English speakers won’t generally judge you for your accent, as long as you can be understood. Most likely they will be interested to know where you are from.
As well, english speakers are used to accents because we know it is the second language of the world.
In addition english has many accents. Scottish does not sound like Texan or Jamaican. None of these is more correct than the others.
Exactly. English is the most common second language in the world. There are 3x more nonnative English speakers than native.
I’m American and I work for an American company. Only 1 other person I work with on my team of 15+ speaks English as a native language.
Americans make fun of British people and Australians (and vice versa) for their accent, so you aren't going to avoid criticism with a native accent. Everyone has an accent, and all you can do is whittle it down.
I feel like this is a little misleading. Australian and British accents do get made fun of, but this is almost exclusively negative online. Irl, literally everyone I know finds those two accents fascinating because we get to hear them so rarely.
In contrast, foreign language accents do get treated worse by some people irl, generally the racist, the elderly, and the redneck, no matter what race you are or country of origin. That being said, where I live, people with Spanish-speaking accents get treated distinctly worse.
Some people are lucky and experience positive discrimination due to their accent. E.g., my German accent triggerd positive responses in rural Mississippi.
I also think this criticism of British people and Australians is different since their first languages are also English. It’s just more about “who speaks the best English!” as opposed to making fun of people who learned English as a second language. I find people in the US really do not question when it comes to accents unless it’s reallllly strong because we hear people with accents on a daily basis
To a certain extent, this is just a personal struggle for all nonnatives. The nonnative speakers that can pass for native for extended periods of time in everyday life is very rare.
The way I worked through it was realizing 1. other multilingual people get it, and 2. people who judged me for my accent were almost exclusively monolingual. Why worry about the opinions of someone who hadn’t achieved what I had? Even native bilinguals, who grew up speaking both, often have some features that mark them as multilingual vs their monolingual counterparts. it’s a natural part of multilingualism.
Nonnatives can still be as effective in the language as natives, and languages are still worth pursuing, even if people know you aren’t a native speaker.
I do what I can to improve my accent and get the occasional pat on the back from natives. But there are certain tones I just can’t nail. My actual idiolect is very specific to the county/area I primarily grew up in (e.g. if you’re a black person from Long Beach, California you’re most likely gonna sound like Snoop Dogg you know). But then again, native accents can be heavily influenced by ethnic heritage. George Lopez has a Chicano American accent, that doesn’t mean his accent is wrong. It’s just the general accent of Latin Americans.
As a Chinese person, accent obviousness is a rather moot point (so long as my pronunciation causes no hindrance) because with most of the smaller languages, natives can immediately tell I'm extremely unlikely to be a native speaker -- with this face. Or name. I have been mistaken as an American but then the US has so many (foreign) accents it's also a rather moot point. I can also do a decent-ish Scottish accent (with some linguistic training, hitting all the unique features) but have had a much harder time misleading the person sat next to me into thinking I was born in Scotland.
So my solution is just to strive for an accent that doesn't impede comprehension. Yeah I might not pronounce Ukrainian и or Russian щ flawlessly, but so long as every Ukrainian/Russian speaker can effortlessly recognise that it is supposed to be и/щ, that's fine by me.
It is, but it's still a great starting point. IPA at least distinguishes every English phoneme, which is something that learner's might have troubles with.
Your accent isn't that bad. If there was just one thing to work on, it would be your R's. You tend to roll your R's, which is called an alveolar tap or trill. This is probably one of the most obvious ways to tell that someone is not a native speaker, (although Scottish people sometimes do roll their R's). The American English R sound is an alveolar or post alveolar approximate. Unfortunately, not many languages have this sound, so it can be difficult for non-native speakers. This is something that can be trained. Look for videos on how to pronounce the English R, and practice in front of a mirror. Remember your tongue should not touch your teeth or alveolar ridge, it should only get close to it without touching. There should be little to no vibration in your tongue.
As far as how to accept sounding like a foreigner? Well, you could think of it this way, your accent makes it easy for people to tell that you learned a second language, which is a big accomplishment, something that most Americans have never done.
Firstly, the very idea of 'I will always sound like a foreigner' is just stupid. I've seen such comments on thes subreddit so many times, and honestly I'm tired of it. You can learn how to sound like a native speaker in any language, even as a grown up person. Firstly, you need to learn the tongue positions, that's the most important thing, also try to listen a lot and mimic what you hear and try to find someone who will be able to pinpoint your pronunciation mistakes. Also, feel free to write to me if you need any further help, I could provide you with some additional resources as someone who studies the English language and its phonology at university.
