Pronounciation

Hi,

I am a native speaker of French from Quebec, and I have a French accent when I speak. Although I am able to pronounce isolated single words "perfectly", with a standard English-Canadian or American accent, when it comes to use these words in sentences, I lose it and pronounce very badly. I noticed that native speakers of English, when they speak fast, tend to omit pronouncing some syllables and they link words together. But when I speak, I pronounce each word individually and I am not able to link them as native speakers do.

Could someone give me an advice on how I could learn to speak as a native speaker?

Thank you

Well, there is certainly nothing wrong with enunciating every word! I would imagine that it takes a lot of practice and careful listening to figure out how words are strung together in normal speech.

Let me try it just to see if I can mimic it for you (American accent, which should be close to Anglo-Canadian):

Well, therriz cer'n'ly nothing wrong withee nunciading evry word! I wuddee magine thaddit takesa lodda practice an caref'l lissning t'figureout how words'r strungt'gether'n normal speech.

Does that sort of help? I have to admit, it seems odd when I write it down -- not only do I tend to run some words together, but I also split them up mid-word, connecting certain adjacent syllables that aren't even in the same words, but I think it's a fair approximation of my spoken rhythm.

Thank you very much! Hum. I guess there is no rule to follow when it gets to the linking of words in normal speech. There might be rules, but I don't think anybody could enounciate them. I guess I would have to move to Western Canada or the USA and stay there some time to be able to get the accent.

There are some rules, and you can find them in most accent reduction programs. Here are some, just as an example:

t + y = ch ...not your = noch(y)ur
d + y = j ... would you = woo j(y)ew
etc.

Then there are weak forms, which are words that are often pronounced differently in connected speech when unstressed, for example "do", "where", "and", "you", etc.

Then there are common reduced forms, like "Why ncha" for "Why don't you", or "How jew" for "How did you", etc.

You need to study those kinds of things. :)

I did a search on Google for "accent acquisition" and I found several schools of accent reduction... Do you think this kind of school really works? Are there some people here who attended an accent reduction program and could give some feedbacks?

Alexandre,

Have you done a lot of passive listening? That may help you with getting used to the sounds of the language.

Every time you have a NT try to pronounce it like a NN, ex:

Santa --- Sanna
Internet --- Innernet
International --- Innernational
etc.

Every time you have a NT try to pronounce it like a NN, ex:

Santa --- Sanna
Internet --- Innernet
International --- Innernational
etc.

Alexandre,

Accent reduction/acquisition programs are not delivered only as school courses. They are also marketed as packages of lessons on book and cassettes/CDs.

You may want to look up the following two products:

American Accent Training by Ann Cook

American Accent Guide by Beverly A. Lujan

With happy October wishes,

Achab

Yes, I've done a lot of passive listening. I almost always watch CNN news and some american TV shows. I know some of these rules for speaking more as a native speaker, but I still sound foreign. When people ask me where I am from, I say from Canada and they always seem puzzled until I explain that I am from its French-speaking part. Is there a way to acquire (and I mean totally) a native English accent? I am 22 years old. Is it too old already? :-)

Then have you been producing output from near the beginning?

I think Peter Roach gives very nice and simple explanation with examples of reductions in spoken lanquage.