English accent reduction

[Chiangmai1]

My english is perfect (and dare you challenge me! I speak English many many words)

But my accent is heavy eastern European / Italian. Many people have a hard time to listen to me.

Any accent reduction professional in Chiang mai?

Thanks a million

[chiang mai]

You're looking for elocution lessons perhaps? Many Thai people with excellent English but poor pronunciation would benefit, let me know if you find somewhere, I have a second candidate for the same. Hard to find in Chiang Mai.

[rajyindee]

"My english is perfect (and dare you challenge me! I speak English many many words)"

Is someone going to tell him/her?

[Gsxrnz]

Unfortunately, Italian is one of the worst accents to have to listen to as a native English speaker (after Irish and Scottish ).

I haven't heard you so my comments are a little generic and possibly stereotyped, but I do speak with a few Italians around here and they are difficult to understand sometimes unless you're tuned into them. There's something about the lilt and the dragging out of syllables and the adding of an "a" after many consonants and even vowels.

eg, written sort of phonetically, "I don't want to go shopping right now" comes out as "Ai-a dona wann-na go-a shopping-a a-right-a now-a."

Maybe work on ending the syllables with a hard aspirated consonant, and trying to remove the "a" from every other syllable. Also, try and be more monotone to remove the singing effect the language has.

[daoyai]

repeat after me, ,,The rain in spain falls mainly on the plain.... repeat.

[HeijoshinCool]

[Ulysses G.]

Unfortunately, Italian is one of the worst accents to have to listen to as a native English speaker (after Irish and Scottish ).

It depends of the person's accent, but agree that Irish and Scottish can be harder to understand than a non-native speaker. Anyone remember the Blether?

[mamborobert]

Gotta be careful with what accent your teacher has. I remember years ago an Aussie guy complaining that a Thai waiter did not understand his heavily accented English. Many years before the internet, lessons, and youtube this enterprising Thai waiter learnt his English pronunciation from the BBC home service radio. He was so happy when he could talk with some English people and devastated with Americans, Scousers, Candians.....while the Aussie guy just though he was taking the piss. 35 years ago and still makes me smile.

Anyhow to the Op, pick the accent first, the pronunciation follows. Mimicking youtube lessons, singing songs, all help. I do feel for you . I learnt English some 40 plus years ago and still have an accent..and that deteriorates further if angry. There are more than a few English people that English people cannot understand. Don't be too hard on yourself. You already speak at least one language more than quite a few expats

[Thailand]

I had a colleague some years ago with a very heavy Mancunian accent.

He went to Korea to teach English.

The mind boggles with what the resulting Korean/ Mancunian accent resulted in.

[Konini]

They advertise this service quite a lot in Melbourne. It was suggested by a colleague that I go along as my accent might be hampering my career prospects. The cheeky bugger! It's strong, but it's not that strong. And I'm not ashamed of my mixed Geordie/Yorkie/Smoggie accent (which never held me back in my career at all).

I said something like 'Ee bar gum laddie, tha' c'unt teach an ooerld dog new tricks lark, can 'ee' He said 'Eh?' So I said ' Why man, waddya think I saayed? Hoi us a hammer ower heea marra'

He never mentioned it again, thankfully. The guttural Middlesboro accent is one which requires a lot of phlegm in the throat.

[Suradit69]

"Many people have a hard time to listen to me.

Get someone from Scotland to help you. After that you'll have no difficulty being understood.

[Chiangmai1]

"My english is perfect (and dare you challenge me! I speak English many many words)"

Is someone going to tell him/her?

That error was on purpose. I tried to paraphrase the "I speak English little bit" I heard here quite a bit. Now I got to prove I am not the father.....

What accent should i choose? Please carry no favors

I found that Native English speakers find it easier to understand me. Still mother tongue helps. The other disappointment is that some Thais have a far nicer accent that myself.

[Chiangmai1]

There are some online tools and online courses. I wonder how much value those have.

Example:
http://www.l2accent.com/accent-reduction-training/online-training.php

sell programm that also asseses your progress on your computer (I assume some kind of algorithm) 225$
Or with a remote teacher testing you weekly for 900$


And a whole series of lessons for free:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/online-accent-reduction-for/id357661927?mt=2

[sustento]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/grammar/pron/

[jonwilly]

I am nearer to 70 then 60, English born and bred.

I have been asked to slow down and speak more clearly, in English, more times than I can remember.

john

[Gonzo the Face]

Maybe an interesting exercise , if you care to participate.

If you do find a teacher/school to help you..... why not select a small paragraph , write it down, then read it into a recorder. Save the script. Go thru your classes until you are satisfied and feel that you are finished, then make another recording , reading the same paragraph. then listen to your own voice and see for yourself the improvement..... I think that would be very interesting and a fun exercise.

[Gsxrnz]

"My english is perfect (and dare you challenge me! I speak English many many words)"

Is someone going to tell him/her?

That error was on purpose. I tried to paraphrase the "I speak English little bit" I heard here quite a bit. Now I got to prove I am not the father.....

