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Ask HN: How to Do Accent Reduction?

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21–30 of 44 posts

Re: Ask HN: How to Do Accent Reduction?

#21
I would reframe the problem so you can solve it. You can’t just ditch an accent. Communicate with simpler sentences and better body language (nodding etc).

If you need clarification during a conversation, wait until it’s over and shoot over a message in Chat. Use this sparingly so you don’t seem annoying.

Watch more American movies.

Re: Ask HN: How to Do Accent Reduction?

#22
This is kind of speculative, but it might be easier to get away with an imperfect British accent than an imperfect American one in the US. One of my friends from India could do a very convincing British accent when needed.

Re: Ask HN: How to Do Accent Reduction?

#23
Are you sure it's your accent and not your command of the language? Your comment has several grammatical errors, lacks common English idioms, and has some ambiguities that make it difficult to understand.

> also get fluent speaking english because during internship at the end thats only feedback i got

As an example, I'm not sure if your saying that you do speak fluently or don't here.

The hard truth before I offer reassurance, I would have a very hard time working with someone who wrote a message like the one you typed above.

Reassuringly, you can definitely improve your grammar with some classes. I've seen people go from far worse then your writing to totally fluent. Good luck!

Re: Ask HN: How to Do Accent Reduction?

#24
I did some research on pronunciation teaching. One of the tools I used was a speech analysis suit called Praat [1]. If you want to visually compare your pronunciation with that of a native speaker, I recommend it. Why would you do that? Because it can be hard to just rely on your ears alone to hear difference of others speech, and of your own. With Praat you can do things like see if your vowels are the same pattern of .. harmonics .. as an example. You can also see how the attack of consonants matches.. how your connected speech looks.

And then drill and drill some small point you want to work on until its second nature. You can do something similar with shadowing to. listen to a section of speech and try to say it at the exact same speed and intonation as the example. find the places where you trip up and drill them. Stand from the end of the sentence and work backwards getting more and more connected speech.

[1] https://praat.en.softonic.com/

Re: Ask HN: How to Do Accent Reduction?

#25
Firstly, there are many errors in the post above. If we assume that you talk like you have written here, then your speech accent is not the biggest problem.

There’s nothing wrong in focusing on accent reduction. But I’d suggest focusing on proper spelling and grammar while writing too. Most technical communications happen in writing (be they on email or chat) than through speech (though speech is very important in interviews and presentations, for example). Your return on time invested would be much higher focusing on writing and getting the proper use of English. That could also be a foundation for improving your speech.

Also, don’t get disheartened by the feedback. Learning another language well as an adult is hard. And English is harder (compared to some other European languages) to get right unless you’ve been exposed to the proper form for a long time. Give yourself a year or two and measure your progress regularly so that you can know how far you’ve come.

Re: Ask HN: How to Do Accent Reduction?

#26

I would reframe the problem so you can solve it. You can’t just ditch an accent. Communicate with simpler sentences and better body language (nodding etc). If you need clarification during a conversation, wait until it’s over and shoot over a message in Chat. Use this sparingly so you don’t seem annoying. Watch more American movies.

You absolutely can alter/reduce an accent, albeit with potentially large effort if starting from non-native; worst case, a speech therapist should be able to help, but even without that you can adjust by paying attention. I mean, yes, you can/should mitigate issues in the meantime but it is doable.

Re: Ask HN: How to Do Accent Reduction?

#28
post #24

I did some research on pronunciation teaching. One of the tools I used was a speech analysis suit called Praat [1]. If you want to visually compare your pronunciation with that of a native speaker, I recommend it. Why would you do that? Because it can be hard to just rely on your ears alone to hear difference of others speech, and of your own. With Praat you can do things like see if your vowels are the same pattern…

Actual website: https://www.fon.hum.uva.nl/praat/ (I won't trust Softonic malware-like installer.)

Re: Ask HN: How to Do Accent Reduction?

#29
post #7

Nearly everyone on my team is ESL: Russian, Korean, Chinese, German. Meetings can be a nightmare as everything gets repeated a few times. The Indian guys usually have the best English as they learn from young but accent can be strong. Congrats on working on it no one else seems to try:) .

One thing I have noticed is that ESL speakers even from very different languages seem to have an easier time understanding each other than I do as a native speaker. As someone with mild attention issues the frustration is real, especially in the kind of long half-important meeting in which it is sometimes quite important to follow along but other times completely unnecessary.

Re: Ask HN: How to Do Accent Reduction?

#30
post #25

Firstly, there are many errors in the post above. If we assume that you talk like you have written here, then your speech accent is not the biggest problem. There’s nothing wrong in focusing on accent reduction. But I’d suggest focusing on proper spelling and grammar while writing too. Most technical communications happen in writing (be they on email or chat) than through speech (though speech is very important in in…

I tried to help by rewriting the post so he could see the errors. I wasn't able to understand what part of it is supposed to be saying (in brackets below). But there are lots of missing words (often "the" and "a"), missing spaces after periods, and lack of capitalization. Even in mine it is a bit awkward, but it is better.

"I am a brown guy. I have been in the US for 2 years. One problem I have is that I have a thick south Asian accent. [and also get fluent speaking English because during internship at the end] The only feedback I got from my manager is that I am technically sound but lack communication skills. So the reason for asking the question here is to get advice and resources to solve my problem."

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