Developing an American accent

I'm a teenager from England, and I wondered if any of you guys had any tips for developing an American accent. If it helps, I watch a lot of American TV (sitcoms, Leno + Conan) and movies. Thanks in advance.

Alex, while impressed by your enthusiasm, I am a bit worried that your question will provoke some of the anti-american folks here. :)

Just curious, why do you want to sound like american if you are living in Britain?

Go to ->
http://www.uiowa.edu/~acadtech/phonetics/
and check if you can pronounce all american phonemes. Learn any new phonemes. (american R and some american vowels are different, unfortunately that site doesn't list flap "t")

Buy a PC dictionary with spoken american pronunciation, and check your pronunciation of about 1000 most commonly used words. Write down any words that have different pronunciation in AE/BE, and learn them. This way, you can learn pronunciation of individual american words. Try to read some books in AE aloud until you can read in AE as fast as in BE. This won't guarantee you success, but it's worth a try.

lol, I can imagine the expression of British parents when their kid suddenly starts to speak like an american.

Go to AmericanAccent.com
Believe me I'm an American and people often say I don't sound America but since I got that book people haev been saying I sound very American.

Fly, I wanted to learn this accent becuase my dad's a single parent and gets business trips over to Chicago like every month. I'm pretty sick of everybody asking me where I'm from after every time I say something.

Thanks for the links Marie and Jaro.

I was interested in an American who could talk to me over MSN Messenger during audio conversations, just so I could hear the voice. Thanks again.

Funny because you have Americans (like me) who would rather sound British than American!

If you want to see a really good example of a British man who speaks like an American, rent the movie American Psycho starring Christian Bale. He really pours it on thick, but there are a lot of Americans that do sound like that...mostly reporters on the news or journalists. Very "in your face."

damn it. I meant "to Alex." Why do I keep doing that?

LOL, interesting. I didn't know Bale was English. And if you want we could trade accents. ;)