June 25, 2015

026: How to get a good accent quickly?

18 minutes

Ferdaous asks: "I'm learning English, how can I develop a good American accent quickly?"

In this episode:

Why a good accent is important

The difference between phonemes and prosody

Why developing a good accent is the result of extensive communication in your target language

Tips for improving your accent:

Tackle pronunciation immediately with a native speaker to perfect your pronunciation, before you develop any bad habits.

Observe native speakers in action and their voices when they interact, especially at key social moments, such as introductions or meeting friends. If you only work with a teacher, how is their voice when they greet you? This is often the most authentic moment of the conversation. TV and movies are also a good place to focus in on this.

Imitate how native speakers say common words and phrases that you’re familiar with. Try to copy their exact intonation, and say it aloud over and over. If you’re working with audio recordings, this app is incredibly useful for this.

Copy body language too. Face, arm, and shoulder movements are intimately related in the persona that you’re developing in your target language.

Learn and sing songs. Using songs to learn languages is an effective way to focus on the pronunciation of words and the rhythm and flow of the language.

Develop mini-speeches. Writing, preparing and learning the words that you’re going to say frees you up to focus on the delivery.

Use study material with native-like audio. Listen to long dialogues on repeat and pay close attention to the melody of the language.

Practise whole lines of dialogues, not just single words. Try to embody the emotions of what’s being said, feel the speaker’s joy or pain, and become that person in that moment. Similarly, with spaced repetition software, work on whole sentences rather than individual words.

In live situations, focus on the effect on the listener, instead of the accuracy of your pronunciation.

If possible, record and listen back to yourself speaking with native speakers. This can be rough, but you might be amazed at how you hear yourself. If you find it hard to speak with native speakers, think of ways to beat your fear of speaking.

Today's homework:

Choose one activity from the list above

Try it out for a week

Leave me a comment below to let me know how it goes!

Also, I'd love it if you could share this post on Facebook or Twitter - it helps me reach new people and is really appreciated!

Do you have a question?

Ask me your language learning questions by clicking here, and I'll do my best to feature it on the show! Also, please subscribe to the show on iTunes to get automatic updates.

Thanks so much for listening to this episode of the podcast! If you've got any comments about the show then please leave them in the "comments" section below! If you'd like to help me out, then I'd love it if you could...

Share the episode using the social media buttons around you

Leave an honest review and rating of the podcast on iTunes (click here to do that)

iTunes reviews in particular really help the rankings of the podcast and help me to reach other aspiring language learners out there! See you in the next episode of the I Will Teach You A Language podcast!

---

Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/iwillteachyoualanguage/message

...more

View all episodes

By Olly Richards

4.9

244244 ratings