Want to remove my thick accent

Hi! So I finally decided to join this forum to ask how I can remove my thick accent. I was from the Philippines and currently living in US.

My accent is really affecting my confidence and the worst thing is a classmate of mine is always making me feel bad whenever I speak.

It's been only about a month since I started going to this English speaking school. I know some of you will say, "just practice by speaking" yes I've been practicing, whenever I study I read it out loud but still I don't think it's helping me at all.

So do you guys have any other specific advice?

Can you identify the sounds you have difficulty with?

I think the most difficult words are the ones that end in T then will be followed by any other word.

For example, "What do you need?", "But I'm not sure about this."

The T sound is so thick when I say it so there's always a pause before I say the next word.

Let me also add words that have the T in the middle like "Better" "Matter" etc.

If you can afford, seek help from an accent reduction coach. After that, pursue other accent reduction tapes sold on the net.

Others may suggest you to use the book like Ann Cook's American accent. I don't think this is not that helpful, since you need someone to show how to make various sounds and correct you as you go.

I have been using a program called SpeechSchool.TV which provides online video training. Using the exercises I have mostly removed my accent now and am getting great feedback from others.

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Originally Posted by corlione

Hi! So I finally decided to join this forum to ask how I can remove my thick accent. I was from the Philippines and currently living in US.

My accent is really affecting my confidence and the worst thing is a classmate of mine is always making me feel bad whenever I speak.

It's been only about a month since I started going to this English speaking school. I know some of you will say, "just practice by speaking" yes I've been practicing, whenever I study I read it out loud but still I don't think it's helping me at all.

So do you guys have any other specific advice?

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How long have you been speaking English? It can take a long time to reduce your accent. As you said, you've only been at the English-speaking school for a month. That's no time at all!

As far as your classmate who makes you feel bad goes, is he a native English speaker? If so, ignore him. Even better, ask him just how much Tagalog he speaks! No-one should ever make fun of someone who has mastered a foreign language and, no matter what your accent is like, your English is clearly very good judging by this post.