Do I have an accent?

[I was asking if I could achieve native English by just living longer ]

I doubt it, Scav, unless you're preternaturally inclined to pick up languages by osmosis.

I could use myself as an example. I grew up in a Southern State, left it at 18, am now 46--and still have a good part of my accent. You could say my accent is now a hybrid: half-Southern, half-Western. But the point is if 28 years isn't long enough to lose an accent, I don't think it ever will---by itself, anyway.

You could try shadowing/modeling work. It's cheap, and can be done at home, at your own pace. If you want to know more about this, give me a "ring"...

Jasper: now it's my turn to digress - if I get deleted then I shall get deleted - it will hardly be a novel experience for me and actually deletion is not as painful as it sounds, as long as it's done gently.

So being carted off to the desert is the cure for voices considered too high? Sounds fine to me but I reckon I'll have a hell of a job on trying to find anywhere in Scotland that looks remotely like a desert. Would a stretch of sand dunes up on the Moray Firth do? I could yell myself crazy up there and disturb nobody at all - except the seagulls, which make enough noise of their own with all their screeching and squealing. My own voice isn't particularly high - it just doesn't sound as mature as Scavs, that's all. I think I'll diss the desert thing anyway.....

As for our friend Scav - I really don't think there's any need for him to get all wound up about his accent as such - it sounds quite acceptable to me, but there's no reason why he shouldn't work on his enunciation a wee bit without going out of his way to change his accent....if that's what he wants to do.

As I say - his voice itself is nice. I'd be quite happy to hear him read the morning news, however dire that is - the news I mean, not his voice or the fact that he's newscasting.

[Would a stretch of sand dunes up on the Moray Firth do? ]

Certainly. The idea is to be completely away from humans, so they won't think you're being raped, mugged, or murdered. Screaming at the highest volume possible eventually breaks the vocal cords, resulting in a deep, husky voice...

By the way: Scotland has sand dunes? That seems rather counterintuitive. I can imagine mud flats--or perhaps peat bogs-- but not sand dunes.

<<Can I ever achieve "perfect English" or native sounding English? or is it too late.. >>

In my opinion and own personal experience it's never too late. You can achieve at least a near-native type of accent. But I'm sure it depends on the person and commitment as well.

Jasper:

Sand dunes.....I think you are forgetting that Scotland forms part of an island nation which in comparative terms is quite small in size really - we are surrounded by the sea on all sides and as a result we have a very long coastline from one location on its shores and then all the way round back to the same spot again...the coastline of Britain is extremely indented for much of its course with all the bays and harbours and lochs and firths and inlets all being taken into account and if it was strecthed out in one continuous line it would probably stretch all the way round the globe and probably with a little left over.

The nature of the coastline also varies enormously - from very high cliffs, very low cliffs, headlands, promontories, river estuaries, low lying fenlands or urban developments complete with piers and promenades stretching for miles in some areas. Also - we have a whole range of beaches, from pebbly ones, to rocky ones, to muddy ones but also some very sandy ones.....and on most such stretches of sandy beaches you will find all our sand dunes, for it is only in such places will you ever find sand dunes in Scotland, or anywhere else in the UK. Usually the sand is quite soft and the dunes form little mounds and ridges interspersed with dips and hollows and are favoured spots to engage in a whole range of activites especially if they are especially secluded.

The Moray Firth coastline in north east Scotland has sand dunes all along its length from near Peterhead, up to Fraserburgh and then westwards all the way to Inverness, passing through gorgeous wee places like Rosehearty, Macduff, Banff, Portsoy, Cullen, Portknockie, Findochty, Buckie, Lossiemouth, Burghead, Findhorn, Nairn and then on to Inverness.

Some of those places, such as Findochty, are not pronounced anything like the way they are spelt, and neither is Moray for that matter...it's "Murrie" with rolled Rs, and Findochty is "Finn-ECH-tee" - with the CH as guttural as you can make it. Nairn is basically the same as our bairn (a wee child) but to pass for a Scot you MUST roll the Rs. If you don't then you are a "foreigner". ;-)

So all our sand dunes are strictly coastal, Jasper. I can understand your bafflement because you have loads of inland sand dunes in your part of the world don't you? Or do you?


http://www.itraveluk.co.uk/photos/showphoto/photo/2490.php


I have a video lasting about two and a half hours which was filmed from the cockpit of an RAF aircraft travelling at great speed all the way along the coastline of Britain, starting off at Land's End, in Cornwall, SW England and then going all the way along the coastline of England, flying over very famous landmarks all the way up to the border with Scotland and then up along the Scottish coast, turning into the Firth of Forth and over Edinburgh where it then turned round to proceed up along the whole east coast of Scotland, to John o'Groats the northernmost point on the British mainland, then west along the very rocky north coast of Scotland, then turning 90 degress southwards all along down the very rocky, very indented west coast of Scotland, over the Highlands and Islands, on down over the Clyde estuary, then down to Galloway in the SW tip of Scotland, then eastwards until we hit the English border again, then southwards along the coast of north west England to Liverpool and Merseyside when we turned west again and over North Wales - then followed the whole length of the coastline of Wales from north to south, eastwards again along the coast of South Wales over Cardiff and then over the Severn Estuary and over England again, then following the coastline of South West England - Somerset, Devon and back over Cornwall again finally arriving at Land's End, which is where we started off on the aerial journey two and a half hours earlier.

