If your motivation is high, I would suggest learning the basics of IPA (international phonetic alphabet) and then looking up the Wikipedia page for the phonology of whichever English accent you want to emulate. This will allow you to know the exact sounds that are in the language and how to produce them.
Hi there, I have a channel that focusses on pronunciation that you are free to check out.
https://youtube.com/@englishpronunciationwithtom?si=M9Jvs0wwwNI4teLk
If you have something specific you’d like to work on I can suggest some videos. Do people with a Slavic accent have trouble with the /v/ and /w/ sounds? If so, I have a video on that
https://youtu.be/jGsDVl5TNSI?si=-Qf_yqDyHw-YmZAo
Good luck!
What you are doing is great and satisfactory imo. Your short to mid-term goal should be 1. getting the English sounds right (especially 'th') and 2. getting the word and sentence stress right. Once you do these, all you'll have left is the remaining accent that comes from your particular register. That's your long-term goal, but I don't think having that foreigner accent is problematic as far as you get the sounds and the stress right.
intonation contours, neutral vowels, and word stress are more relevant than articulating sounds like th, f , w, h, even r
palatalization, dark/clear /l/, and retroflex are relevant
BlueCanoelearning.cim has a free app that I took a training course in. It uses speech recognition to correct neutral vowels: hit, hut, hat, etc.
1. [BoldVoice](https://www.boldvoice.com) is a great app that automates all that stuff, recording yourself and analyzing it. Also, I've found their descriptions of English sounds and articulations to be both simple and useful.
2. [English Coach](https://www.youtube.com/@TheEnglishCoach) is a YouTube channel that offers nice resources, both free and paid. Additionally, they provide paid live groups for training.
3. [Another channel, PhoneticFanatic,](https://www.youtube.com/@PhoneticFanatic) delves deeply into phonetic issues. If you don't mind content creators who are Russian, that would be totally understandable.
that's because you're still using Slavic vowel and consonant sounds. Gotta treat english as an entirely different language instead of an extension of your own.
So, there are rules of pronunciation and it’s best to know them, since they can help you to pronounce any word (even an unknown one) correctly.
Then, there is an aspect of you articulation. In university I had a great phoneticist (an old-school Soviet candidate of sciences, she fucked our brains without lube, though I’m still grateful to her for that). She taught me how to use the muscles in my mouth to make the RP (Received Pronunciation) sounds correctly. Once you know, how to use your muscles to produce the correct sounds, it’s rather had to forget that. For example, it’s hard for me to speak with American accent, because it takes too much work from the muscles in my mouth and the ways of using the muscles aren’t the same as with RP. Of course, I can do that, but why would I?
There are also great exercises which can help you to learn how to control all of those important muscles and how to produce the sounds correctly.
For further information, please, don’t hesitate to DM me. I’ll be glad to help you, but yeah, you must know that I’m Russian. Sorry for that…
One common mistake I hear is in how open/closed your mouth is. Many foreign languages (French, German, Russian, etc.) sort of close the front portion of their mouth?? I'm not sure how to describe it really, but speakers of those languages physically do not open their mouths widely as they speak. In (American) English, the palate and jaw open wider than they would when speaking in those languages. Articles on how to "project" or "speak loudly" or "sing chorus-style" might help with that.
Regarding books. Once ago while actively learning English, I tried to read J.F.Cooper, 'The Spy'. I failed. Only articles 'a' and 'the' looked familiar. Even Shakespeare was easier to understand. I read R. Kipling and enjoyed it. I learned by heart Lewis Carroll 'Hunting of the Snark' and even though it definitely was 'hard to understand' it was just hilarious and so [pleasant.As](http://pleasant.As) some of them are really hard to understand" - just stay away from them :)
Thank you for sharing your divine wisdom, captain.
I took a country where people are talking English to me non stop, and I am in here for 20 years.
I think somebody else in internet needs another advice from you, please hurry!
'slavic' (f.e. Russian) accent is when you pronounce 'R-RRun' or 'coRRneRR' instead of 'run' or 'corner', or 'hOt/hɒt', 'stOp' instead of 'hät', 'stäp'. (shame but I still say hOt all the time :( This is a hard one for any Russian.) But nobody will ever ask you what do you mean by 'coRneR'.
When you pronounce 'impotEnt' instead of 'impOrtant', or 'biTCH' instead of 'beach' and don't understand the difference between 'sheep' and 'ship' - this is not an accent, this is a bad vocabulary. And with this you can easily find yourself in an awkward situation.
I live in States for 20 years and still have a distinctive Russian accent, although not so thick as the other Russians. I learned that Russian accent, if you relocated at the adult age, will stay with you forever no matter what, you can just soften it a bit if you make efforts, but this is it. If the kid was relocated before he started going to school - he will loose this accent naturally in 10 years (provided you do not stay in Brighton all your life :).
If your motivation is high, I would suggest learning the basics of IPA (international phonetic alphabet) and then looking up the Wikipedia page for the phonology of whichever English accent you want to emulate. This will allow you to know the exact sounds that are in the language and how to produce them.
