I went to an international school in Asia. I think I still speak with a bit of accent when I speak English (and no ones wants to sound Asian when they speak English). When I travel aboard, some people can even pinpoint the area I am from just by hearing my voice. How to speak with a neutral accent like the people in this video?: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-KNPGCRmD8
>>1079346
>How to speak with a neutral accent
why the fuck would you?
>>1079346
>t like the people in this video
this girl have annoying asian accent, not so strong but still
>>1079347
Nobody likes an Asian accent.
Watch lot's of American TV shows and try to get an American accent. If you succeed everyone will believe you are from America.
>>1079346
don't know why you think that's a neutral accent, she sounds very American with kind of an obvious Asian undertone. To begin with, there's not really a thing such as a neutral accent, although I think from an international standpoint, you're best off with an American accent
>>1079346
Just practice the single most studied American accent, Philadelphian.
>>1079355
>Watch lot's of American TV shows and try to get an American accent. If you succeed everyone will believe you are from the Philippines.
FIFY
Also
>lot's
To thine own eye first, amirite?
>>1079346
Be born in the Midwest of America
>>1079346
god that video is terrible, she sounds obviously asian. don't take that vid as a reference point pls
There is no such thing as a neutral english accent. Neutral-American would probably refer to someone being unable to tell what region from America you are from, but someone from the UK or Australia could still immediately tell you are American (and vice versa). Regardless, trying to modify your manner of speech is a questionable thing to do. As far as your accent is concerned, it's a part of who you are; Asian accents might not be the sexiest, but they're far from the worst. Some people in the US try to "fix" what many would consider to be ugly accents (Boston, Forrest Gump, Maine etc...), but it takes a lot of work and takes away from your history and your culture.
OP, where are you from? Did you get that kind of English accent from Hong Kong or Singapore? Because that one is bizzare. If you made a vocaroo that could help too.
Try to find American radio stations, preferably from places like St Louis, Denver of Seattle. Listen and talk along with the hosts just by yourself.
>>1079584
Her pronunciation of words is pretty normal, but she doesn't have the right timing down, probably is speaking a bit too consciously.
>>1079559
American Midwest is usually considered the closest pronunciation to the dictionary.
>>1079599
>Asian accents might not be the sexiest, but they're far from the worst
kek name an accent worse than asian accents
>>1079642
Lower class/bobble head Indian/South Asian, though I guess that's still technically Asian
>>1079622
I am from Hong Kong
http://vocaroo.com/i/s0ohiDWXXgdB
>>1079657
Thanks. That's good. You're like 95% there, but that last little 5% tends to be the hardest.
The only three things are your words are all separated a little. It's how English people speak in a proper manner. You probably want to be a bit faster like an American.
When you said snowing, you didn't say the ing enough. With words you were being a bit too quiet with the last syllable.
Your Ss need a bit of work. It's like you only know one way to say s, when they vary in length.
You could start a thread on /int/ if you want to talk about this more. You're kind of being a bit hard on yourself though. Cant really expect someone in Asia to speak English like a local.
>>1079662
>/int/
No thanks, that board seems full of trolls.
I went to an international school and I know people who don't speak with an accent.
>>1079347
Let me explain this to you, anon.
I grew up in Europe, which is a pretty racist place.
On the average, people get racial profiling because of their language. And you, as a national of your country, are very aware of other fellow citizens disliking that "French-speaking Romanian ape" or "Italian-speaking Albanian jail-meat".
In addition to this, traditional (and unscientific) ways of teaching obsess you with the idea of proper accent.
Truth is they confuse proper accent and correct pronunciation. You can easily retain some national flavor but without the hindrance of local idiosyncrasies, which is what people usually hate.
E.g. when I speak English I have to make an effort to make a vowel fall within the correct range of English vowel-sound (because my language is poor in vowels and I tend to mix them up and switch between them without noticint ). Accent comes with time and full immersion, but it is the correct pronunciation that goes a long way.
You realize this when you reach melting pot countries.
"Will they profile me the same way my fellow countrymen profile Eastern Europeans?"
"I need to sound as British as possible because my teacher thinks that's the goal I should aspire to"
Etc.
All these qualms, some of them being unreasonable, are the kind of worries that haunt our dear OP, who -- as I have -- grew up in a culture where English is seen as a morally superior mean of communication.
>>1079657
You're a girl so I wouldn't worry so much. Women can get away with accents far better than men. It's not really an issue at all.
There's no such thing as a neutral accent. Ambiguous, sure, but neutral? no. Just practice continuously and you'll improve. Consider coaching if you have the money (look at how well some actors learn accents, often this comes from coaching).
>>1080531
found the cuck
Go get a South African accent and forever be badass
>>1079657
the first part was pretty much there, the second part got kind of bad
Not sure if you were saying "there has been snowing a lot lately or not" but the correct sentence would be "it has been snowing a lot lately". I have a lot of friends from Asian speaking countries who make the mistake of just randomly throw in a "there" or "the" when it has no use there. Otherwise yeah what the other anon said pretty much.
Overall I still think it's decent, better than most other people from that region that I know
>>1080581
>Go get a South African accent and forever be laughed at
Fixed
>>1079642
Eastern European, Russian, pretty much all of Africa
>>1080575
What's cuck about my message?
I just explained why some people grow up with the feeling they are subhumans just because they do not have a "native" accent.
They should focus on correct pronunciation, not on mimicking natives' accents.
One thing is confusing "sheep" and "ship" or "role" and "lore". That's a pronunciation problem.
Another thing is trying to say "sheep" as a native would.
Educational systems in Europe had the bad habit, especially in the 80s and early 90s, of focussing on the latter rather than the former.
They set impossible goals for beginners by demanding the obtainment of native fluency.
