Michael's Business English 

How to Get Rid of an Accent

Monday, December 10, 2018 by Michael Rincon | Accent

In today's class, I am going to share a few strategies to that you can use today so that you can immediately start to speak clearly in your conversations instead of being asked to repeat yourself or risk being ignored.

Why is eliminating your accent important?

Now let me start by saying, you don’t actually need to speak perfect English; I’ve met plenty of non-native English speakers who are killing it in their careers as consultants, analysts, project managers, executives, you name it.

Accent reduction is great for those who have been learning English for a while, they know the vocabulary and some grammar, but speaking clearly and being understood consistently is still a challenge.

This affects how people respond to you. If people can’t understand you, you will lose out on career opportunities. This is also important for your self-esteem and your well-being. Having an accent that people can’t understand causes self-doubt, frustration, and anger. What should be a normal conversation becomes emotional. It’s a problem that gets worse and worse until it becomes unbearable.

Now I don’t have an accent, but I have a speech impairment and hearing loss that I have had since I was little. I won't go into a pity party, but let's just say that it was normal for me to repeat my self two or three times, and usually, someone had to translate for me.

Anyway, let’s get started.

Tip #1 Slow Down

One of the biggest challenges I see with many non-native English speakers is pace. What I mean by pace here, is that you are talking too fast. For some languages, the pace is much faster than how Americans speak English.

Part of the reason different languages have different paces is due to how fast syllables are used. For example, English is spoken at an average rate of about 6 syllables per second. While Spanish and Japanese are spoken at almost 8 syllables per second. So you may have noticed that you know the vocabulary but people can't understand you, try talking slower so that your listeners can process what you are saying.


Tip #2 Work on your Weaknesses

Each language has certain characteristics specific to that language.  For example, in Japanese, there are only 5 vowels sounds, and the overall pitch range for speaking is narrow and straight, while English has 20 vowel sounds and the pitch range is wide and we use the whole range.

When I say Pitch in this context, I mean how high or low your voice is. I have included a link to a video about p itch from Roger Love. He is a world-class voice coach, and he trains people like Bradley Cooper, Tony Robbins, and Gwen Stefani. I highly suggest you check out his video for further details, its only 2 minutes long.

If you are looking for help with a specific problem or challenge, feel free to leave a question down below or send me an e-mail.

Tip #3 Practice often, record yourself

It takes time to improve your speaking. If you spend just 15 minutes a day, that’s 8 hours of practice over the course of 32 days. The more work you do the faster you will go.

Now the reason you need record yourself is you will sound different in a recording that the way you hear yourself as you speak. Sound travels away from you as you speak, it as it vibrates as it travels towards you, it will sound different. Recording yourself is also helpful for specific mouth movements that you need to make to pronounce different words and letters. When I got vocal training, one of the big tips he repeated to me was to drop my jaw. That training session was recorded, so if you would like to see the lessons I received, you can check out the link below as well. It's about 10 minutes long.

Also, to help you practice your pronunciation, I have included a link to an online converter of English text to IPA phonetic transcription, so if there are specific letters, words or phrases you have concerns about, you can hear what they sound like through this site. It is totally free to use.

To Recap: I explained why this accent reduction is important and some tips to reduce your accent which include slowing down, working on your specific weaknesses and prancing and recording yourself.

For your homework: Take these tips and apply them today, and every day going forward. Do whatever you need to do. Put it on the calendar, set reminders.  Start recording yourself once a week.

Write a comment or send me an e-mail. If you have experiences like these I would love to hear them. Subscribe to my channel to receive updates when new videos come out.

If I can help you in any way I'd be happy to do it.

Best Regards,

Michael Rincon

Michael@Michaelsbusinessenglish.com