Many people, when expressing themselves in a foreign language, wish to lose their accent or at least change it in order to be understood more easily. In this article you will receive instructions that will explain, step by step, how to speak in English without your accent.
Steps
Step 1. Practice with vowel sounds
The English language has 5 graphic vowels (a, e, i, o, u) but 12 vowel sounds (/ i: /, / ɪ /, / e /, / æ /, / ɑ: /, / ɒ /, / ɔ: /, / ʊ /, / u: /, / ʌ /, / ɜ: /, / ə /) and about 26 consonant sounds.
Step 2. Listen and repeat many examples of words spoken by a native English speaker
Find an accent pattern you would like to imitate.
Step 3. Make sure you open your mouth adequately to pronounce words correctly and read them aloud for at least half an hour a day
Step 4. Practice the / th / sound
The sound / th / is pronounced behind the teeth, at the point where / d / and / t / are pronounced in many languages. It is not produced by putting the tongue between the teeth.
Step 5. Emphasize the correct syllable if the word is polysyllable
English is an accent-based language.
Step 6. Speak slowly
Finish saying one word before starting another. Remember to pronounce the final consonants.
Step 7. Watch the English language TV channels and listen carefully to each word, then practice your pronunciation
Step 8. Listen to something in English every day:
movies, songs, audio books, news or more.
Step 9. Buy a dictionary with phonetic pronunciation of words and use it to practice
Advice
- Losing your accent is like learning to speak without a distinctly regional cadence.
- Learning a new accent means, above all, learning the typical sounds, rhythm, tones, prosody, intonation and structure of that accent. To do this, you need to "tune" your ear to that particular accent you wish to learn.
- Practice for 15 minutes a day over a few weeks.
- If you want to learn a new accent, the best and fastest way is to try to imitate a native speaker. Remember that when you were a child you learned to speak your language by listening and repeating words and imitating the accent.
- If you can expand your hearing skills, speaking without an accent will become an automatism. When the ear is able to truly "hear" a sound, the mouth can pronounce it better.
- Learn local expressions. Learn what particular expressions are used in your area to express a concept (eg "a lot of" rather than "a lot of").
- Watch TV programs in English with English subtitles.
- In English almost all consonants are grouped two by two, i.e. each pair of consonants is pronounced the same way inside the mouth. The only difference between one consonant and the other in a pair is that one is pronounced by making a sound in the throat (voiced consonant), while the other is pronounced without making any sound (voiceless consonant). An example of a consonant pair is given by / p / and / b /.
- Rhythm relates to the time span of a period or phrase. It corresponds to the way in which we emphasize the syllables, with strong or weak accents, when we pronounce the sentences. When learning a new cadence it is very important to understand exactly where the accents go.