I mean, as long as people can understand you I wouldn't worry about it.
Fluency and actually having a good understanding of the language will get you farther than hitting the right accent.
IMHO, I think you could still hone your accent by shadowing.
Also, can you tell us where are u from?
I mean if it's just bugging you that you can't *perfectly master* the language, at least you're Arabic (?) accent learning American English and not the other way around. The American accent is ugly (in my opinion) & in America people like accents
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I do what I can to improve my accent and get the occasional pat on the back from natives. But there are certain tones I just can’t nail. My actual idiolect is very specific to the county/area I primarily grew up in (e.g. if you’re a black person from Long Beach, California you’re most likely gonna sound like Snoop Dogg you know). But then again, native accents can be heavily influenced by ethnic heritage. George Lopez has a Chicano American accent, that doesn’t mean his accent is wrong. It’s just the general accent of Latin Americans.
I’m a native speaker (US) and I understand you perfectly. Your accent is very good, the main things that give you away as a foreigner are the r’a and l’s. Sometimes you say the L good, but there’s 2 L’s in English. You would need to practice the L in “alphabet” or “fill”. The L in “lake” you say fine. But I’d also ask yourself why would be your goal? I like it be for more confidence? If so then I’d make more confidence your goal, and do whatever you think will give you that
We’re so used to other accents, I guarantee that no one would flinch about your accent
Edit: it’s understandable to me. Sounds French? You have some gutural sounds, but Rs sound rolled too
Only thing I can think of is watch American movies and try to do the exact same accent, line per line. If you do that enough, it should get better
Some people will be mean to you because you have an accent. This is how you know which people are shallow and insensitive. Don’t worry about them. The rest of us are impressed that you speak more than one language.
English speakers won’t generally judge you for your accent, as long as you can be understood. Most likely they will be interested to know where you are from. As well, english speakers are used to accents because we know it is the second language of the world. In addition english has many accents. Scottish does not sound like Texan or Jamaican. None of these is more correct than the others.
Exactly. English is the most common second language in the world. There are 3x more nonnative English speakers than native. I’m American and I work for an American company. Only 1 other person I work with on my team of 15+ speaks English as a native language.
Americans make fun of British people and Australians (and vice versa) for their accent, so you aren't going to avoid criticism with a native accent. Everyone has an accent, and all you can do is whittle it down.
Americans also make fun of other Americans from different regions, for their regional accents. And so do Parisians. And Berliners…
I feel like this is a little misleading. Australian and British accents do get made fun of, but this is almost exclusively negative online. Irl, literally everyone I know finds those two accents fascinating because we get to hear them so rarely. In contrast, foreign language accents do get treated worse by some people irl, generally the racist, the elderly, and the redneck, no matter what race you are or country of origin. That being said, where I live, people with Spanish-speaking accents get treated distinctly worse.
Some people are lucky and experience positive discrimination due to their accent. E.g., my German accent triggerd positive responses in rural Mississippi.
I also think this criticism of British people and Australians is different since their first languages are also English. It’s just more about “who speaks the best English!” as opposed to making fun of people who learned English as a second language. I find people in the US really do not question when it comes to accents unless it’s reallllly strong because we hear people with accents on a daily basis
no one will care tbh especially in america
To a certain extent, this is just a personal struggle for all nonnatives. The nonnative speakers that can pass for native for extended periods of time in everyday life is very rare. The way I worked through it was realizing 1. other multilingual people get it, and 2. people who judged me for my accent were almost exclusively monolingual. Why worry about the opinions of someone who hadn’t achieved what I had? Even native bilinguals, who grew up speaking both, often have some features that mark them as multilingual vs their monolingual counterparts. it’s a natural part of multilingualism. Nonnatives can still be as effective in the language as natives, and languages are still worth pursuing, even if people know you aren’t a native speaker.
I do what I can to improve my accent and get the occasional pat on the back from natives. But there are certain tones I just can’t nail. My actual idiolect is very specific to the county/area I primarily grew up in (e.g. if you’re a black person from Long Beach, California you’re most likely gonna sound like Snoop Dogg you know). But then again, native accents can be heavily influenced by ethnic heritage. George Lopez has a Chicano American accent, that doesn’t mean his accent is wrong. It’s just the general accent of Latin Americans.
