I’ve been on my first accent adventure – which is the General American Pronunciation mission – for nearly 3 months now, and I believe I’m ready to draw the line here and move on to the next mission!
I’ve been practicing my American pronunciation on a daily basis, and I believe I’ve made a fairly good progress.
However, I’ll let you be the judge of it so please watch the video above and let me know what you think about my American pronunciation in the comments below ❗
Mission Accomplished.
I’ll Get Back to It Again Though!
Even though I’m going to start learning a new accent in the near future, I’ll definitely keep my American accent sharp by practicing it every now and then.
You know what they say – if you don’t use it, you’ll lose it, and I’m afraid the very same goes with accents. If I don’t put my American pronunciation to good use on a regular basis, I’ll simply lose the ability to speak with that accent fluently, and I definitely don’t want that to happen.
Of course, I won’t be practicing my American and British English – which is my next mission by the way! – at the same time to avoid any influences that might hamper my progress.
Most of the time I’ll be practicing my British English, and the American pronunciation will take a backseat – I’ll probably limit it to a couple times a week.
Most Valuable Lesson Learned
Before I started this blog, I thought it’s nearly impossible to adopt a new accent AND be able to speak fluently at the same time.
The biggest problem I was facing was how to focus on both – pronunciation AND what I’m saying simultaneously.
My previous experiences lead me to believe that it’s almost impossible to achieve, however, now I know different. I realized that with enough PRACTICE, everything is possible! 😉
Yes, that’s the most valuable lesson I learned during my first accent adventure :
You’ve just gotta stick with it, and after a while the accent becomes your second nature!
At some stage many of us have probably drawn the same conclusion that accent acquisition isn’t for us, that we simply don’t have a talent for it. It turns out that the answer is in a lot of practicing; accent isn’t something you can acquire within a day or two!
You can learn to mimic an American or an Englishman by learning a couple of sentences, however, the ability to speak with this or that particular accent comes only through long hours of constant speech practice!
How I’m Going to Use the American Pronunciation
I live in Ireland, and people around here speak with their own accent. Well, in fact there are dozens of different accents spoken in Ireland, but that’s not the point.
The real question is – were I’m going to use my American pronunciation skills if I don’t live in the States?
For one thing, it’s not really practical to use the American pronunciation when speaking with Irish people because my subliminal desire is to mimic their accent. Well, I did notice that some traces of my American pronunciation found their way into my daily conversations with my Irish work colleagues, however, I’d rather wait till I start learning the Irish accent and use it in the native environment than standing out with my American accent.
The only really practical application is my videos I’m making for this blog and also for EnglishHarmony.com, and to be honest with you – it’s more than enough!
Even though I might never go to the States in my lifetime, I can still speak like an American in front of a large online foreign English speaking audience to inspire them and that’s more than enough for me.
Also, most likely I’ll do interviews with American English speakers for this blog to see how well I perform in real-life conversations, so I think it was definitely worth investing time and effort in mastering the General American Pronunciation.
Chat soon,
Robby
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