How to Remove Accent: A Guide to Accent Removal Techniques
For many of us, travel is a dream. We want to see the sights, experience different climates and foods, and mix with different cultures. Sometimes, we may want to settle in a new place to improve our work prospects or live closer to someone we care about. But to accomplish this, we have to be able to speak the native language with some degree of proficiency.
Some languages are not easy to pick up, and often, people wonder how to remove an accent to fit in better. Even native speakers will tell you that once you’ve learned the rules, you’ll discover plenty of exceptions. Then, when you finally think you’ve picked up the vocabulary and grammar and are fairly fluent, you find your foreign accent makes your speech difficult for locals to understand.
Linguabilities offers online speech therapy for kids and adults. Our team of experienced speech-language pathologists (SLPs) is here to help you overcome any speech or language difficulties.
This article gives tips on how to improve your clarity and pronunciation, minimizing accents while speaking. If this is something that concerns you, read on.
The Importance of Accent Reduction in Language Learning
Being unable to make yourself understood clearly is a challenge that interferes with your ability to meet people, socialize, and even find your way around an unfamiliar locale. Perceptions of you may be affected, and in some cases, being unable to communicate clearly may even harm your job prospects.
Although accent reduction techniques are explained here, you should remember that an accent is not necessarily always a problem. Aside from the fact that there are numerous accents amongst native speakers, a “foreign” accent is exotic and interesting. Don’t be embarrassed about your accent. It reflects your heritage and culture and indicates that you speak more than one language, which is pretty impressive considering that around 50% of the world’s population is thought to speak only one.
Instead of eliminating your accent, you should aim for clarity and improve pronunciation in your new language. Focusing on accent-reduction exercises as you converse can improve your clarity and pronunciation.
How to Minimize Your Accent When Learning a New Language
How do we learn to speak our home language? We learn it from those around us, of course. It stands to reason that the best way to learn a language is by listening and talking to native speakers.
Talk with a Friend
The ideal when focusing on eliminating accents in language learning is to immerse yourself in the language by talking to people. Having a patient friend you can talk to helps, but there are also online platforms where you can chat with people from anywhere in the world. This may be via a paid service, or you may find someone willing to speak to you if you will return the favor by speaking your home language with them.
Don’t expect to learn everything in one day. Accent reduction exercises take patience and repetitive practice. Ask for guidance on pronunciation which needs work. Mistakes help you learn. Identifying the most troublesome sounds and practicing them over and over will help you build muscle memory that allows you to speak the language more naturally.
Listen Up
If you cannot speak with a native speaker, watching and listening to as much of the language as possible is probably the next most useful thing you can do to perfect an accent. You can use numerous TV series, films, podcasts, audiobooks, YouTube videos, and other resources to listen to the language.
You may want to start with films you’ve already watched or know. Subtitles help, and you will be surprised how soon you understand what is happening.
Audio Books
Improving pronunciation in a new language is easier than you might think. It can be handy to hear the pronunciation of a word as you are learning its spelling, so when buying or borrowing a book from the library, download or borrow the ebook and listen to it as you read to help you learn the correct pronunciation of the words.
Say it Out Loud
Practice makes perfect. If you don’t have a partner to talk with, speak to your reflection in the mirror. Reading out loud is ideal for practicing your pronunciation. Also, learn and repeat phrases from your favorite series or movie.
Create Opportunities for Talking
The more you actively find reasons to speak English, the faster you will manage to develop the accent you are cultivating. Going abroad is the ultimate immersive experience to help you learn the language with new friends and dispense with your foreign accent.
There is no replacement for time and dedication. If you put in the hours, your language will improve, and what better way to learn than to be in a country where you have no choice but to practice daily?
Challenges Faced by Language Learners Related to Accents
The pace of some languages is a lot faster than others, and we also speak more quickly if we are excited, but speaking fast emphasizes accent and makes our speech more difficult to understand.
Frenetic Pace One study analyzed the speech patterns of native speakers of eight different languages reading the same passage in their native language. Although they all conveyed the passage more or less simultaneously, the number of syllables varied widely depending on the language. Those whose languages used more syllables spoke more quickly than those using fewer syllables. Spanish and Japanese had more syllables than the other languages, and Mandarin and English were spoken fairly slowly because they contained fewer syllables.
Choose a Regional Accent
Minimizing your accent while speaking usually requires settling on an accent specific to a region. Languages can be challenging to learn because the slang and idioms vary widely according to the area you might visit. Often, these variations are not found in textbooks and can only be learned from native speakers. For example, American English speakers may have trouble understanding the accent and slang of an Australian English speaker, and some words may even have different meanings within the same country! The upshot is that you should try to learn the variety of English widely spoken in the place you want to visit.
Speech Therapy Techniques Applicable to Accent Reduction
Although accents can be charming, they can sometimes also seem like a distraction from what the speaker wants to say, so if you see a more native accent as an advantage and aim to gain more confidence in speaking your adopted language, a speech therapist can help in improving voice, fluency, and articulation.
This involves resonant-based exercises to solve articulation issues. Reading techniques are employed to improve the tone, format, and delivery of public speaking. By recasting individual sounds, (having someone repeat the words or sentence in the correct manner or with the appropriate accent), accents can be neutralized, and intonation improved.
Techniques for Accent Reduction
Linguistic bias is a reality, but it is possible to improve your communication so that those around you understand what you have to say.
Listening
Listening is crucial, so listen to as much of the language as you can. You may not understand everything you are hearing, but all the while, your brain is becoming accustomed to the pace, speech patterns, and intonation of the language when spoken by native speakers.
Singing along with songs and imitating the singer is a good way of practicing enunciation. Music affects different brain parts than speech, and words are often repeated, so new connections are formed and enable you to remember more.
Slow Down
Speak slowly and precisely, being careful to enunciate every word. This will help you make yourself understood sooner than if you have to keep repeating what you are saying because your audience can’t understand what you are trying to convey.
Online Speech Therapy Services Available
There are numerous benefits to online speech therapy, including the fact that you don’t have to leave your couch to find a qualified therapist! To investigate how you can access an accent removal specialist or therapist who can help further your goal of introducing you to accent reduction techniques, book a discovery call with us today.