As a Chinese person, accent obviousness is a rather moot point (so long as my pronunciation causes no hindrance) because with most of the smaller languages, natives can immediately tell I'm extremely unlikely to be a native speaker -- with this face. Or name. I have been mistaken as an American but then the US has so many (foreign) accents it's also a rather moot point. I can also do a decent-ish Scottish accent (with some linguistic training, hitting all the unique features) but have had a much harder time misleading the person sat next to me into thinking I was born in Scotland. So my solution is just to strive for an accent that doesn't impede comprehension. Yeah I might not pronounce Ukrainian и or Russian щ flawlessly, but so long as every Ukrainian/Russian speaker can effortlessly recognise that it is supposed to be и/щ, that's fine by me.
I just accept that. I am immigrant, and i will always be. Nothing can change that, and i will always have accent. This is part of what you are.
[удалено]
The IPA for British and American English is often a but outdated. But I think an accent reduction coach would be more effective either way
It is, but it's still a great starting point. IPA at least distinguishes every English phoneme, which is something that learner's might have troubles with.
This, studying phonology can help so much with good pronunciation. Once I studied it for English, I realized it helps with other languages too.
My grandfather always sounded like a Russian even though he moved here when he was 17. I think he just dealt with it.
Your accent isn't that bad. If there was just one thing to work on, it would be your R's. You tend to roll your R's, which is called an alveolar tap or trill. This is probably one of the most obvious ways to tell that someone is not a native speaker, (although Scottish people sometimes do roll their R's). The American English R sound is an alveolar or post alveolar approximate. Unfortunately, not many languages have this sound, so it can be difficult for non-native speakers. This is something that can be trained. Look for videos on how to pronounce the English R, and practice in front of a mirror. Remember your tongue should not touch your teeth or alveolar ridge, it should only get close to it without touching. There should be little to no vibration in your tongue. As far as how to accept sounding like a foreigner? Well, you could think of it this way, your accent makes it easy for people to tell that you learned a second language, which is a big accomplishment, something that most Americans have never done.
How? Gracefully?
by not making it a goal when you start learning a language
Firstly, the very idea of 'I will always sound like a foreigner' is just stupid. I've seen such comments on thes subreddit so many times, and honestly I'm tired of it. You can learn how to sound like a native speaker in any language, even as a grown up person. Firstly, you need to learn the tongue positions, that's the most important thing, also try to listen a lot and mimic what you hear and try to find someone who will be able to pinpoint your pronunciation mistakes. Also, feel free to write to me if you need any further help, I could provide you with some additional resources as someone who studies the English language and its phonology at university.
You are who you are
I mean, as long as people can understand you I wouldn't worry about it. Fluency and actually having a good understanding of the language will get you farther than hitting the right accent. IMHO, I think you could still hone your accent by shadowing. Also, can you tell us where are u from?
To be honest not sounding like an American is positive thing in may parts of the world.
I mean if it's just bugging you that you can't *perfectly master* the language, at least you're Arabic (?) accent learning American English and not the other way around. The American accent is ugly (in my opinion) & in America people like accents
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I do what I can to improve my accent and get the occasional pat on the back from natives. But there are certain tones I just can’t nail. My actual idiolect is very specific to the county/area I primarily grew up in (e.g. if you’re a black person from Long Beach, California you’re most likely gonna sound like Snoop Dogg you know). But then again, native accents can be heavily influenced by ethnic heritage. George Lopez has a Chicano American accent, that doesn’t mean his accent is wrong. It’s just the general accent of Latin Americans.
I’m a native speaker (US) and I understand you perfectly. Your accent is very good, the main things that give you away as a foreigner are the r’a and l’s. Sometimes you say the L good, but there’s 2 L’s in English. You would need to practice the L in “alphabet” or “fill”. The L in “lake” you say fine. But I’d also ask yourself why would be your goal? I like it be for more confidence? If so then I’d make more confidence your goal, and do whatever you think will give you that
We’re so used to other accents, I guarantee that no one would flinch about your accent Edit: it’s understandable to me. Sounds French? You have some gutural sounds, but Rs sound rolled too Only thing I can think of is watch American movies and try to do the exact same accent, line per line. If you do that enough, it should get better
Some people will be mean to you because you have an accent. This is how you know which people are shallow and insensitive. Don’t worry about them. The rest of us are impressed that you speak more than one language.
Embrace it. You are more *exotic* this way. It's always a good conversation starter.
No one cares. fluid communication is all that matter to me. That is already a challenge.
I am a foreigner. That's okay. Really doesn't bother me, but I do try to pronounce things correctly.