Pawel
Thanks for your nice reply.
I judge, from your perfect English, that your accent surely must sound pretty cool. I can only imagine it as masterly. I have a hard time believing that this may not be the case.
You may be right about the benefits of the early start in language learning as people tend to have less of a foreign accent if they begin speaking at an early age. This, however, is not a hard and fast rule. I have heard of people getting to speak without an accent when they were well beyond their teens.
As for me, I have started working on American pronunciation on my own since the traditional [formal] schooling doesn’t offer any chance of improving one’s accent. I have tried out several ways of working on my pronunciation. Some of them work for me fairly well. Here’s how I deal with this problem:
I keep marking the pages in my mono-lingual dictionary with the colorful and neatly cut post-it-stickers. The dictionary shows both British and American pronunciation symbols. As I leaf through the book in searching for a word, those stickers make it easy and quickly for me to access the so called my own [US] pronunciation entries. These, I keep highlighting with the pink color. So any time, I consult my dictionary I also review the pronunciation entries in a random manner. The idea of marking the pages, to some extent, helped me get into the habit of studying the American accent.
With my mp3 player I do a lot of listening. I download radio shows or podcasts for ESL learners. My favorites are webtalkguys, the internet radio [www.webtalkguys.com] and English as a second language podcast [www:eslpod.com]. They are generally a great listening experience. I listen whenever I can. For example, when listening in a car, I can speak to myself aloud. This enables me at least to speak comfortably, without anyone hearing me. If done regularly, I believe this can give a lot of speaking practice.
The online dictionary [preferably, with the downloadable voice sample option] is my next favorite. I very often go to the Merriam -Webster Online Dictionary to check out various patterns. I keep reviewing them on a daily basis. In fact, I will do with the Merriam -Webster Dictionary to get through your poem if “Myself” fails to deliver his recording.
Hope this gives some insight into my ways of improving American accent.
Pawel
Thanks for your nice reply.
I judge, from your perfect English, that your accent surely must sound pretty cool. I can only imagine it as masterly. I have a hard time believing that this may not be the case.
You may be right about the benefits of the early start in language learning as people tend to have less of a foreign accent if they begin speaking at an early age. This, however, is not a hard and fast rule. I have heard of people getting to speak without an accent when they were well beyond their teens.
As for me, I have started working on American pronunciation on my own since the traditional [formal] schooling doesn’t offer any chance of improving one’s accent. I have tried out several ways of working on my pronunciation. Some of them work for me fairly well. Here’s how I deal with this problem:
I keep marking the pages in my mono-lingual dictionary with the colorful and neatly cut post-it-stickers. The dictionary shows both British and American pronunciation symbols. As I leaf through the book in searching for a word, those stickers make it easy and quickly for me to access the so called my own [US] pronunciation entries. These, I keep highlighting with the pink color. So any time, I consult my dictionary I also review the pronunciation entries in a random manner. The idea of marking the pages, to some extent, helped me get into the habit of studying the American accent.
With my mp3 player I do a lot of listening. I download radio shows or podcasts for ESL learners. My favorites are webtalkguys, the internet radio [www.webtalkguys.com] and English as a second language podcast [www:eslpod.com]. They are generally a great listening experience. I listen whenever I can. For example, when listening in a car, I can speak to myself aloud. This enables me at least to speak comfortably, without anyone hearing me. If done regularly, I believe this can give a lot of speaking practice.
The online dictionary [preferably, with the downloadable voice sample option] is my next favorite. I very often go to the Merriam -Webster Online Dictionary to check out various patterns. I keep reviewing them on a daily basis. In fact, I will do with the Merriam -Webster Dictionary to get through your poem if “Myself” fails to deliver his recording.
Hope this gives some insight into my ways of improving American accent.
Pawel