Are you ridiculed because of your accent?
Are you annoyed when people ask you if you can understand English?
Do you want to sound more confident and stylish while speaking the language?
If you answer “Yes” to any of the questions above, you’ve come to the right place.
Do you want to sound like a native speaker? The actual test – that determines you have mastered the language is not the size of your vocabulary or the complicated sentences you use but how you sound.
When you enroll in my spoken English classes online, initially, I help my students focus on their vocabulary and grammar. Once they’ve mastered the basics, I focus on improving their accents. This is because once you build your bad accent habits, it becomes tough to break out of them down the line.
There’s a common misconception among English as foreign language learners – whatever you do; it’s impossible to nail the accent!
Wrong! While it’s true that getting the accent right takes time, you can pick it up with the proper learning methodologies.
Here are the top tips to improve and perfect your accent:
One common mistake that English as a Second Language learners make is that they focus heavily on vocabulary and grammar. While grammar and vocabulary are the building blocks of the language, if you’re looking to improve English fluency and ditch your native accent, you need to get familiar with phonemes.
English is a complex language to master, as the spelling doesn’t often match the pronunciation. For example, consider the word “laugh.” It’s pronounced as “laaf” and not “lau-gh.” Notice the difference in pronunciation and spelling.
Understanding phonemes can help improve fluency in English, as it gives you a clear idea of how to pronounce different sounds. Start by familiarising yourself with the International Phonetic Alphabet. You can watch YouTube videos to learn the different sounds and read English via phonics.
This is an excellent strategy for young kids, especially who are just getting started with learning English. Understanding phonics gives them an advantage, as they can read any word correctly, even when they don’t know its meaning or pronunciation.
This is one of the best ways to improve English speaking. Like parrot mimics humans, you can improve your English accent by copying native speakers. Here’s how to do it:
This is a great strategy to correct your English pronunciation. It also helps to train your vocal muscles to improve your clarity. The vocal muscles are a set of muscles in the throat, mouth and tongue. Different languages activate different parts of the vocal muscles.
Use the parrot technique for around ten to sixty minutes per day. This is a great way to reduce your local accent, develop a neutral accent, and improve your speech clarity.
The syllable is the smallest pronunciation unit. All words in the English language are made up of syllables. A syllable can be a standalone vowel, a consonant, or a combination of both. Here’s a quick refresher: English has five vowels and they are A, E, I, O and U. The rest of the letters are consonants.
Breaking up words into syllables can help you speak better English. For example, consider the phrase “globe.” It has two syllables and is pronounced as “glo-be.” On the contrary, consider the word “fantastic.” It has three syllables and is pronounced: “fan-tas-tic.”
The words you come across in your day-to-day conversations usually have two to four syllables. Breaking words into syllables helps you slow down and pronounce each component carefully and helps to improve your accent.
This technique is handy, especially when encountering larger words with several syllables. For example, let’s say you’re unfamiliar with the word “incomprehensible.” Instead of trying to pronounce it all at once, you can divide it into its syllables, “in-com-pre-hen-si-ble,” and reach each component separately.
Once you have split the word into its syllables, keep repeating it until it begins to sound natural. This is a great technique to tackle unfamiliar words, however big they might be.
The basic structure of Indian languages is entirely different from English. As a result, Indian learners find it challenging to apply the correct stress and intonation of English pronunciation. If you’re just starting to learn English, you might find that your mouth and jaw strain when you read or speak English continuously.
This is one of the main reasons new learners lack fluency, as they’re more focused on reducing the physical stress they experience while conversing in English. Reading aloud is an excellent practice for speaking English fluently.
Just as you train your muscles at the gym, you must train your vocal muscles. The best way to do this is to pick a book or newspaper and read it aloud. Make it a habit to read aloud every day for at least ten minutes. While reading aloud, focus on your intonation, pronunciation and stress. Be mindful of punctuation marks and use the right pauses in the right places.
As you continue this practice regularly, your vocal muscles get trained to read and speak English comfortably for long hours without discomfort. Soon, it’ll become so natural that you’ll stop noticing that you’re conversing in another language.
When it comes to accent improvement, one major decision that you’ll have to make is selecting which accent you want to practise. English is spoken in different countries across the world, and naturally, there are dozens of accents. For example, a British speaker sounds different from an American, and similarly, Americans sound different from Australians, and so on.
Even among British accents, there’s a huge variation depending on the region of the native speaker. For example, Scots have a different accent compared to Londoners, and so on.
So, which is the best accent?
There’s no one accent that’s considered the best. It all depends on your requirements. For example, if you’re planning to pursue higher education in the US, you can practise your American accent to improve your fluency. On the other hand, listening to Australian speakers can help you understand the accent better if you’re migrating to Australia.
My English fluency lessons focus on a neutral accent that helps you acclimate to different regions while developing a more international style suited for all areas.
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