LOL I find it funny you jut bought a book to learn an american accent yet when you speak you already have a very good american accent. It seems that many people from asian countries have a very difficult time with english pronunciations, just because the languages are so different. I think your accent is fine :) I'll be honest, it's not perfect, but is pretty close for someone who comes from a more distant language. Accents aren't the important part, it's the pronunciations.
The book American Accent Training is being used here in the Philippines as a learning material for trainees in the call center industry. I also used that book since 2007 before I entered teaching English to Koreans. Now I'm doing self study on the French language and it has been really challenging to learn a language that has so many words difficult to pronounce.
Hi, I don't know if you're Japanese, Chinese or Singaporean. I can't understand Japanese or Singaporeans when they speak English, but your English is already very good. You have good liaison (連音) in "it also", but you need more glottal stop (斷音) for unaccented "nt" combinations such as the the "t" in "accent", I shouldn't hear an aspirated (送氣) "t" there. You don't have a rhotic "r" at the end of "mirror", and "my progress" should be accented on "pro". I think the most help would watch your Ts
I didn't live in an English-speaking environment until I was 15 (I was raised in Hong Kong). At that time I made a goal not only to be perfectly fluent in English but to be perfectly accent-free as well. But having to master a native accent at that age, it literally drove me nuts. Now I speak English naturally in a pronounced California accent and I'm proud of it, but I keep on telling people that there's no need for this. It's TOO MUCH WORK. Whether people understand you is all that matters.
You are doing great, it's sound atleast 70% of how americian speaking thier accents.... Teach me or you may borrow the test book to me ! Is the fastest way to improve more as it comes.... Great job!!!
Great stuff, ganbatte! But i'm sad you didn't want to learn an English English accent instead! lol
ps
Also it's ironic that "pronounciation" is actually pronounced as "pronunciation". Don't worry this is a mistake that native Engish speakers make all the time. I used to do it, until I was corrected.
You speak English very well! And you have good cadence! How many years have you been speaking English? I'm tempted to show this to my students. I think their jaws would drop at how well you speak. :)
Thanks a lot for your kind comment! I'm really glad that you've understood everything I said in the video! I'll keep working hard and shoot more videos on YouTube in the future. Hope you'll see some progress in my future videos!
@UnclePolyglot yes, i hope so too. i really like English (it's my native tongue) but it's pretty difficult to get all the pronunciations correct, even Americans have that problem hahaha.
May I suggest that you have probably wasted your money on the book and CDs. As an Englishman I'd say that your accent is very good indeed. More impressive is that you are articulate and communicate well.
I would suggest that you simply listen to material that you are interested in, in the accent of your choice, and this will be far more effective than a book can ever be. This will also help with more casual language/idiom. Very well done.
Thanks a lot for your kind comment! I'm glad and relieved that you've found my accent clear and easy to understand. :-)
As you have pointed out, maybe what I really should do is listen to more of the materials that I am interested in, instead of just trying to mechanically fix my accent with this textbook.
By the way, I am planning to do another video in the near future where I will try to fake a British accent, as I really like the accent. Please keep a lookout!
A British accent? Not many non-British English speakers can do that! It can be done though - here's some proof of a Japanese girl with astonishingly good English. It's so close to native.
Actually, upon a second viewing of your video, there is one grammatical aspect you could change to sound more natural. You could use the simple past and the past continuous, as opposed to the present perfect and present perfect continuous. The former are used much more often in spoken speech, e.g., "I bought a textbook," not "I have bought a textbook." Hope that helps.
@jmichaelrout Many thanks for your valuable input! As you have pointed out, I have a tendency to use the present perfect tense where I can use the simple past tense to avoid wordiness. I don't know where I got it from, but it's definitely a habit. Guess I need to pay more attention to how people actually speak, instead of just hitting the books. I'll be uploading more videos in English in the future, so I'll bear that in mind when I shoot them!
Firstly, you have the very best accent I've ever heard from an adult Japanese learner of English. It's excellent! Your grammar is more proper (better) than many Americans already! Actually, I'd have to say that if I were to hear a recording of you without ever knowing your background, I would guess that you were native French and you were perhaps educated/been living in America for quite some time. Maybe like a bilingual French Canadian. That's nothing to be ashamed of!
