What is the Color Vowel® System?

The Color Vowel® System is a proven methodology that helps non-native English speakers improve their pronunciation. It was developed about 20 years ago and is used by top institutions, including the U.S. Department of State, Harvard University, Yale University and Georgetown University. It has helped more than 1 million students so far.

The Color Vowel System works by rewiring the brain to hear vowel sounds, which are the most critical component to being understood when speaking English. The Color Vowel System bypasses the language center of your brain to use, instead, the areas that interpret music, rhythm, colors, images and kinesthetic learning.

The two most important parts of speaking in a way that is easily understood are (1) put emphasis, or “stress,” on the main syllable in each word, and (2) use the correct vowel sound for the main syllable. Once a speaker does these two things well, it is much easier to understand him or her.

The Color Vowel System gives an anchor phrase to each of the 14 main vowel sounds of English. The anchor phrase is both a color and an object that each use that same sound. BLUE MOON, GREEN TEA and BROWN COW are examples of anchor phrases.

Every word in the English language can be described as having a color, and that color is the color of the vowel of the main syllable. So “canoe” is a BLUE MOON word, and “teacher” is a GREEN TEA word.