Your accent is not what lowers the score
Speaking tests measure how easily a listener understands you, not how native you sound. A clear Turkish accent is compatible with the top bands.
The main issue: extra vowels inside clusters
Turkish syllables do not begin with two consonants. When a borrowed word does, Turkish inserts a vowel to make it sayable — and the habit carries straight into English.
- train → tirain
- sport → sipor
- street → sitreet
- group → gurup
- film → filim
The word gains a syllable, and to a listener it stops matching the word they are expecting. This is the most common reason Turkish speakers are asked to repeat themselves.
Word endings
Turkish softens some consonants at the end of a word, and English endings can also pick up an extra vowel for the same reason as above.
English keeps grammar at the ends of words, so anything that blurs an ending costs you twice — the examiner hears a grammar mistake as well as a pronunciation one:
- She works here → She work here (lost the third-person -s)
- I walked home → I walk home (lost the past tense -ed)
- Two books → Two book (lost the plural)
Read aloud and finish every final consonant cleanly, with no vowel after it.
The sounds worth fixing
| Sound | Why it's hard | What a listener may hear |
|---|---|---|
| /w/ | Not in Turkish; becomes /v/. | west → vest, wine → vine |
| /θ/ and /ð/ (th) | Not in Turkish; become /t/, /d/ or /s/. | think → tink, this → dis |
| /æ/ vs /e/ | The contrast is unfamiliar. | bad / bed, man / men |
| /ɪ/ vs /i:/ | No long/short contrast of this kind. | ship / sheep |
| /ŋ/ at the end | -ing can pick up a hard g. | singing → sing-ging |
For /w/, round your lips as if to whistle and keep your teeth off your lip. If your top teeth touch your bottom lip, you have made a v.
Rhythm and the weak vowel
Turkish vowels stay full and clear, and vowel harmony keeps them consistent across a word. English does the opposite: it hammers one syllable and lets the other vowels collapse into a weak uh.
- banana is really b'NA-n', not three clear vowels.
- about is uh-BOUT.
- Small words — a, the, of, to, is — are said fast and quietly, almost swallowed.
Deliberately weakening the unstressed syllables makes the stressed ones stand out, which is what a listener needs in order to find the word.
How to practise
- Record yourself. As you speak you hear what you intended, not what came out.
- Start with initial clusters. Street, train, sport, group — no vowel in the middle. This is the highest-value fix.
- Then /w/ versus /v/, and the th sounds, in full sentences.
- Then weaken the small words when reading aloud.
Aflo scores your speech sound by sound and shows you which sounds were hardest to catch.
For the test, and for real life
For the exam: say clusters with nothing between the consonants, finish your word endings, and separate w from v.
Outside the exam you may want to sound more English or more American, for work or for yourself. That is a reasonable goal and a separate one from scoring well. Clarity is what the test pays for; the accent can stay.
Frequently asked questions
Will my Turkish accent lower my speaking score?
No. These tests score intelligibility rather than native-likeness, and Aflo's pronunciation scoring has a floor so that differences which are only accent stop affecting the score. What lowers a score is the extra vowel inside consonant clusters, and blurred word endings.
Why do I say 'sitreet' instead of 'street'?
Turkish syllables do not begin with two consonants, so a vowel is inserted to make the cluster sayable — the same thing that turns sport into sipor and group into gurup. The word gains a syllable and stops matching what the listener expects. Practise saying the consonants with nothing between them.
How do I stop saying 'vest' for 'west'?
Turkish has no /w/, so it becomes /v/. For English /w/, round your lips as if to whistle and keep your teeth away from your lip entirely. If your top teeth touch your bottom lip, you have produced a v.
What is the weak vowel everyone talks about?
In English the vowels in unstressed syllables collapse to a weak uh sound. Banana is really b'NA-n'. Turkish keeps its vowels full and consistent, so this has to be done deliberately — but weakening the small words is what makes the important ones stand out.