Haha you don't need that textbook. Your English is [too] perfect. You don't sound perfectly American but It's like you said you just sound a little too stiff. I'm just watching this video after watching your french one and I see so many similarities. Even though your english is obviously much better than your french you tend to speak in both like they teach you to speak at school, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. But if you want to sound American just relax and speak a little more casually.
@pamination I think its less your actually accent but more the vocabulary and sentence patterns you use. I think for work purposes and such it might be better to continue to speak the way you do because you tend to come off very well educated and intelligent. If your looking to make American friends you're probably gonna wanna to start dumbing it down and usin slang tho.
@pamination Hello, thank you for your comment! I'm really delighted that you've check out both my English and French videos! As you have pointed out, I think what I am lacking is not so much the correct accent as the variety of sentence patterns, as I tend to recycle the same old sentences again and again. In recent weeks, I've been working to rectify this problem area, and have been consciously trying to use new sentence patterns. Hope my efforts will pay off in the future!
Regrettably, ever since I shot this video, I haven't been very diligent in improving my accent, as I got busier with other commitments, mainly my French studies.
However, I would really like to improve my English accent and fluency in the future, as I love this language.
Will upload more videos on this channel so you'll be able to see my progress (if any) going forward.
You are awesome. I speak four chinese dialect My in-laws are Indonesian and so I always try to impress them with my Indonesian every year when I visit them. Now I am 45 year old and is still learning Japanese by myself and thought all these language learning is crazy and I should stop until I see your youtube video!
My advice for you. Forget about American accent. Just go with no accent, it's better when speaking universally.
@tidakada1965 Many thanks for your encouraging comment! I, too, sometimes think that all this language learning is a bit much, and that I will have to stop at some point. But I guess I'm addicted to languages and I simply cannot stop learning! Thank you also for your tip on the accent. Guess I shouldn't worry too much about my accent, as was also pointed out by many other YouTubers who have watched this video. Talk to you again soon!
Honestly, you don't need that book at all. You accent is light years ahead of most Japanese people. For the most part, you sounded like a native speaker to me. The exceptions were words here and there that were pronounced slightly different than a native speaker's pronunciation.
If anything, you should just leave your accent the way it is. That's my opinion.
Many thanks for checking out my video! I am encourage that you think that my accent is good for the most part.
As you have pointed out, maybe I shouldn't be that concerned about perfecting my accent, as it takes up a lot of time and energy!
However, I do need to focus on improving my delivery skills, including how to enhance the tone of my voice and to adjust the speed of my speech so that I can make myself understood better.
When watching Terminator, isn't it kind of a charm to listen to Schwarzeneggers accent? Would Arnold really be the same Arnold without that accent? Not to me.
You are already speaking very clear and I don't think you need to focus on your accent to the extent of studying through a whole book like that. English is also my second language, but I would rather spend the time it takes to study through that book on learning a new language instead. But if you really want to do this, then go for it! :)
Hello! Many thanks for checking out this video! You're perhaps right that I need not be that concerned about mastering the correct accent, as my accent, albeit not that standard, can be part of what makes me different from the others. I'm still in the process of going through this book, but I might not go all the way through, if I do decide that it's not worth my time and energy. We'll see. Thanks a lot for your comment!
Your channel is a nice find for me. I'm an American living in Japan (studying Japanese daily). I must say your accent is quite good. I understood you. But being you want to study accents, I say 頑張って！ As with every country there are many accents in the US, especially regional, ethnic, and class accents. Pick one you like and keep going. You're already great in speaking :)
Many, many thanks for checking out this video! I am so relieved to know that you've understood every word I said.
I've been learning English for a long time, but for me speaking with a good accent has always been a difficult task. But I am really encouraged by your comment today, and am determined to improve my accent through hard work.
Also, thank you very much for subscribing to my channel. I will try to make my channel more and more interesting!
