Accent Reduction Tip
Find good role models of speech. Don't imitate just any American. Some Americans mumble, they have "lazy lips" and don't make an effort to speak clearly.For example, in your native language a poet and a computer programmer may speak very differently. Right?
Same thing in English. Who are your role models for American English speech? A football player being interviewed on TV often speaks differently from a lawyer in court. What are your goals? Do you want to sounds like an American rapper or like an American CEO?
2 comments:
What you say is correct in general, Lisa, but I have actually had clients tell me they wanted to learn to speak "street English", because their issues were social rather than professional--they felt like prisoners of language and wanted to be able to interact with the average American on the street.
It is as you say; my first question to a client is always, "why do you want help with your accent" or "what goals do you have for our time together". You will do nothing but waste time if you don't know what a students' goals are.
I have a lot of younger, "hipper" as-it-were clients, being close to New York, though, so YMMV.
Surely the biggest problem here, which you do mention, is the range of accents across the states. Redneck southerner vs New Yorker vs Harlem Boy vs Minnesota Viking.
It's the same in the UK. Learn to speak UK (English?) welsh vs Scouse vs Geordie vs Cockney vs Bristolian.
Who is the role model here?
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