What accent should i choose? Please carry no favors

I found that Native English speakers find it easier to understand me. Still mother tongue helps. The other disappointment is that some Thais have a far nicer accent that myself.

Ahh.....I see the problem. Native English speakers can understand you, but Thai English speakers can't.

That's because you're speaking English to them when you need to be speaking Pidgin English.

This consists of dropping all unnecessary words, don't change the tense of verbs from the present tense (i.e I go now, I go already, I go morning), ignore the subject/object rules with pronouns and always use he/she for possessive pronouns rather than his/hers, no words longer than two syllables, and no sentences longer than five words.

Thus armed with 20 English verbs, 20 nouns, 20 adjectives, 3 conjunctions, 3 pronouns, and a few adverbs, you can have a very long English conversation with a Thai and achieve virtually anything.

As to what accent you should choose - I've found that most Thais understand the eloquence of the Antipodean accents quite well. If you want a slightly more educated accent then emulate a Kiwi. If you want to sound a little less educated, try for the Aussie one. There's not much difference other than that the two cultures make the letter "I" sound different. Kiwis make it a "u" and Aussies make it into "ee".

[manarak]

And there was me, reading the thread title and hoping some brit had finally seen the light... how mistaken I was.

[jonwilly]

The language is English, Her Majesty's English not some other nations version.

john

Oh to speak like HM.

[Chiangmai1]

"My english is perfect (and dare you challenge me! I speak English many many words)"

Is someone going to tell him/her?

That error was on purpose. I tried to paraphrase the "I speak English little bit" I heard here quite a bit. Now I got to prove I am not the father.....

What accent should i choose? Please carry no favors

I found that Native English speakers find it easier to understand me. Still mother tongue helps. The other disappointment is that some Thais have a far nicer accent that myself.

Ahh.....I see the problem. Native English speakers can understand you, but Thai English speakers can't.

That's because you're speaking English to them when you need to be speaking Pidgin English.

No. It is my accent that even some native English speaker find hard.

My point is that native speakers being fluent, and having heard Texans, HM, Aussies, etc. do find it easier to get my horrible distorted accent.

Non native speakers are more fragile......

Yes, I have the issue of using too sophisticated words, having learned English from reading academic texts on the computer.... (with Babylon translator, not kidding). But that is not the issue.

[JDGRUEN]

I have had the idea of using the software 'Dragon Naturally Speaking' (DNS) as a language teaching adjunct. DNS is an excellent voice to text conversion software ... not cheap - but can be downloaded... While not meant for language teaching nor accent reduction, I believe it could be used for these purposes....

Using DNS for its intended purpose - in normal mode for dictation - it is a short cut to bypass typing -- just speak into the microphone and text appears on the screen... It is quite good and can be downloaded also as a Smartphone app... DNS is set or can be set to become accustom to the speakers tone and accent - it learns to become better at understanding the individual speaker's words and more accurately converting them to written English. I have seen it in action and it is quite accurate... There are many youtube video demonstrating Dragon Naturally Speaking. One has a man with a noticeable Texas accent working with DNS to dictate and it discusses how the software adjusted to his accent. I think the reverse could be set - not to adjust but to expect non accented English.

I believe the learning mode of DNS could be turned off to where it is expecting to hear a generic American English speaker - and not adapt to your tone, pace, prounciation and accent. If this is the case - then DNS could be set to expect to 'hear' that generic American English speaker ... and would convert the spoken word incorrectly until the word(s) are 'heard' intelligibly.

So - theoretically one could sit in complete privacy with a head set and a laptop or tablet or whatever... Load up DNS -- and start dictating an English language practice sentence and one could keep repeating the pronunciation and enunciation - elocution ? until the word(s) are spelled correctly on the screen... This would give instant feed back from a non human - non critical source... no joking around ... just a type of written echo of what is 'heard' as translated - converted from voice to text. Just keep the DNS 'learning' mode turned off so DNS will not to become accustom to your voice and accent and allowed to keep on expecting to hear a midwest accent generic American accent...

I am not 100% positive that DNS could be set to work this way -- but it is worth a shot to find out. If it can - I think it has great potential to teach shy Thai people to learn the English - as an adjunct - not as a replacement for all sorts of other methods. I have been told by many Thais that classroom criticism of their speaking efforts is more than they can deal with - so they do not get into spoken English due to embarrassment and shyness.

[beau thai]

I sometimes get asked by thai people to speak English more like an american - I guess they get used to US accents and pronunciation from movies.

It always amuses me when I see the 'English' Language school here called 'Wall Street English' - not Oxford Street English of course.

But I often struggle to understand US 'english' in movies and ask my thai gf what 'they' said, as she reads the thai subtitles. Bizarre but true.

[JingerBen]

I sometimes get asked by thai people to speak English more like an american - I guess they get used to US accents and pronunciation from movies.

It always amuses me when I see the 'English' Language school here called 'Wall Street English' - not Oxford Street English of course.

But I often struggle to understand US 'english' in movies and ask my thai gf what 'they' said, as she reads the thai subtitles. Bizarre but true.

For most modern Thais, English is the language they want to learn, but the culture that attracts them more is American.