The interesting thing is that commentaries on the soundtrack were all from people from all the different locations all along the whole British coastline - speaking in their own local accents and dialects and generally describing the sights we could see for ourselves from our vantage point in the cockpit of the aircaft. Each spoke for about a minute or so before the commentary was taken up by the next person further up along the coast, whose different accent reflected the locality we were now flying over. It was interesting when flying past Berwick-upon-Tweed when the English north east accent immediately gave way to a Scottish accent of the Borders region, and eventually when we left Scotland at Gretna Green, over on the west coast, the Scottish accent of the Dumfries and Galloway region yielded to the Cumbrian accent of north west England. Further down again until we turned westwards over the Dee estuary just south of LIverpool the English Merseyside accent became that of a Welshman, and Welsh voices accompanied us until we hit the English border again over the Severn Estuary, just north of Bristoi, and then English West Country accents then saw us back to Land's End again, the very southernmost point on the British mainland.....well, as near as dammit - the actual southernmost tip is the nearby Lizard Point with its famous lighthouse.

Musical pieces including songs interspersed with the vocal commentaries and each one related to the locality we were flying over at any given time.

LOL

A "little" off topic :)

[So all our sand dunes are strictly coastal, Jasper. I can understand your bafflement because you have loads of inland sand dunes in your part of the world don't you? Or do you?]

We sure do. I live in Nevada, a desert; we have tons of them. What's not so widely known is that California and Alaska both have large sand dune areas, associated with desert topography.

Now, we can get back to the topic, before the gavel is sounded...

Hi, I had no idea that there was a 10 post per 24 hours limit.. That was quite annoying.. Anyway, I would like to work on becoming native-sounding or accent-less. I don't really believe that I have to pay a pathologist 300 dollars per 4 sessions to lose my accent, I just need to know what to work on and I will practise everyday. So could you all tell me what is so "accent-y"
about my voice? Thanks.

p.s. it is very frustrating.. I know some people who are still "fobs" and speak less English than Korean... However, they don't have an accent.. ARGHH

thanks again

I think you have some accent.
Can you post more audio samples, especially the causal conversations in your everyday life? Just to help me judge
I am not native-speaker, but I am quite sensitive to accent.

I repeat (without any digression whatsoever) that I love the sound of Scav's voice and his accent is cool. I wish I sounded like that at 17 and not the squawky wee rebel I was.

I know I digress and wander off topic big time in this Forum - I seem to do it all the time but don't place all the blame on me personally - it's largely the fault of my keyboard which runs away with me in the rush to express my love for my native Language in writing form. I forget I am not keeping to the ground rules, but there you go!

I should have been gavelled loads of times....ok - gaveled if you prefer. Anyway, you can't make a verb out of gavel so what the heck.

Scav, you could try some shadowing work. It's grueling, tedious work, but it's cheap--and you can do it at your own pace. If you want more details, please ask.

Scav, alternately, you could take a Speech class at your local university. They will not only work on your accent, but will teach you how to breath, how to project your voice, etc. Look for a course called "The Fundamentals of Speech", or something in that vein..

Hi Jasper et al, thank you for all the advice.. I would like more information on the "shadowing work".. Anyway, I realized the other day that I did not move my lips, tongue and mouth enough.. I think that I may have improved a bit and I will post a follow up video. Thanks

Sorry to be a pedant, but the question "Do I have an accent" is silly. Everyone has an accent of some kind. Australian, American, Welsh, Geordie, Smoggy.....
Do you mean, "Do I have a foreign accent?"
Whether that is negative or not is another matter, but no-one, no-one at all can claim not to have an accent.

Scav, shadowing is a technique that utilizes the mirror neurons in your brain for the purposes of accent reduction/elimination, or in some cases voice quality. Pioneered by renowned neurolinguist Leonard Newmark in the 1970s, many have found it very effective; it's so effective that sometimes, it can be overdone, and the speaker sounds exactly like the target.

Here's how to do it:

º Find a tape of someone who speaks in the dialect you want to learn; about 30 minutes of speech is enough.

º Listen to the first sentence enough times to know its content, then speak ALONG WITH THE SPEAKER. Prepare yourself for an unpleasant shock: your accent is probably worse than you think it is. You will notice a million tiny imperfections in your accent; this technique will focus on eliminating these imperfections.

º Repeat that same sentence, over and over, speaking ALONG WITH THE SPEAKER each time, until your accent matches exactly the accent of the speaker; 15 or 20 times per sentence is not too many repetitions. When you have reached perfection, move on to the next sentence.

º Repeat this process, continuing on from sentence to sentence, as long as you like, until the spoken material is exhausted.

Accent reduction using this method is very slow, but very effective. You must allow yourself time to progress! (How many years did it take for you to LEARN English?)

Please ask if you don't understand any of these instructions....