After a quick breakfast and my morning cup of coffee I’m turning my camcorder on and starting to record a video;
Next thing – video editing. Long story short, the video needs to be uploaded onto my English Harmony YouTube channelso I can’t really avoid doing it, can I?
After that I need to publish a short blog post to go with that video onto my EasyIdioms.com blog;
And then I’m off to work!
After a hard day’s work, I’m arriving home, having my dinner and doing the dishes for the entire family;
Another video! This time around, it’s the American Phrase video to go onto this blog!
Same old, same old – editing, uploading the video onto my Accent Adventure YouTube channel, publishing the blog post here on this blog…
A while back I received a really uplifting and motivational comment on one of my YouTube videos recorded in the early stages of the British Accent learning mission.
To cut the long story short, the commentator thanked me for the British accent learning related advice I’m providing on my website and my YouTube channel. What struck me most, however, was the fact that the person in question was looking for advice on how to speak with an Australian accent for the simple reason that he’s going to emigrate at some stage in the near future, yet he found my British accent advice quite helpful because British accent is not so dissimilar from the Australian one after all.
I also got a comment from a chap in Mexico saying that my British accent or the so called Received Pronunciation is quite good and he’d thought at first I was a native British English speaker!
Needless to say, such and similar comments are very motivational and are making me realize that not all my native-like English accent learning attempts are a complete waste of time.
Well, of course I’m just being modest now – and for a good reason! I don’t want to become delusional and believe I’m capable of learning just about any English accent in the world (which was pretty much my initial plan on this blog). Sometimes it’s necessary to do a reality check in order to keep doing the right thing, and personally for me that moment came when I decided to keep focusing on 2 main English accents – British and American – instead of trying to learn dozens of them.
The positive followers’ feedback, however, has reminded me of a very important aspect of English accent learning which I’d almost forgotten while doing the reality check.
In this American pronunciation video I’m trying to stretch words just like American English speakers would do.
If you haven’t got a clue as to what I’m talking about here, head straight to YouTube and watch a couple of videos where American English speakers speak – President Obama would be a good example – and you’ll definitely notice there’s a specific intonation to their speech.
Of course, I’m not claiming to have mastered the native-like American accent by 100%, but personally I’m quite pleased with the way I sound and I think I’ve successfully applied ‘stretching’ on my American English speech.
I’ll let you be the judge of it, however, so please don’t hesitate to post comments below and let me know what you think about my American accent!
Now that my online presence has grown tremendously over the last few years, I keep getting reminded of the existence of those foreign accent related myths on a regular basis so I decided to share the most popular ones with you!
It goes without saying, of course, that I’m also going to debunk those myths based on my own experience dealing with other foreign English speakers for a good number of years.
Tonight I was writing an article to be published on this blog in a few days’ time, and all the while I was writing, I kept speaking out loud in British accent.
It’s an ideal way of practicing your accent, and that’s what I normally do anyway when creating a written piece of content – I speak out loud! It helps me verbalize my thoughts and put them up on the screen in a written format, and I do pretty much the same thing when I write articles for my other blog at EnglishHarmony.com.
I spent just over an hour engaged in that particular exercise, and next thing on my schedule was taking my dog for a walk. I’m still feeling a little bit unwell so I decided not to go for a run; instead we just walked to the nearby church yard and I let my dog run around the field and do his doggy things!
I started this blog in June 2012 because I wanted to make a specific statement and send a strong message to my fellow foreign English speakers:
American, British or any other native-like English accent is an acquired skill and one may choose to learn it or not. Speaking with a foreign accent is fine for as long as you’re understood, but there’s nothing wrong with learning native-like English pronunciation either.
Now, ten months on, having completed two accent learning missions – American and British – I’ve drawn certain conclusions which are going to affect the way I intended to run this project.
My vision was to take on various English language accents including Irish, Australian, Scottish, New York – you name it! – and learn them to a degree of proficiency when anyone can immediately tell that I’m speaking with this or that particular accent.
Turns out it ain’t that simple.
Yes, I’m quite able to master new ways of pronouncing English words and usually after a month or so in an accent learning mission I would normally develop the ability to speak quite fluently in my target accent.
I got the following YouTube comment on my previous British accent video:
It was a blow to my morale, to be honest with you. No sugar-coating, no hiding behind nice words. Just a matter-of-factly statement that my Received Pronunciation is nowhere near being native-like and that I’m better off speaking with my own accent.
I was feeling quite crappy, to be honest with you guys, and I even considered quitting this Accent Adventure project altogether because the harsh reality hammered home – “I’m bad at accent learning, and I’ll never sound like a native English speaker…”
A couple of minutes later I started analysing the whole thing, and here’s what I realized.
Normally I would spend anywhere between 10 – 30 minutes doing some spoken English self-practice in order to get into my target English accent – be it American or British.
Today I decided to record a video on how I sound when I just start speaking with my target accent; basically I was willing to take the risk and sound way off my normal Received Pronunciation just so that you can hear that sometimes it’s not possible to speak the way you want without warming up your mouth!
The moment I started speaking, however, I realized that I’m doing quite OK. I didn’t have any difficulties with just SAYING things out loud without thinking too much about HOW to say this or that particular word, so by and large I was satisfied with the way my British accent practice session began.
I’ll let you be the judge of it, however, so you’re welcome to watch the video above to see how my British accent is going without any preparation at all!
Today I started doing some serious British accent spoken English self-practice while driving to work, and it’s all done with one end-goal in mind: to spruce up my Received Pronunciation and make it more native-like ❗
I kept speaking with myself with the British accent even while at work for the first hour simply because I was all on my own, and towards the end of that hour I felt quite confident in terms of being able to speak fluently with my target accent.
You see, the biggest problem I’ve always had is being able to change from speaking with my standard accent into speaking with my target accent, and sometimes it may take quite some time.
Also, considering I hadn’t been practicing my British accent for a longer period of time, it’s only common sense that my pronunciation would have gotten a bit rusty, so I’m not really bothered by that!
As always, I’m looking forward to achieving new goals and improving my accent to an even greater degree, and such small setbacks can’t possibly hold be back.
I’m motivated.
I’m driven.
And I’m going to enjoy every step of the way while revisiting my British accent!
Sorry for the unannounced break, but I just had to take some time off this blog for the simple reason that I had to finish off my latest project Fluency Gym!
Now I’m back – hopefully not at square #1 though! – and I still have to revisit my British Accent before I can start my next accent learning mission which is going to be the Irish accent.
I know, I know – if you don’t use it, you lose it – so probably some damage has been done over the last few weeks and I’ve lost some of my acquired British accent.
I’m hopeful, however, that I’m quite able to regain everything that’s lost within a few days spoken English practice, and I’m looking forward to constant improvement after that.
At least I’ve been practicing my General American Pronunciation almost on a daily basis, so not everything is doom and gloom when it comes to my accent learning routine!
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