Can you change a heavy accent??

But what about this:

<<Would you say one can adopt the accent of a country, American accent?>>

Yes, I think it is possible to fake American accent. Somehow it's for foreigners the easiest to get. I was studying English for about 3 years. It was a method called "REWARD" from Oxford University (England). But as I was finishing, most students were so excited about learning American slang and expressions, and rented films and things like that (you know american films, filled up with violence, sex, druggs, inmorality). So all of us, started to get an American accent (general american) some students could achieve it, and my story is quite funny. In order to get American accent, I would do things like this

- I don't remember how many times I saw films like American Pie 1, 2, 3; and Scary movie 1, 2, 3. And I would repeat the dialogues trying to imitate "Stifler's" accent all day.

- I started to practise rhyming, I bought lots of EMINEM CD's. I downloaded the lyrics from the Internet, and I would try to sing at the same speed as they did. (Such thing is extremely difficult for a non-native speaker, believe me)

- I would learn a lot of expresions and "ghetto" slang, things like "Yo yo wazzup man?" or "This is my last shot, gotta move my ass, man" or "Yo man, that bitch is hot!"

And what happened after about 1 year of hard work? Here it is: I STARTED SPEAKING LIKE A NIGGA FROM THE 8 MILE ROAD WHO LIVED IN A MOBILE HOUSE WITH HIS WHITE GIRLFRIEND AND SPENT ALL THE SODDING DAY IN RAP BATTLES WITH OTHER NIGGAS.

Every American I met never even asked where I was from. They always thought I was from somewhere in Detroit. BELIEVE IT OR NOT!

Unfortunately, now I've lost my Yankee accent and now I've got quite a diferent accent. It's changed now. I'd like to show you how it is now, but I don't know how to send mp3 here.

So that is what happened to me. What do you think???

<<Unfortunately, now I've lost my Yankee accent>>

Yankee? According to your story you never had a Yankee accent--you had one modeled off a Detroit one. "Yankee," at least to us, means someone or something from the Northeast, especially New England. :)

Anyway, if you want to record some audio files, I would suggest downloading audacity:

http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

And then upload your file for free to uploadhut.com. That's where I've uploaded my audio recordings and then I linked them here. Good luck :)

I always envy people who manage to get a native accent, especially American. I wish I could do it, but I don't think I can. Well, to be honest, I've never even tried that hard, because my goal is to speak correctly and be understood, and it's not my intention to pretend that I'm a native speaker anyway. But still, it would be nice to have American accent, but I wouldn't go for slang and things like that, I would like to speak standard English with general American accent.

<<And what happened after about 1 year of hard work? Here it is: I STARTED SPEAKING LIKE A NIGGA FROM THE 8 MILE ROAD WHO LIVED IN A MOBILE HOUSE WITH HIS WHITE GIRLFRIEND AND SPENT ALL THE SODDING DAY IN RAP BATTLES WITH OTHER NIGGAS. >>

I've always thought of the word sodding as a partularly British expression.
<<WHITE?>> i prefer honky! <<GIRLFRIEND?>> surely that should be bitch or 'ho'! <<MOBILE HOUSE>> trailer.

Rick, Rick, Rick. "Honky" is soooo 1975. Try "cracker".

Girlfriend may be translated as "bitch" or "ho", but "breadwinner" might be more accurate in that demographic. ;)

You're right; nobody here says "sodding". Here "sod" comes in rye, Kentucky bluegrass, red fescue, and various hybrids, and requires fertilizer, a sprinkler system, and the occasional mowing.

Mobile house? I think not. "Mobile HOME" is what you're thinking of, when you want to tread the waters of denial about the fact that you live in a tin-can tornado magnet.

I might add that talking like a wanna-be rap star doesn't exactly constitute speaking with a standard American accent. But I bet it's amusing to hear.

>>I always envy people who manage to get a native accent, especially American. I wish I could do it, but I don't think I can. Well, to be honest, I've never even tried that hard, because my goal is to speak correctly and be understood, and it's not my intention to pretend that I'm a native speaker anyway. But still, it would be nice to have American accent, but I wouldn't go for slang and things like that, I would like to speak standard English with general American accent.<<

For starters, *which* American accent do you mean, as there're many different kinds of them (even though they may not be clearly differentiated to non-NAE-speakers)? Furthermore, when you speak of "speaking correctly", do you mean formal "correctness", or do you mean speaking like a native speaker of a particular specific NAE dialect would speak, through a full range of registers? Remember that one thing that often gives non-native speakers away is that they use speech that is too formal in contexts where, within the social circumstances in question, less formal language would usually be expected, and that they use formally "correct" grammatical constructs and usages which are not part of the everyday language in the area in question. To me at least, being able to speak the Volkssprache fully fluently is more important than being consistently formally "correct", *especially* when such "correct" forms are not used as such by the general population in the first place.

