vary based on effort and practice. Accent training focuses on communication skills and cannot guarantee career advancement, workplace recognition, or professional outcomes.
My Philosophy
Your voice is part of your identity – but your accent shouldn’t hold you back.
You deserve to be heard, respected, and understood for what you say – not how you sound.
Accent reduction isn’t about sounding “perfect.”
It’s about being authentically you, with clarity.
Ready to get started?
I’ve helped thousands of non-native speakers over the last 10 years, including C-Level Executives, Scrum Masters, Entrepreneurs, Founders, and Actors sound more clear and confident.
I’m excited to help you work on your communication goals.
If you’ve been asked to repeat yourself or if you feel that your accent affects your communication confidence – I’m here to help.
To identify the specific sounds that you need to tweak to have a more neutral accent and pronunciation, book a free accent assessment to get started.
Let’s work together to make sure your voice reflects the confident, capable professional you are.