Congratulations on your choice of accent! :) By the way, I had no difficulty understanding your first video. You are quite fluent in English already with very little Japanese accent. I look forward to seeing your future videos and the changes you make to your accent.
LOL I find it funny you jut bought a book to learn an american accent yet when you speak you already have a very good american accent. It seems that many people from asian countries have a very difficult time with english pronunciations, just because the languages are so different. I think your accent is fine :) I'll be honest, it's not perfect, but is pretty close for someone who comes from a more distant language. Accents aren't the important part, it's the pronunciations.
kukuluku1 1 month ago
When you master the american accent, you should try the british accent. Its relaxing to hear in my opinion.
markenyou 1 month ago
@markenyou Thank you for your comment. Great suggestion. Will give it a try! :-)
UnclePolyglot 1 month ago
@0harajin2 はっきり言って下手ですよ。でも、おほめいただいてうれしいです！
UnclePolyglot 1 month ago
You Tube で見た日本人の中で一番上手い！
You are the best among Japanese in You Tube!
TheChaper7 3 months ago
@TheChaper7 恐縮です！でも僕の英語の発音は、まだまだ欠陥だらけですよ。もっと精進します！！！
UnclePolyglot 3 months ago
great bro! i was inspired you bro! arigato..
jeneilz 7 months ago
The book American Accent Training is being used here in the Philippines as a learning material for trainees in the call center industry. I also used that book since 2007 before I entered teaching English to Koreans. Now I'm doing self study on the French language and it has been really challenging to learn a language that has so many words difficult to pronounce.
alvin190485 10 months ago
Hi, I don't know if you're Japanese, Chinese or Singaporean. I can't understand Japanese or Singaporeans when they speak English, but your English is already very good. You have good liaison (連音) in "it also", but you need more glottal stop (斷音) for unaccented "nt" combinations such as the the "t" in "accent", I shouldn't hear an aspirated (送氣) "t" there. You don't have a rhotic "r" at the end of "mirror", and "my progress" should be accented on "pro". I think the most help would watch your Ts
Glossika 1 year ago
UnclePolyglot, maybe you should try Singlish instead of the one you're doing now lol
'cause Singlish rocks... mah lol
adamtokyo 1 year ago
And trust me, your speak English VERY WELL with a clear accent. Most of my foreign friends can only dream.
citybuster 1 year ago
I didn't live in an English-speaking environment until I was 15 (I was raised in Hong Kong). At that time I made a goal not only to be perfectly fluent in English but to be perfectly accent-free as well. But having to master a native accent at that age, it literally drove me nuts. Now I speak English naturally in a pronounced California accent and I'm proud of it, but I keep on telling people that there's no need for this. It's TOO MUCH WORK. Whether people understand you is all that matters.
citybuster 1 year ago
Wow wow wow. 発音は本当に上手いよ！
Uncleさんは天才だよな。 俺は天災だけどｗ
Ohflautistpleaze 1 year ago
You are doing great, it's sound atleast 70% of how americian speaking thier accents.... Teach me or you may borrow the test book to me ! Is the fastest way to improve more as it comes.... Great job!!!
3757 1 year ago
Great stuff, ganbatte! But i'm sad you didn't want to learn an English English accent instead! lol
ps
Also it's ironic that "pronounciation" is actually pronounced as "pronunciation". Don't worry this is a mistake that native Engish speakers make all the time. I used to do it, until I was corrected.
alexkx3 1 year ago
Iv borrow the book, thanx for the recommendation:)
theviolet1986 1 year ago
You speak English very well! And you have good cadence! How many years have you been speaking English? I'm tempted to show this to my students. I think their jaws would drop at how well you speak. :)
nerdlass 1 year ago
@nerdlass
Hello! Thank you for your kind comment! I am really encouraged!
I've been learning English for ages and ages...for 27 years to be exact!
Over the past years my accent has been slowly improving, but I still have a long way to go.
I'll be posting more videos going forward so please keep a lookout!
UnclePolyglot 1 year ago
@UnclePolyglot i'm looking forward to seeing more of your videos in English! :-)
i understood everything you said in the video, and really that's all that matters.
