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Tired of getting misunderstood because of your accent? Here are 9 easy tips and tricks to improve your English cadence.
Do you always receive a puzzled look when you speak English out loud? Are you always embarrassed talking in the public because of your different pronunciation? Here’s a fact: you are not the only one who is experiencing this problem. Most English learners wish that they can speak English without an accent.
Accent barriers are very common among bilingual learners, especially those who are studying English as their second or third language. Even if you master sentence formations and proper use of grammar, your different accents can get in the way of your speaking prowess. These situations can be quite frustrating, but its a part of learning a new lingo.
As frustrating as it is, foreign English learners might have to take more learning steps to neutralize their first language accent. Fortunately, there are many easy methods out there that you can do at home to improve your pronunciation. In this article, we’ll show you how to reduce your accent and speak English flawlessly.
Accent: What Is It And Why Do Some People Have It?
According to the Linguistic Society of America, an accent is how someone sounds when speaking. It’s how you pronounce a word, read each syllable, use intonations, and pace the rhythm when communicating verbally with another person. There are two kinds of accents a speaker can develop over time:
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Native accent - acquired by a person when learning his or her first language (usually during childhood)
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Foreign accent - acquired when learning a secondary or tertiary language. This is what people usually meant when referring to the world “accent” colloquially.
All languages have different sets of rules and expectations on how sounds and sentences are spoken aloud. Because of these differences, there are sounds present in some languages that are missing in others (e.g. “L” doesn’t exist in Nihongo).
The Importance of Accent and How It Affects Out Conversations
When a language learner encounters an unfamiliar sound or lip form, he or she might struggle in pronunciation and intonation. To make things easier, the learner would likely use similarly-sounding phonetic from his or her first language as a substitute. A good example of this is when Japanese speakers substitute “R” for the “L” when speaking in English.
This sound substitution is how a foreign accent is identified. When the pronunciation doesn’t quite match up with the expected language standard in an area, it confuses the native speakers.
The substituted sound feels “wrong” and weird in their ears because that’s not how they originally learned it. Heavily accented words and sentences are sometimes not understandable to them completely. Take a heavily accented British “Wotah” for example. If you speak this word in a place where American Accent is prevalent, locals might misunderstand your word for something else than “Water”.
Let’s continue the former example of L and R in Nihongo. Although “R” is the nearest substitute for “L”, it will still not sound the same because the difference is still there. “Rorripop” doesn’t sound the same as “Lollipop”. Native speakers can detect the difference easily. That’s why it’s possible to know if someone lives in a certain area just by speech patterns.
Languages evolve differently based on how speakers in a certain area use it. Hence, even speakers of the same language would often have different accents based on where they live. (e.g. British accent, American accent, Texan accent, etc).
Since accents are heavily connected to the environment where it developed, the distinction is only noticeable to locals when talking to non-local speakers. Two non-local language learners would likely not notice that they’re pronouncing words incorrectly unless a native speaker corrects them.
Accents can cause ineffective communication due to communication barriers. With regular practice, a foreign speaker can learn how to produce the sound properly, reducing the effect of accent in speech.
Is It Possible To Change Your Accent Permanently?
Now that we know what accent is and how it affects conversations, its time to face the elephant in the room. Is it possible to change your accent permanently? Is learning to speak English without an accent possible?
The answer is: yes!
Changing an accent is possible. In fact, we constantly change our accents as we encounter and learn new languages, new cultures, and behavioral changes in life. However, it takes a lot of time, effort, and practice before you can notice drastic changes.
Unlearning a whole language is the only way to erase an accent permanently (which is obviously impossible). Your native accent will affect all the new languages that you would attempt to learn. Hence, speaking English can be a walk in the park or pain in the neck, depending on what your first language is.
The best way to improve your speaking skills is by neutralizing your native accent until it starts to get less noticeable. You can do this by training your speech and emulating how native speakers talk.
Here are 9 things you can do to minimize the effect of your native accent and get better at speaking English.
9 Things You Can Do To Minimize Your Accent And Improve Your English
1. Familiarize Yourself With Different English Pronunciations
Depending on your native language, you might or might not encounter any problems when learning English pronunciation. Choose the English accent that you want to learn and familiarize yourself with its pronunciation rules and schticks.
Take note: the same language can sound very alienating when two extremely different accents clash in a conversation.
One of the best ways to know the proper pronunciation of a word (especially in the American accent) is to use Google Translate. Set the language to English and type the word you want to test in the space provided. Click the “Listen” icon and pay attention to how the narrator says each syllable.