Like it or not, that's the way it is.

[Ulysses G.]

But I often struggle to understand US 'english' in movies and ask my thai gf what 'they' said, as she reads the thai subtitles. Bizarre but true.

I have the same problem with some British TV shows, which is why I often avoid them. It is sometimes difficult for me to understand actors doing Southern US accents too and I was brought up there!

[Costas2008]

Hello Pips,

Hi am Costas.

Hi speak good English that I learn from a booook.

Hi have Greek accent because the rain in Greece does not fall on the plain but on the mountain.

But I try to speak better English in future..........I'm still very young.......still learning.

[rajyindee]

For most modern Thais, English is the language they want to learn, but the culture that attracts them more is American.

Like it or not, that's the way it is.

Which American culture? Afro-American? Hispanic? European? Asian? They certainly don't seem to have a preference for American sports or fashion, although they do seem to like pizza, albeit Thai style, and the military seems to have lots of American guns. I did notice that they do like some American singers (at least ones with white skin), but they seem to like a lot of K-Pop as well. I'm sure there must be more, I just can't think of any ...

[scottishjohn]

Unfortunately, Italian is one of the worst accents to have to listen to as a native English speaker (after Irish and Scottish ).

It depends of the person's accent, but agree that Irish and Scottish can be harder to understand than a non-native speaker. Anyone remember the Blether?

As 99.9%*of Scots speak English as their native language and only 1.1% of Scots can speak Gaelic, I think English can be said to be the Scot's native language!

*(I have allowed 0.1% for the very few (if any) Scots who do not speak English as I do not have that exact figure)

[beau thai]

For most modern Thais, English is the language they want to learn, but the culture that attracts them more is American.

Like it or not, that's the way it is.

Which American culture? Afro-American? Hispanic? European? Asian? They certainly don't seem to have a preference for American sports or fashion, although they do seem to like pizza, albeit Thai style, and the military seems to have lots of American guns. I did notice that they do like some American singers (at least ones with white skin), but they seem to like a lot of K-Pop as well. I'm sure there must be more, I just can't think of any ...

Maybe KFC, McDonalds, CocaCola and Hollywood Movies - if any of these can be loosely described as 'culture' in the US

[Ulysses G.]

Unfortunately, Italian is one of the worst accents to have to listen to as a native English speaker (after Irish and Scottish ).

It depends of the person's accent, but agree that Irish and Scottish can be harder to understand than a non-native speaker. Anyone remember the Blether?

As 99.9%*of Scots speak English as their native language and only 1.1% of Scots can speak Gaelic, I think English can be said to be the Scot's native language!

*(I have allowed 0.1% for the very few (if any) Scots who do not speak English as I do not have that exact figure)

I noticed that my post was not very clear after I wrote it, but, unfortunately, it was too late to edit it. I meant that some Irish and Scottish ACCENTS (in English) can be harder to understand than some non-native speakers ACCENTS (in English).

[Konini]

Agreed. Once, on holiday in Bali, a local told me that even with out north east accents, we were easier to understand than Aussies. No idea why that would be, but he had no reason to lie about it, nothing to gain or favours to be bought. Always struck me as rather odd though. Irish is OK, Bog Irish is very hard, I think maybe even for other Irish.

This new form of speaking from the lower socio-economic groups in America is something I find difficult also - I'm talking about the high class types who go on Jerry Springer etc. Not the Afro-Americans specifically, because there are plenty of people a lot whiter than me speaking in the same manner. In their case, it's more fashion and fitting in than anything else, but it is difficult. And I have to say I've never met anyone in real life who speaks that way, although I had a laugh at the expense of the English equivalent.

A few years ago, I asked a young bloke, late teens or early twenties for directions, and in front of his friend he kind of told me in the heaviest gangster Jamaican accent you could imagine - again, whiter than white, full Anglo-Saxon if that is your preferred term (I hope I didn't offend any of the PC brigade by referring to whites speaking like the people of other ethic origin than Caucasian (not so sure how I refer to people who's ethnicity is originally African nowadays, so I'll give it a miss) because offence is not what I intended and I wholeheartedly and genuinely apologies I have). I asked him where he lived, he said Stainthorpe so I hammed up the Yorkshire accent as much as I could and said "Eee, bar eck. The dunt half talk funny darn Stainforth way naar". He was left a bit speechless, whilst his equally bad 'gangster' mates were trying not to snigger, knowing that they spoke in exactly the same way he did.

On the names thing, I have to say that when I first started high school in the mid 1970's, we called the West Indians Blacks, but by the time we left high school, they let us know that they didn't like to be called Black and wanted to be called Coloured. Fair enough, nobody wanted to do the wrong thing, even though we couldn't see why it mattered what we called them it obviously did to them so we all just went with it. I'm told now that Black is back in vogue as a general term and Coloured isn't seen as being very polite. (I can't verify this as we don't live there any more, and it's not something I've ever felt necessary to ask, and maybe it's a regional thing rather than national or it could have even been an American who told me that. I really can't remember, but it was here in Chiang Mai and it was recently; within the last couple of months).