How to reduce your accent!

[MartinGX]

Originally Posted by blouen

Well, talking about recorded lectures, have you tried searching the bookstores for audio books? I got one recently about "leadership" and it was being read so well. His enunciation is very clear and easy to follow, and you can get it only for a song(cheap). Just find a topic of your liking.

Good luck!

Thanks for your recommendation. I would take your recommendation. Hope I can neutralize my accent.

Thanks

best,
Martin

[MartinGX]

Originally Posted by blouen

Well, talking about recorded lectures, have you tried searching the bookstores for audio books? I got one recently about "leadership" and it was being read so well. His enunciation is very clear and easy to follow, and you can get it only for a song(cheap). Just find a topic of your liking.

Good luck!

Thanks for your recommendation. By the way, do you find you have a much better job opportunity after neutralizing your accent?

best,
Martin

[MartinGX]

Originally Posted by I'm With Stupid

I think that science lectures are probably the best place to find someone speaking continuously about a particular subject. The usually go on for about 2 hours, and include both lecturing, and a question and answer session at the end.

If I could recommend an accent, it would be Christopher Hitchens. That's a video from the Atheist Alliance International by the way, so if you're not an atheist, or questions of religion don't interest you, you may find it heavy going. But he does have an awesome accent.

Thanks for your advice as well.

best,
Martin

[blouen]

About two weeks ago, I bought 4 cd's and a booklet from "Living Language", it's about "Easy American Idioms"... I've been learning common American idioms there. And the book contains lots of dialogues as well, wherein the speakers really has great accent... I love listening to it over and over again. I gain accent faster than idiom knowledge from the program,... It's really amazing. But if you're not quite into idioms, I think they also got "Basic English, Business English, Travel English..." You could choose what you think fits you well...

[blouen]

Originally Posted by MartinGX

Thanks for your recommendation. By the way, do you find you have a much better job opportunity after neutralizing your accent?

best,
Martin

Well, I started polishing my accent a little more than a year ago. It's quite a time already and I think it helped me with my job, where American accent is a requirement. I've been here in my company for a year and half now and I never got into re-training... It makes me more confident to speak English with a better accent since I feel that my English really sounds English. I am not content though, I might have got a little accent but I'd like to do better and outdo mysef in every aspect...

All the best!

[MartinGX]

Originally Posted by blouen

Well, I started polishing my accent a little more than a year ago. It's quite a time already and I think it helped me with my job, where American accent is a requirement. I've been here in my company for a year and half now and I never got into re-training... It makes me more confident to speak English with a better accent since I feel that my English really sounds English. I am not content though, I might have got a little accent but I'd like to do better and outdo mysef in every aspect...

All the best!

Thanks for your advice and sharing

best,
Martin

[HaraKiriBlade]

Listening to a two-hour lecture certainly has its merits, but you would also benefit from studying individual sounds in detail.

Phonetics: The Sounds of English and Spanish - The University of Iowa

I didn't study from this site, but this is pretty much how I learned to pronounce English sounds: written instructions on how to pronounce each particular sound accompanied with the corresponding mouth anatomy and audios of native English speakers.

I learned the English pronounciation this way in Korea, and although I hadn't had any real-life interactions with native speakers of English there, my pronounciation was perceived quite native-like when I first came to Canada. I still fumble at times when I pronounce words like 'community', 'deodorant', and 'rural route', but overall I think I've now acquired a native North American accent because most native speakers can't tell I'm a non-native unless I tell them or unless I write, in which I make grammatical mistakes quite often.

What I've noticed over the years of interacting with other non-natives is that many of them are well aware of their area of weakness in pronouncing consonants but not vowels. In my humble opinion, mispronounced consonants are not so much of what render speech incomprehensible as mispronounced vowels.

I remember having been instructed to stick one or two fingers vertically between lips to prounce certain vowels, I now forgot which one corresponds to which vowel, but thinking back, that was an interesting method.

- HKB

[MartinGX]

Originally Posted by HaraKiriBlade

Listening to a two-hour lecture certainly has its merits, but you would also benefit from studying individual sounds in detail.

Phonetics: The Sounds of English and Spanish - The University of Iowa

I didn't study from this site, but this is pretty much how I learned to pronounce English sounds: written instructions on how to pronounce each particular sound accompanied with the corresponding mouth anatomy and audios of native English speakers.

I learned the English pronounciation this way in Korea, and although I hadn't had any real-life interactions with native speakers of English there, my pronounciation was perceived quite native-like when I first came to Canada. I still fumble at times when I pronounce words like 'community', 'deodorant', and 'rural route', but overall I think I've now acquired a native North American accent because most native speakers can't tell I'm a non-native unless I tell them or unless I write, in which I make grammatical mistakes quite often.

What I've noticed over the years of interacting with other non-natives is that many of them are well aware of their area of weakness in pronouncing consonants but not vowels. In my humble opinion, mispronounced consonants are not so much of what renders speech incomprehensible as mispronounced vowels.

I remember having been instructed to stick one or two fingers vertically between lips to prounce certain vowels, I now forgot which one corresponds to which vowel, but thinking back, that was an interesting method.

- HKB

Wow. Thanks for your advice. Your experience sounds interesting.

best,
Martin

[sky753]

Originally Posted by blouen

I hope this would help you.

It's right to say that one should have to practice, practice, and practice if you wish to eliminate your strong native accent. This might take some time, of course but most importantly, I think, is to know how and what to practice with.

Since we are not native English speakers, we need time to hear some people with the type of accent we want to follow. Either you wish to have an American, British, or whatever accent you wish to imitate. Some may say that the best accent and most understandable is the neutral accent used by CNN newscasters. But regardless the type, we still need to practice.

What I did with this, is to first determine the type of accent that I would be imitating. I chose the American accent. And then I picked a tape recording with someone lecturing in English. I played that tape again, and again, and again, and again... This will familiarize you with his accent, "So that's how Americans speak." And then I copied ALL that he was saying and tried to say it with him. I was really detailed about his, copying every sounds, words, everything... everything!!! I make sure I would sound like the speaker all the time. Of course, I couldn't copy his voice and accent completely but my accent was neutralized.
And here goes the tip... Practice, practice, and practice... Do this everyday, every time possible...

I work in an on-line tutorial company...teaching English to Asians.

One of my students told me that he had an American teacher in school... and that he(American) sounds just like I do. "I flew to seventh heaven that day."

All the best!!!

I have a question here, which is not related to the accent. Where does" the seventh heaven " originate from ? From Bible? We chinese usually say " the ninth heaven"?

And I admire you that you have obtained the accent similar to that of native Americans. It is very difficult to achieve that unless large amounts of time and efforts has been sacrificed! Countless language learners are wondering how they can impove their language capabilities. The biggest question here is how much time they are willing to spend on it!

You are really something!

[blouen]

Seventh heaven. I don't know. From the Bible. Maybe. But as far as I know the Bible only speaks of the third heaven. Well, I think being in the seventh heaven feels far more than that. Intriguing!

About the accent and time. Well, if someone truly desires to LEARN as much as he can, he should realize that the time he/she spends on studying spells the skills he/she would acquire. If more time you alot for something then more knowledge/skills you will get, and vice versa.