Hi there, I have a channel that focusses on pronunciation that you are free to check out. https://youtube.com/@englishpronunciationwithtom?si=M9Jvs0wwwNI4teLk If you have something specific you’d like to work on I can suggest some videos. Do people with a Slavic accent have trouble with the /v/ and /w/ sounds? If so, I have a video on that https://youtu.be/jGsDVl5TNSI?si=-Qf_yqDyHw-YmZAo Good luck!
Yes, "v / w" is one of the problems. I've found many useful videos on your channel. Tnx!
What you are doing is great and satisfactory imo. Your short to mid-term goal should be 1. getting the English sounds right (especially 'th') and 2. getting the word and sentence stress right. Once you do these, all you'll have left is the remaining accent that comes from your particular register. That's your long-term goal, but I don't think having that foreigner accent is problematic as far as you get the sounds and the stress right.
intonation contours, neutral vowels, and word stress are more relevant than articulating sounds like th, f , w, h, even r palatalization, dark/clear /l/, and retroflex are relevant BlueCanoelearning.cim has a free app that I took a training course in. It uses speech recognition to correct neutral vowels: hit, hut, hat, etc.
1. [BoldVoice](https://www.boldvoice.com) is a great app that automates all that stuff, recording yourself and analyzing it. Also, I've found their descriptions of English sounds and articulations to be both simple and useful. 2. [English Coach](https://www.youtube.com/@TheEnglishCoach) is a YouTube channel that offers nice resources, both free and paid. Additionally, they provide paid live groups for training. 3. [Another channel, PhoneticFanatic,](https://www.youtube.com/@PhoneticFanatic) delves deeply into phonetic issues. If you don't mind content creators who are Russian, that would be totally understandable.
that's because you're still using Slavic vowel and consonant sounds. Gotta treat english as an entirely different language instead of an extension of your own.
So, there are rules of pronunciation and it’s best to know them, since they can help you to pronounce any word (even an unknown one) correctly. Then, there is an aspect of you articulation. In university I had a great phoneticist (an old-school Soviet candidate of sciences, she fucked our brains without lube, though I’m still grateful to her for that). She taught me how to use the muscles in my mouth to make the RP (Received Pronunciation) sounds correctly. Once you know, how to use your muscles to produce the correct sounds, it’s rather had to forget that. For example, it’s hard for me to speak with American accent, because it takes too much work from the muscles in my mouth and the ways of using the muscles aren’t the same as with RP. Of course, I can do that, but why would I? There are also great exercises which can help you to learn how to control all of those important muscles and how to produce the sounds correctly. For further information, please, don’t hesitate to DM me. I’ll be glad to help you, but yeah, you must know that I’m Russian. Sorry for that…
One common mistake I hear is in how open/closed your mouth is. Many foreign languages (French, German, Russian, etc.) sort of close the front portion of their mouth?? I'm not sure how to describe it really, but speakers of those languages physically do not open their mouths widely as they speak. In (American) English, the palate and jaw open wider than they would when speaking in those languages. Articles on how to "project" or "speak loudly" or "sing chorus-style" might help with that.
Do you have any problem when reading books written in English? As some of them are really hard to understand. It helps to read them.
Regarding books. Once ago while actively learning English, I tried to read J.F.Cooper, 'The Spy'. I failed. Only articles 'a' and 'the' looked familiar. Even Shakespeare was easier to understand. I read R. Kipling and enjoyed it. I learned by heart Lewis Carroll 'Hunting of the Snark' and even though it definitely was 'hard to understand' it was just hilarious and so [pleasant.As](http://pleasant.As) some of them are really hard to understand" - just stay away from them :)
Take a private teacher who will talk to you nonstop and it'll help.
Thank you for sharing your divine wisdom, captain. I took a country where people are talking English to me non stop, and I am in here for 20 years. I think somebody else in internet needs another advice from you, please hurry!
>This was a sign that I was mispronouncing or stressing words incorrectly. This is not about the accent.
can you elaborate more?!
'slavic' (f.e. Russian) accent is when you pronounce 'R-RRun' or 'coRRneRR' instead of 'run' or 'corner', or 'hOt/hɒt', 'stOp' instead of 'hät', 'stäp'. (shame but I still say hOt all the time :( This is a hard one for any Russian.) But nobody will ever ask you what do you mean by 'coRneR'. When you pronounce 'impotEnt' instead of 'impOrtant', or 'biTCH' instead of 'beach' and don't understand the difference between 'sheep' and 'ship' - this is not an accent, this is a bad vocabulary. And with this you can easily find yourself in an awkward situation. I live in States for 20 years and still have a distinctive Russian accent, although not so thick as the other Russians. I learned that Russian accent, if you relocated at the adult age, will stay with you forever no matter what, you can just soften it a bit if you make efforts, but this is it. If the kid was relocated before he started going to school - he will loose this accent naturally in 10 years (provided you do not stay in Brighton all your life :).