>>Rick, Rick, Rick. "Honky" is soooo 1975. Try "cracker". [snip] I might add that talking like a wanna-be rap star doesn't exactly constitute speaking with a standard American accent. But I bet it's amusing to hear.<<

Yes, one thing that clearly gives someone away is if they use slang that doesn't *precisely* the age segment, social class (if applicable), and place that the accent that they are using would normally indicate, or if it does fit such, if said age segment is not the speaker's actual age segment.

Oh, I should of added - when one is to make "mistakes", though, with respect to formal "correctness", make sure they are "mistakes" that many to most native speakers would often make, as the difference between "mistakes" by native speakers and "mistakes" by non-native speakers is quite significant. The former are really just ways in which the general popular language differs from the formal language, whereas the latter are simply due to not knowing the basic rules of the formal language (and most likely those of the Volkssprache in the area in question as well).

"For starters, *which* American accent do you mean, as there're many different kinds of them (even though they may not be clearly differentiated to non-NAE-speakers)?"

It's true that I can't distinguish most American accents, they all sound the same to me, I can only tell the difference between the northern and southern ones. Well, I would like to have that kind of accent you usually hear in the movies, but definitely NOT southern.

"Furthermore, when you speak of "speaking correctly", do you mean formal "correctness", or do you mean speaking like a native speaker of a particular specific NAE dialect would speak, through a full range of registers?"

Well, I would like to speak like an educated native speaker. Of course, I wouldn't speak too formally in informal occasions, but I don't want to make any kind of mistakes, not even the ones that native speakers make. I want to speak correctly, but still sound natural and not artificial. I would never use any kind of street talk or slang, because I think it is silly to immitate the African American slang if you're a white non-native English speaker... LOL :) It just doesn't suit you.

Very true, Sanja. (But remember that a hint of a foreign accent in otherwise perfect English can be perceived as slightly mysterious and exciting --- don't be in too much of a hurry to erase it all!)

<<Oh, I should of added - when one is to make "mistakes", though, with respect to formal "correctness", make sure they are "mistakes" that many to most native speakers would often make, as the difference between "mistakes" by native speakers and "mistakes" by non-native speakers is quite significant. The former are really just ways in which the general popular language differs from the formal language, whereas the latter are simply due to not knowing the basic rules of the formal language (and most likely those of the Volkssprache in the area in question as well). >>

And what kind of mistake is 'I should OF added', Travis?

Tell him that it's really "should've added" and he'll call you a damn prescriptivist, which is apparently somewhere right below p(a)edophile in his book....

>><<Oh, I should of added - when one is to make "mistakes", though, with respect to formal "correctness", make sure they are "mistakes" that many to most native speakers would often make, as the difference between "mistakes" by native speakers and "mistakes" by non-native speakers is quite significant. The former are really just ways in which the general popular language differs from the formal language, whereas the latter are simply due to not knowing the basic rules of the formal language (and most likely those of the Volkssprache in the area in question as well). >>

And what kind of mistake is 'I should OF added', Travis?<<

A writing mistake: at least in the dialects here, "should of" and "should've" are homophonic, and written forms like "should of" are due to "'ve" marking perfectness losing its lexical connection to "to have" when following modals, and thus people getting confused how such "should" be written. And as for such in dialects where such *aren't* homophonic, such as yours most likely, Candy, that is probably due to people copying the "should of" written form in speech, without knowing that who is writing probably pronounces "of" and "'ve" the same.

>>Tell him that it's really "should've added" and he'll call you a damn prescriptivist, which is apparently somewhere right below p(a)edophile in his book....<<

We're talking about the written language here, and the whole prescriptivism/descriptivism thing really matters most for the *spoken* language, not the written language (which only approximates the spoken language, often abstractly, and is usually at least somewhat artificial to start with anyways).

So here's a question for you, Pete: when you were trying to learn an American accent by watching "American Pie", why did you only focus on Stifler as your role model? All of the other characters (except for the foreign exchange student) were American, too.

You can listen to CNN and emulate that accent. Most people on the U.S. edition of CNN speak with general American English accents.

The notion that there are "multiple accents" in the U.S. is a bit misleading for ESL/EFL students. There's one accent that covers practically the entire country and a good part of Canada. The very minor variations within this huge swath of the continent are insignificant to ordinary speakers, including native speakers—only phoneticists notice or care about the variations.

This means that you can use almost any native speaker from this large area as a model. Just verify with other Americans that he doesn't have an especially peculiar accent (e.g., New York, Boston, etc.), and he should be fine. It's not at all like England, where accents vary so much even from one neighborhood to another that people can place you (and prejudge you) based on your accent alone. And thank goodness for that.