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Old 07-Mar-2005, 04:45
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Default Re: How to learn an accent?

Quote:
Originally Posted by tdol
It's easy for children to pick up accents, but harder for people once they have reached adolescence. You must try to identify the sounds that cause the most trouble and work on them. Often, it's not the obvious sounds that are causing the trouble.
It's hard to say what the problem could be, but having appropriate intonation often goes a long way in approximating native-like pronunciation in English.

I think a great deal of unintelligible speech comes from not having good intonation. Also, not stressing vowels properly can be a problem.

I would place individual sounds last on the list of problems, though it is important to consider individual sounds - phonemes - as well.

If your intonation is falling, don't catch it. Just let it fall. Of course verbs are another story I susPECT.

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