Honestly, I do not think you can get a good accent without being in a country where you can hear it a lot, and speak it as well. I could be wrong but, it's something you pick up on, not necessarily learn.
Do you know what an accent is? Even I probably can't describe it well , but it's many things. Main thing is pronounciation. The way I see it, different accents are basicaly different ways of pronouncing things WRONG lol. There's a specific way to pronounce words, and that's in your dictionary. Part of an accent is how you pronounce them differently, and this goes for any language.
There's also things like the speed of your words, how it flows. For example, although again, this does not make up an accent entirely, let's take the phrase "hey ya'll." I'll try to use capitals as a guide for intonation, comma for pause. If one person says "HEY, yal" or "HEHyal," but another person says "HEEEeeeyyyyyyyyyaaAAL," you can tell the different accents; they grew up learning to say "hey ya'll" a bit differently. Either two separate distinct words with distinct accent/intonations, or sounding as one word with a smooth transition through the differences in intonation. I could speak of at least one much better example of this, but they're not like official accents of ourse, not a regional thing at all nor are they based on upbringing, and since Americans (or maybe humans in general?) can be quite sensitive, better not to go there. :)
Another example of southern accents is single syllabic words sounded as two syllables, or various, such saying "walk" as "WOAH-auk" or "woahk" or "wo-uk." Don't try to learn that; just be able to understand it, maybe .:P
However, it's not just pronounciation of vowel sounds, but certain combinations with consonants, like the word "situation." One of my current business instructurs actually pointed this out to me. I ocassionaly make the mistake of saying "si-tu-AY-shun," but of course, it should be "si-tchu-AY-shun." And, well, that's a spanish accent; tending to pronounce words as written. I don't always do that though, since I am of course, surrounded by English all the time so I pick up when I hear it pronounced the right way.
Finally, last thing I can think of, is that it can be specific words like youse, or ya'll. I wouldn't say it's the words themselves, but they tend to have some specific pronounciations, so people use "youse" and say that word ...however they say it, and may use that sound in other words with similar letters. However, these words would mostly be like a marker, indicator, or a hint of where the person is from, or what accent it is you're listening to.
In French, as you learn and learn, let's say through high school, you'll learn things like "Je ne sais pas" or the word "maintenant," and even with your BEST pronounciation, if you went to a native French speaker and showed off your newly learned words, they'd immdiately say... non-native accent. Why? Because you pronounced it wrong. You don't say "Je ne seh pah," but instead you say "Jen seh pas." You don't say "man-teh-nah," but instead you say "mant-nah." You would have never learned that those are deliberately pronoucned in those ways, unless you either 1, picked it up from listening french (as was my case with maintenant), or 2, someone told you or you FINALLY learned it from some book (which was my case for "Je ne sais pas"; the rule for when that E is silent showed up in French III, in college, but never in my past 4 years of french.)
so there's a lot of things. Of course, I don't think it's a big deal, not something to worry about, though i'm sure you want to remove enough of your accent so that you can be more easily understood. Once you realize that people are always understanding you well, then it's not a big deal, but your accent will blend in only once you're hearing Englsih all the time and speaking it as well. That's just my opinion though, no data or studies to back that up.
and from a quick search on youtube for a refresher... Edward Norton doesn't sound like a bad reference; I approve. Sounds like proper american english to me.
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