unfer said:
Hey everyone, Im new to here
Having lived in the UK for around 6 years now, I am still finding it hard to speak english with a clear british accent. Although I have got rid of my chinese accent, people often ask me to repeat my speech when I'm speaking which is very frustating as I really am trying my hardest to speak clearly.
As time goes, speaking with an british accent have become a dream of mine which doesn't seem to me that I am reaching it. I watch the British Television and am living with naitive speakers. I am disheartened by the fact that people seems to pick up the accent so easily when they moved over at a young age. I've came to the UK when I was 13-14 which I think is considered too late to learn the new accent.
I would be extremely grateful if any of you people can give me some advices!
:-?
Interesting post, that reminds me of the situation I once found myself in.
I've had a rather strong Midland accent, which sadly isn't as much of an attention-grabber as of Home Counties & after having inspired by Hugh Grant & realising that nation's favourite accent is either BBC accent or Home Countries, as of Hugh Grant's, I digged into the accent quite seriously & feel quite comfortable with speaking with Standard accent now & losing my miserable Midland accent.
First thing that needs to bear in mind is the fact that strickly speaking, British English has around 24 consonant sounds & 20 vowel sounds.
Now, I'm no expert in Chinese language but some of these consonant or vowel may've been appearing in Chinese language. However, having said that, their articulation (the way it's produced i.e. the position of tongue, etc.) may be different in Chinese language.
Generally speaking, if you could position your tongue to the exact location in order to produce a particular sound, then you'll make yourself sound like having a BBC accent i.e. a Standard English accent, without any strong regional accent.
Once you make yourself aware of these sounds, which might not be as hard as making yourself aware of HOW TO IDENTIFY sounds within a particular word such as 3 lettered word "hat" has 3 different sound i.e. of "h", "a" & "t" however, 4 lettered word "chin" also has 3 different sound i.e. of "ch", "i" and "n", & to do so, you'll have to make yourself fairly comfortable with "phonetics".
Once you identify the number of sound OCCURING in a particular word & how to articulate each individual sound within that particular word, you should be able to pronounce the word exactly like British accent.
For example, presently, if you don't have a British accent, you might pronounce word such as "mat", "mate", "met" quite similarly, however, the sounds involved in each of these words (especially the vowel sound) are all different. Similarly, you may pronounce word such as "coal" & "call" quite indifferently, however, AGAIN they are pronounced very differently in British accented English.
So all in all, because I showed a rather keen interest into phonetics & practiced it by being an eager beaver, I managed to learn Standard English accent within 6 months (& am still improving on it), so overall, depending on the amount of effort you are willing to put & the time you could invest in learning what's required, you should learn British accent within a matter of few months.
But then again, having said that,
>> Renée Zellweger didn't take months to learn British accent to play Bridget Jones
>> Mike Myers didn't take that long to learn British accent to play Austin Powers
If you are serious about learning British accent then send me a personal message, as I could provide personal face-to-face coaching, however, do bear in mind that "there's NO such thing as free lunch".