The ‘ash’ sound is something I’ve been struggling for quite some time during my American English practice sessions.
It all started when I received a comment on one of my YouTube videos saying that my General American Pronunciation is quite good except for the pronunciation of certain words – ‘can’ among them. It made me listen to how native American English speakers pronounce that word, and I realized that real life pronunciation actually differs from the phonetic transcript!
Any dictionary will tell you ‘can’ is pronounced as [kæn] where the middle vowel is called ‘ash’.
What I observed in countless of videos and interviews watched on YouTube was quite different – ‘can’ is actually pronounced somewhere in between [kɛn] and [kæn]; basically they don’t open their mouth as wide as when pronouncing the letter ‘A’ in words such as ‘gas’ or ‘mad’, for example!
In the following weeks I spotted a whole array of words where the letter ‘A’ pronunciation in real life is different from the formal phonetic transcript; here’s a short list of those words just to give you an idea of what exactly I’m talking about here:
Here’s the type of comments I’ve been getting on my East-European accent over the years:
Your English is almost fluent, now you should improve your pronunciation and then you’d sound almost like a native English speaker!
You have a terrible accent bro; you should reduce your accent first and then start teaching others!
Ha-ha, what a strong Latvian accent, you should really be ashamed of yourself!
And here’s what I think about it:
I know for a fact that I speak fluently and I don’t care about my accent; fluency doesn’t necessarily imply one’s ability to speak with a native-like pronunciation.
One’s ability to teach their fellow foreigner English speakers on how to speak fluently and confidently rather depends on the ability to motivate the other person and help them unleash their true potential than on the teacher’s own perfection.
As for such openly rude remarks on my pronunciation as “your accent sucks” and similar – I simply ignore them.
I don’t allow it get under my skin for the simple reason that they’re not going to be helpful to me in any way, shape or form.
Even now when I’m working on my English pronunciation and accent as part of the accent learning missions, I’d simply let those naysayers voice their opinion and then move on in my accent practicing routine. The simple fact of life is that you’ll never be able to please everybody, and here’s a typical proof for that…
If you’ve been following my blog for some time, you’ll know I’d been engaged in Received Pronunciation acquisition for more than three months.
Now I’m going to revisit the General American Pronunciation for a couple weeks in order to fine-tune it and make it more native-like, so you’ll see a few videos posted on this blog within the next couple of weeks dedicated to the American English.
Today I’m going to focus on one of the most characteristic sounds in the American English – namely, the DARK ‘L’ SOUND.
I believe that if you learn the American ‘R’ sound as well as the dark ‘L’ sound, you’re English is immediately going to resemble that of a native American English speaker, so make sure to watch the video above if you’re not sure of the differences between the two types of ‘L’ sounds in American English!
We’ve all heard the following notion – you’ve just got to be dropped into a native English speaking environment, and you’ll quite naturally absorb the local slang, accent and pronunciation peculiarities!
There are also those who believe in the critical second language acquisition theory, and those folks will hold to a belief that an adolescent foreigner is simply incapable of learning a native-like English accent.
So who’s right?
Is accent being ‘absorbed’ by you at a subconscious level?
Or is it only possible to speak like natives if you immigrated to an English speaking country in your early teens at latest – ideally you’d have to have been a child between the ages of 4 – 8?
My personal experience tells me nothing is clear-cut in real life.
A youngster may retain his foreign accent for the rest of his life, yet some other person might develop his or her pronunciation to a fairly high native-like standard in their late teens or early twenties!
I believe that in order to answer this question we need to look beyond a person’s age and the fact that they’ve migrated to an English speaking country. There are other factors contributing into what is going to determine a foreigner’s success in terms of accent acquisition, so let’s look at them right now ❗
I’ve been learning to speak with a British accent for almost 4 months now, and now it’s the right time to conclude this accent learning mission so that I can start revisiting my General American Pronunciation and work on certain details of it to make it more native-like.
Here’s what I’ve learned during the last 16 weeks while I’ve been practicing the British accent or the so called Received Pronunciation.
1. Your Own English Pronunciation Wasn’t Perfect in the Beginning!
Unless you’re exceptionally gifted in terms of accent acquisition, the chances are that your English pronunciation wasn’t always as good as it is now 😉 Your pronunciation changes over time, and the simple truth is that the more you speak, the more native-like your pronunciation becomes.
Sure enough, there’s probably no way for you to tell what your pronunciation was like 3 or 5 years ago, but I’m pretty sure that if you heard a few years old recording of your speech, you’d notice a considerable difference!
I’ve had the same experiences, and I don’t even have to go as far back as 5 years. I only have to check one of my YouTube videos done a couple of years ago to hear how different my speech is to the way I speak currently.
The point is – you weren’t that good right from the get-go, so you have to understand that if you hear someone speaking with a heavy accent, most likely they haven’t been speaking in English for as long as you have. And even if they have, it still doesn’t justify your judgment because…
I’m back with another British accent or the so-called Received Pronunciation video, and this time around I’m going to tell you how to pronounce word endings and omit vowels in longer words in order to sound like a native British English speaker!
This piece of advice is quite easy to implement – all you have to do is literally SPIT OUT the last couple of syllables of every longer word you pronounce.
What constitutes a ‘longer word’?
Let’s look at the this article and pick out a few words that would have to be pronounced by ‘spitting out’ so that you can clearly see what’s a short and what’s a long word for the purposes of this particular technique you have to use.
A lot of my fellow foreign English speakers are concerned about their English pronunciation, and while improving pronunciation doesn’t necessarily involve working on your accent, the two things often go hand in hand, and that’s why I decided to write an article about improving pronunciation in general.
First let me tell you a few critical things you should bear in mind when working on your English pronunciation.
1. It’s not about listening, it’s all about speaking!
You may listen all you want, but at the end of the day it’s all about YOU using your MOUTH and training it to pronounce English words in a certain way. Sure enough, listening is an integral part of the whole process, but it ALWAYS has to be followed by spoken practice!
2. You don’t necessarily have to choose a particular English accent to resemble!
I’m taking on different English accents – such as American or British – in my Accent Learning Missions in order to prove that anyone is capable of learning to speak with a native-like English accent. In my daily life, however, I don’t speak with a particular accent, and my ‘standard pronunciation’ is a mix of different accents. You may as well embrace the same approach when improving your own English pronunciation!
Also, ignore other people’s opinion if they’re too judgemental of the way you speak. Have an open mind, and be 100% focused on mimicking native English speakers instead of thinking of how silly you may sound when trying to pronounce this or that particular word.
And now, let’s look at ways you can work on your pronunciation. And by the way, this is exactly how I work on my spoken English when learning to speak with specific English accents ❗
But you simply wouldn’t stand a chance sounding remotely similar to an Englishman or an Englishwoman if you didn’t get your ‘T’ and ‘D’ sounds right ❗
So if you’re interested in how I go about my daily British accent practice and how I pronounce word combinations such as ‘You’ve got to do it right’ (this sentence has a ‘T’ or a ‘D’ sound in almost every word, by the way!), please watch the video above!
I was mimicking American English speakers, I was doing a lot of self-practice, and by the end of September I announced the General American Pronunciation mission accomplished. There are quite a few things I still have to improve upon when it comes to my ability to sound like an American coming from Midwest region. By and large, however, I learned all the basics and I was quite happy with my progress on the American mission!
Next mission I took on this year is the British accent or the so-called Received Pronunciation.
Currently I’m in my third month of the mission, and I’m quite hopeful to finish it off early next year, so that I can start revisiting my American pronunciation and also plan the next accent learning missions.
And here are my plans in terms of my accent learning and improvement for the year 2013:
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