They did so because of the ideology behind it.
So I do not understand. Maybe they were "cucked" by an inferiority complex... but not me. I am just stating fact and trying to explain anon why this Asian OP is so over-concerned about sounding "too Asian".
>>1080558
>Women can get away with accents far better than men
midatlantic masterrace
I struggle to understand some people that claim to
Speak fluent english. My nz accent can be quite amusing to other english speakers at first but they struggle to understand me.
>>1080630
Not the same person but it's true.
>>1080844
sure, if you're a beta cuck with no standards. female chinks and rednecks sound just as retarded as their male counterparts, if not moreso. even the smartest thai girl sounds like dumb street meat with that shitty accent. danes sound like they have down syndrome, east africans are straight up unintelligible etc... dont even get me started on that awful london chimney sweep babble. the only girls that get away with shitty accents are the kind that you gag and stuff into the mattress, and the only reason you don't care is because you're just looking for a hole to stick your dick in
>>1080944
>if you're a beta cuck
whatever you say m8. Good luck finding girls in your basement.
>>1080950
>fucking whores with ugly accents because it's the best you can get
Not something to brag about m8. Make whatever excuse you want, but the reality is that if you don't care about a girl's accent you're just a thirsty faggot who can't afford to be picky
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxElAqVmJ2M
>>1080531
>>1080618
Define 'proper'.
As a native English speaker in Germany who knows many English teachers (Beamter or Lehramt students), I can say that many are either shit, or somewhat clueless about how or why they're teaching what they are. The books tell them (and *their* instructors) what should be taught in what way, and that's it. There's no real meta-critical process going on.
>>1080944
>check out that edge
>>1080976
You got me, I cringed. Even when I thought I couldn't cringe at Lena any further. Just goes to show Germans can never not be lame.
>>1080584
I said "it has been snowing a lot lately".
Americans thinking neutral English is somewhere in America.
Neutral English would mean a native English speaker would not be able to tell if you are British, Canadian, American, Australian...
Fucking Americans man.
>>1081321
To be fair, American English is based on the 'British' English accent that used to be spoken in the 1700s. It has diverged obviously, but the pronunciation of certain key phonemes (Rs, long vowels, Ts, Hs) is not some random mutation, but crystallized archaic British pronunciation. Well, along with some divergence. This is more obvious in older American accents. The following are NOT affectations, it's how they really spoke.
good examples:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YX0wmS3gV0I
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yzakVOdh6k
and also interesting (skip forward to 3 minutes if you're impatient):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPlpphT7n9s
>>1079346
Watch James Bond movies & British TV
American accents are fucking awful on non-English speakers
>>1081428
Sure but I don't see how that's relevant to what I said. Neutral English has nothing to do with the American English accents, other than they are another example in that needs to be included in the average.
>>1079657
You're pronouncing "been" as "bean" instead of "bin". British and Canadians say "bean", Americans say "bin".
Yeah it's kinda weird but it's normal here.
>>1081803
Not the other guy, but in my native language we do not perceive a difference between:
>bin/been/bean
So even though I learnt how to make different sounds, I need a conscious effort but my brain hardly registers the difference.
>>1081108
>Define 'proper'.
Proper accent does not exist: it's a cultural thing.
If you refer "proper" pronunciation, well... it is the pronunciation of specific phonemes that are those of the word.
E.g. sheep and ship... the ee sound and the i sound are two different phonemes. This means that if I get those wrong I end up saying the wrong word. So these phonemes mark the distinction between one word (and one meaning) and the other word (other meaning).
Failing at this is like missing the target.
It's like confusing "can't" and "cunt".
Proper pronunciation is the one that dispels semantic confusion in those couples of words whose phonemes have been resolved.
But, of course, you will tell me that in English there are a lot of "couples" (or triplets) whose difference in meaning and writing is not matched by difference in pronunciation. They are homophones and language users employ other systems to say what is what (e.g. syntactic position, contextual inference, etc.).
This is why I highlighted the fact proper pronunciation is more about "saying the word you want to say" instead of another one. Then if the language has many same-sounding words, correct pronunciation is making them same-sounding.
Proper pronunciation means the ability to master the phonetic diversity of a language so that your produced sounds will fall within their respective range, especially when matching that "range" can produce a difference in the meaning of what you're saying.
Instead, accent is just the ability to control all other free variables that are not related to meaning and yet natives (of a certain area) tend to arrange in a certain way.
>TL;DR
Think of a chocolate cake:
- If you don't put chocolate in it, it is not a chocolate cake (wrong pronunciation)
- However, once you have put chocolate in it, you can add some taste with coconut shards (correct pronunciation, foreign accent).
>>1081816
>Think of a chocolate cake:
>- If you don't put chocolate in it, it is not a chocolate cake (wrong pronunciation)
>- However, once you have put chocolate in it, you can add some taste with coconut shards (correct pronunciation, foreign accent).
Of course if the "seasoning" and "icing" of the cake gets a bit out of hand, you might end up overloading it with so many stuff that people might start to question whether it is "really" a chocolate cake, or just a fruit cake with some chocolate in it.
But that's how language evolves.
>>1081816
>Proper accent does not exist: it's a cultural thing.
That was my precisely my point. Thus chasing it is a fool's errand.
In some dialects of English, certain phonemes are merged. Context makes it clear. Sure we sometimes hold foreign speakers to a higher standard, but really it's a bit unfair to expect say a Paki immigrant in Aberdeen to adhere to a modern Estuary English accent or something.
>>1081803
>Americans say "bin"
what? pretty sure that's just you
>>1081862
No, quite a lot of Americans do say 'bin' for been. It's regional. Some Canadians also say 'bin' though.
