Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: How to Do Accent Reduction?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 44 posts

Re: Ask HN: How to Do Accent Reduction?

#31

Post by nanidin »

I learned French using the Pimsleur method - basically you listen and repeat things as you hear them in an audio course. As a result, my accent in French threw off native speakers in a way that made them think I was a native speaker.

I would look into if there is some similar audio based course in your native language that targets English.

My experience learning Spanish and French in classroom settings was that once most people see a word written, they fall back into a way of pronunciation that leans toward their native language and causes an accent. Audio only courses can help break that pattern.

The Pimsleur method should also help your use of “a” and “the” feel more natural which is going to help with your rhythm when speaking. Even as a native speaker, if I drop “a” and “the” I’m going to sound strange.

Re: Ask HN: How to Do Accent Reduction?

#32

Post by HKH2 »

Don't be afraid to mimic people: think of your stereotypes of the native accent/s and use them. It's not offensive; it's much better than persisting with your own accent. (I am delighted when I hear non-native English speakers using a southern British accent perfectly.)

Get the basic vowel sounds right: maybe you need to lengthen/shorten some of them. That should immediately make you more understandable.

Re: Ask HN: How to Do Accent Reduction?

#33

Post by HKH2 »

calt wrote: post #13

One tip from reading this post: I can see that you're writing sentences that are too long. - Write simple small sentences. - Put a space after your periods. - For engineering communication use white-space liberally. This last one is not standard English writing style, but I love it for work communication.

I agree that writing short sentences is key. It seems most people are taught the opposite in school, and I know some English tests give you higher marks for longer sentences, so you have to get people to unlearn that bad habit.

Re: Ask HN: How to Do Accent Reduction?

#34

Post by HKH2 »

runawaybottle wrote: post #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.

You can 'just ditch an accent' if you can mimic someone else's accent.

Re: Ask HN: How to Do Accent Reduction?

#35

Post by totetsu »

hartator wrote: post #28
totetsu wrote: 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.)

thanks

Re: Ask HN: How to Do Accent Reduction?

#36

Post by modulo42 »

Like others have already pointed out your challenge is not only your accent. If you tackle it as language ackquisition there is a large community for adults learning languages. Working in the US gives you a big advantage but immersion alone will not automatically solve all issues. In my experience you can benefit from language tandems. In this setup one has a conversation with a native speaker who learns your native language. Half of the time you speak your native language, the other half his/her native language. In this setup it is not as awkward to correct each other as it is in daily life conversations. Tandems can be online or in person. If you want to maximize your time speaking and being corrected you can pay some students to act as a teacher. I had some really good experiences while learning Italian on italki.com. Just look for community teacher. Unfortunately they no longer support forming tandems. But there are plenty of sites for this.

Re: Ask HN: How to Do Accent Reduction?

#37

Post by ggeorgovassilis »

AnonC wrote: 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…

The part about mastering English as a non-native speaker resonates with me. While starting with English is much easier than with romanic, germanic or slavic languages (because of its simpler grammar), pronounciation, idiomatic speech and the nuances of prepositions are almost impossible to get right unless you've got a talent with languages.

Re: Ask HN: How to Do Accent Reduction?

#38

Post by CodeGlitch »

HKH2 wrote: post #33
calt wrote: post #13

One tip from reading this post: I can see that you're writing sentences that are too long. - Write simple small sentences. - Put a space after your periods. - For engineering communication use white-space liberally. This last one is not standard English writing style, but I love it for work communication.

I agree that writing short sentences is key. It seems most people are taught the opposite in school, and I know some English tests give you higher marks for longer sentences, so you have to get people to unlearn that bad habit.

I was taught to write a short sentence followed by a longer one, then back to short. This was for English literature, so not sure it is relevant for technical communication.

Re: Ask HN: How to Do Accent Reduction?

#39

Post by majewsky »

colechristensen wrote: post #29
zz865 wrote: 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.

ESL speaker from Germany here. My experience is that I can cope really well with the accents that I understand, but I struggle really hard with new accents until I crack their code, so to say.

For example, the wife of a friend is from Turkey and is not very proficient in German, so we talk in English. The first few times it was really tough for me to understand anything, until I figured out how the Turkish accent works. For example, the Turkish accent replaces th -> t, e.g. "tank you" instead of "thank you", which was really confusing for me since I'm used to German ESL speakers who replace th -> s instead.

Re: Ask HN: How to Do Accent Reduction?

#40

Post by torstenvl »

torstenvl wrote: post #6

Accent is one thing, but mastering the language is helpful as well. Nouns in English require an article unless they are: - proper nouns (names) - pronouns (he, him, her, it) - indefinite plural nouns ("nouns require...") - collective nouns ("pizza is delicious" "foliage is best viewed in autumn") Avoid overusing ambiguous terms that are heavily context-dependent, like "got." Say what you mean: "have," "received," "wa…

Example rewrite:

I am _a_ brown guy._I have been in _the_ [US] for 2 years._One problem I have is that [I] [have] this thick south asian accent (and also _I need to_ [become] _more_ fluent speaking [E]nglish), because during _my_ internship, at the end, that's _the_ only feedback _I_ [received] from my manager, that "[Y]ou are [technically] sound, but you do lack communication skills." So _the_ reason for asking the question here is to get advice and resources to solve my problem _with communication skills. _:)

Post reply on HN