Accent is important for fluency in a language

[Jason Voorhees]

Many people say that accent doesn't matter when it comes to language proficiency, but I personally believe it plays a significant role. For example, I'm a C1 English speaker, nearly as fluent as a well-educated native from the US or UK, yet I don't always feel "good enough" because people often link accent with fluency and authenticity. I speak with good pace, vocabulary, and cadence, and foreign recruiters haven't had any trouble understanding me. While my accent isn't particularly strong, some forum users have told me that I do have a moderate Indian/Kerala accent but it doesn't sound particularly bad because I speak well

I've tried to modify my accent multiple times, but it feels like relearning the language just to speak in a different way. I can actually speak with American or British accent, but I have to consciously think about every word and its pronunciation before speaking, which makes it feel unnatural. From what I've read, accent isn't something you can simply learn—it develops naturally when you're surrounded by native speakers, listening to them every day. It would likely take 2-3 years of living in the US or UK and engaging with native speakers daily for me to pick up the accent unconsciously. I think mastering accent is the final step in becoming truly proficient in a language. Being understood isn't the same as sounding fully fluent.

@NZb6Air

 

[NZb6Air]

From what I've read, accent isn't something you can simply learn

Yes you can learn nigga, it's just not intuitive, accent comes from not being accustomed to saying some sounds that may not exist in your mother tongue, it's just about how you use your tongue and shit to learn the new missing sounds, for example, th- in "the" isn't a common sound u have to learn it on it's own, tip of tongue on tip of front teeth and shit

there are books for this shit specifically like this for example

 

[HarrierDuBois]

Checks out.

 

[NZb6Air]

Checks out.

what checks out

 

[NZb6Air]

lol u have to get rid of it

 

[Jason Voorhees]

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lol u have to get rid of it
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Damn I didn't knew it was that nuanced and so hard to learn.

 

[NZb6Air]

Damn I didn't knew it was that nuanced and so hard to learn.

what's your acccent, jsut do research on what sounds you lack and then learn those sounds and practice, u gonna get rid of the accent in no time

 

[Jason Voorhees]

what's your acccent, jsut do research on what sounds you lack and then learn those sounds and practice, u gonna get rid of the accent in no time

Apparently these. Malayalam speakers may lack some sounds that are in English, including: "O" sounds, "Th" sounds, The true "d" sound, and "L" sounds. This white women who speaks Malayalam just as good as me is going to teach me how to speak like a native

 

[NZb6Air]

Apparently these. Malayalam speakers may lack some sounds that are in English, including: "O" sounds, "Th" sounds, The true "d" sound, and "L" sounds. This white women who speaks Malayalam just as good as me is going to teach me how to speak like a native

i think this channel is good

https://www.youtube.com/@engvidRonnie

 

[GigaStacySexual]

i think this channel is good

https://www.youtube.com/@engvidRonnie

Most Indians trying to sound american come off as fake like this guy.

Learning International phenetic alphabet and then taking an american/british dictionary and going through the most commonly used day to day words and see how they are supposed to be pronounced might be helpful for accentmaxxing.


But the trickiest part of accentmaxxing is to learn proper intonation (highs and lows in speech)

 

[Jason Voorhees]

Bump

 

[CL8]

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Many people say that accent doesn't matter when it comes to language proficiency, but I personally believe it plays a significant role. For example, I'm a C1 English speaker, nearly as fluent as a well-educated native from the US or UK, yet I don't always feel "good enough" because people often link accent with fluency and authenticity. I speak with good pace, vocabulary, and cadence, and foreign recruiters haven't had any trouble understanding me. While my accent isn't particularly strong, some forum users have told me that I do have a moderate Indian/Kerala accent but it doesn't sound particularly bad because I speak well

I've tried to modify my accent multiple times, but it feels like relearning the language just to speak in a different way. I can actually speak with American or British accent, but I have to consciously think about every word and its pronunciation before speaking, which makes it feel unnatural. From what I've read, accent isn't something you can simply learn—it develops naturally when you're surrounded by native speakers, listening to them every day. It would likely take 2-3 years of living in the US or UK and engaging with native speakers daily for me to pick up the accent unconsciously. I think mastering accent is the final step in becoming truly proficient in a language. Being understood isn't the same as sounding fully fluent.

@NZb6Air

Bhai please recommend me a book for accent training I want to learn both American and British accent

 

[Jason Voorhees]

Bhai please recommend me a book for accent training I want to learn both American and British accent

I did some research on this after reading @NZb6Air 's and @GigaStacySexual 's comments. British accent is somewhat easier to pick up than American because Indian English uses the same spellings, and similarish sounds but Indians aren't able to roll their R's and maintain good intonation like the british. Many Indo Aryan and Dravidian also use Retroflex consonants which apparently sounds awkward in english. This the same reason why Italian english sounds good because they apparently stretch the vowel sounds instead of pronouncing the consonant clusters making it sound melodic and smooth.