The online Cambridge Dictionary is also a good resource for checking out your pronunciation. Always check the pronunciation of new words first before attempting to say it out loud to shorten the learning curve.
2. Practice Your English By Reading Out Loud
There’s a lot of reasons why a lot of people fear speaking in English out loud: and one of those reasons is getting embarrassed. This is especially true for people who only learned English as a second or third language. What if I say the wrong word? What if I mess up the pronunciation? What if my accent messes things up, and what I say becomes incomprehensible to the audience?
This is where the sayings, “Practice Makes Perfect” makes the most sense.
The more you practice your English speaking skills, the better and clearer you become to the audience.
Also, by reading out loud, you would be able to recognize the areas you need to improve on your pronunciation and accent reduction. It’s better to mess up during practice than messing up on real conversations.
3. Consume More English Content
There are tons of English content that can easily be found on the Internet nowadays. With a simple browser search, you can find tons of materials such as books, videos, and even online articles to improve your English speaking skills. And most of them are free resources, as long as you can make time for learning, you’re all set.
You’d be surprised by how easier you can learn more even just by watching an entertaining English video. Listening to English content regularly can train your ears to pick up how intonation, word stress, and pronunciation work in the accent you prefer. Of course, don’t forget to do your regular pronunciation practice to train your mouth in forming different forms and sounds.
4. Slow Down And Keep Your Sentences Short
According to a 2014 journal by Melissa Redford (Department of Linguistics, University of Oregon), speakers with a faster speech rate are more likely to be perceived as better at speaking than their slower counterparts.
However, this perception only occurs when The speaker already has good speech motor skills using English (or another second language). Even if you have a fast speech rate, if your pronunciation is not polished, you would end up incomprehensible to the listener.
If you’re new to a language, you might have to slow down and keep your sentences short to convey your thoughts more clearly. Meanwhile, this practice is helpful in polishing your pronunciation as you slowly assimilate your speech and reduce your foreign accent.
Once your speech motor skills in English is better, you will notice that your vowels and consonant sounds are also shorter, but clearer and more localized.
5. Fun Practice With Tongue Twisters
Tongue twisters are are sequences of words that are difficult to pronounce. It is usually designed to be a spoken word game that creates a humorous situation when the speaker mispronounces something.
For English learners, as well as accent reduction, this can be done as a fun exercise. According to the study result mentioned above, tongue twisters spoken in faster rate are perceived to be better articulated. Record yourself while speaking tongue twisters to see the areas where you need to practice pronunciation and accent.
6. Reduce Your Accent By Singing
Have you ever wondered why Adele doesn’t sound British while she’s singing? Her Cockney accent disappears when she hits the record or sing on stage.
It is widely believed that singing can actually neutralize accents. This is because singing, the pace of the singer’s articulation is actually slower, clearer, and has better pronunciation.
Most singers are unaware of this accent neutralization effect. But it is largely believed by Peter Trudgill (Stanford University, 1997) that this neutralization happens subconsciously and is affected by conversations with persons that have different accents that our own.
7. Mimic Other People
Mimicking what other people do is the best way to learn, and this is especially true in language learning. What’s good about this technique is that you can do it subconsciously.
According to a study from the University of California in 2010, people who are new in the area usually adapt speech patterns and foreign accents from new people around them.
8. Ask Native Speaker For Feedback
Feedback can be scorned upon or feared by tons of foreign language learners all around the world. After all, nobody wants to get embarrassed because of wrong pronunciation or grammatical errors.
But if you’re trying to neutralize your accent to speak English better, the best and shortest way to do so is to know what area you perform poorly and fix your shortcomings. A native speaker’s good feedback is very helpful in this case.
9. Practice Your English Regularly
And last but not least, practice your English regularly. Use a recorder while speaking and analyze what you’re doing wrong when your pronunciation doesn’t sound right. Remember to keep yourself relaxed and don’t stress over things if everything is going properly. Like any other skill, speaking En\glish and losing our accent takes time and practice.
Final Thoughts
Developing an accent is just one of the byproducts of learning a new language. But if your accent is too strong, it can affect the clarity of your pronunciation and overall cadence.
This can become a communication barrier when talking to native speakers. Fortunately, accents can be changed and be neutralized over time with the help of pronunciation improvement.
So keep practicing on your verbal English skills and you’ll find yourself on the top of your game.
If you’re still having some difficulties in working with your accent, you can get help from JustLearn’s list of reliable tutors and native speakers.