 

[widdi]

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lol u have to get rid of it
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Received Pronunciation can be taught, but if your base isn’t an English, it’s going to sound off. Lots of the non western elite speak in RP, but you can easily tell that they aren’t natives.

 

[NZb6Air]

Received Pronunciation can be taught, but if your base isn’t an English, it’s going to sound off. Lots of the non western elite speak in RP, but you can easily tell that they aren’t natives.

what

 

[widdi]

what

Received Pronunciation - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

This is what the passage you quoted was talking about.

 

[NZb6Air]

Received Pronunciation - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

This is what the passage you quoted was talking about.

no you can learn accents perfectly and i'm living proof of it lol

it's a skill issue

 

[Jason Voorhees]

@JohnDoe

 

[Entschuldigung]

Yes but forced accent is cringe as hell

 

[6ft4]

I've always questioned how much people try to change their accent to that of the natives of their second language while speaking.
You can always tell when a it's a French person speaking English because they pronounce words as they'd pronounce them in French or at least keep the same manner of speaking as they do for French.
Are they actively trying to say the words in the most English sounding way possible but they're simply incapable or are they just too lazy to do that so they pronounce the words just as they would if speaking French?
When I speak French I can either pronounce the words as they would sound in English or pronounce them as close to the French pronunciation as I'm capable of and they would sound significantly different.
Does my best attempt at speaking French in a French accent just sound the same way to French ears as Thierry Henry speaking in English sounds to my ears? (Henry has obvious and heavy French accent despite speaking English for 25 years)

Some white guy on YouTube speaks Chinese and has chinks assume he's a native speaker /assume he's Chinese if they hear him without seeing him so obviously it's possible to practice your way to having the native accent but how many people who still speak their second language in the heavy accent of their first language are just lacking in mental capacity or simply too lazy to try change from their first language accent?

 

[Jason Voorhees]

I've always questioned how much people try to change their accent to that of the natives of their second language while speaking.
You can always tell when a it's a French person speaking English because they pronounce words as they'd pronounce them in French or at least keep the same manner of speaking as they do for French.
Are they actively trying to say the words in the most English sounding way possible but they're simply incapable or are they just too lazy to do that so they pronounce the words just as they would if speaking French?
When I speak French I can either pronounce the words as they would sound in English or pronounce them as close to the French pronunciation as I'm capable of and they would sound significantly different.
Does my best attempt at speaking French in a French accent just sound the same way to French ears as Thierry Henry speaking in English sounds to my ears? (Henry has obvious and heavy French accent despite speaking English for 25 years)

Some white guy on YouTube speaks Chinese and has chinks assume he's a native speaker /assume he's Chinese if they hear him without seeing him so obviously it's possible to practice your way to having the native accent but how many people who still speak their second language in the heavy accent of their first language are just lacking in mental capacity or simply too lazy to try change from their first language accent?

Foreign Accent is mainly because certain sounds and vowel mouth movements are completely absent in their local languages so they either don't pronounce it or substitute it with sounds that are present in their local language when speaking the foreign language. For example many Asian and African languages don't have the /th/ sound in "That" so they replace it with /d/ they don't have the "schwa" sound either.

English is particularly confusing because in most asian languages you pronounce exactly how it is written stressing every word in the same way but in fast English speech not all words are pronounced equally. Why is the r not pronounced in the word "more" but the r is pronounced in "moreover" . It is not because they are not capable of doing it's just that they don't know when or how to do it you can technically teach yourself to learn to make those sounds with accent reduction classes but you'd have to think about all those rules before speaking every time. The best way to pick up an accent is just by living and interacting with natives it will naturally come to you at some point.

 

[6ft4]

Foreign Accent is mainly because certain sounds and vowel mouth movements are completely absent in their local languages so they either don't pronounce it or substitute it with sounds that are present in their local language when speaking the foreign language. For example many Asian and African languages don't have the /th/ sound in "That" so they replace it with /d/ they don't have the "schwa" sound either.

Irish people use "d" sound instead of "th"

English is particularly confusing because in most asian languages you pronounce exactly how it is written stressing every word in the same way but in fast English speech not all words are pronounced equally. Why is the r not pronounced in the word "more" but the r is pronounced in "moreover" . It is not because they are not capable of doing it's just that they don't know when or how to do it you can technically teach yourself to learn to make those sounds with accent reduction classes but you'd have to think about all those rules before speaking every time. The best way to pick up an accent is just by living and interacting with natives it will naturally come to you at some point.

It really irritates me how brits pronounce "more" like mowwwaa

 

[normie_joe]

Apparently these. Malayalam speakers may lack some sounds that are in English, including: "O" sounds, "Th" sounds, The true "d" sound, and "L" sounds. This white women who speaks Malayalam just as good as me is going to teach me how to speak like a native

Watching a white bitch talk like a FOB Pajeeta is uncanny tbh.