NorseRonin 1 year ago
@NorseRonin
Thanks a lot for your kind comment! I'm really glad that you've understood everything I said in the video! I'll keep working hard and shoot more videos on YouTube in the future. Hope you'll see some progress in my future videos!
UnclePolyglot 1 year ago
@UnclePolyglot yes, i hope so too. i really like English (it's my native tongue) but it's pretty difficult to get all the pronunciations correct, even Americans have that problem hahaha.
NorseRonin 1 year ago
May I suggest that you have probably wasted your money on the book and CDs. As an Englishman I'd say that your accent is very good indeed. More impressive is that you are articulate and communicate well.
I would suggest that you simply listen to material that you are interested in, in the accent of your choice, and this will be far more effective than a book can ever be. This will also help with more casual language/idiom. Very well done.
acromel 1 year ago
@acromel
Thanks a lot for your kind comment! I'm glad and relieved that you've found my accent clear and easy to understand. :-)
As you have pointed out, maybe what I really should do is listen to more of the materials that I am interested in, instead of just trying to mechanically fix my accent with this textbook.
By the way, I am planning to do another video in the near future where I will try to fake a British accent, as I really like the accent. Please keep a lookout!
UnclePolyglot 1 year ago
@UnclePolyglot
A British accent? Not many non-British English speakers can do that! It can be done though - here's some proof of a Japanese girl with astonishingly good English. It's so close to native.
/watch?v=Q0ugaLTXxSc
次のビデオは本当に楽しみにしています。 頑張って下さい！ グッド・ラックです (笑）。
acromel 1 year ago
Actually, upon a second viewing of your video, there is one grammatical aspect you could change to sound more natural. You could use the simple past and the past continuous, as opposed to the present perfect and present perfect continuous. The former are used much more often in spoken speech, e.g., "I bought a textbook," not "I have bought a textbook." Hope that helps.
jmichaelrout 1 year ago
@jmichaelrout Many thanks for your valuable input! As you have pointed out, I have a tendency to use the present perfect tense where I can use the simple past tense to avoid wordiness. I don't know where I got it from, but it's definitely a habit. Guess I need to pay more attention to how people actually speak, instead of just hitting the books. I'll be uploading more videos in English in the future, so I'll bear that in mind when I shoot them!
UnclePolyglot 1 year ago
Firstly, you have the very best accent I've ever heard from an adult Japanese learner of English. It's excellent! Your grammar is more proper (better) than many Americans already! Actually, I'd have to say that if I were to hear a recording of you without ever knowing your background, I would guess that you were native French and you were perhaps educated/been living in America for quite some time. Maybe like a bilingual French Canadian. That's nothing to be ashamed of!
jmichaelrout 1 year ago
Haha you don't need that textbook. Your English is [too] perfect. You don't sound perfectly American but It's like you said you just sound a little too stiff. I'm just watching this video after watching your french one and I see so many similarities. Even though your english is obviously much better than your french you tend to speak in both like they teach you to speak at school, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. But if you want to sound American just relax and speak a little more casually.
pamination 1 year ago
@pamination I think its less your actually accent but more the vocabulary and sentence patterns you use. I think for work purposes and such it might be better to continue to speak the way you do because you tend to come off very well educated and intelligent. If your looking to make American friends you're probably gonna wanna to start dumbing it down and usin slang tho.
pamination 1 year ago
@pamination Hello, thank you for your comment! I'm really delighted that you've check out both my English and French videos! As you have pointed out, I think what I am lacking is not so much the correct accent as the variety of sentence patterns, as I tend to recycle the same old sentences again and again. In recent weeks, I've been working to rectify this problem area, and have been consciously trying to use new sentence patterns. Hope my efforts will pay off in the future!
UnclePolyglot 1 year ago
Hi, great videos! How is the accent training going? Would love to see a follow-up video.
otosbutt 1 year ago
@otosbutt
Hello! Many thanks for checking out this video!
Regrettably, ever since I shot this video, I haven't been very diligent in improving my accent, as I got busier with other commitments, mainly my French studies.
However, I would really like to improve my English accent and fluency in the future, as I love this language.
Will upload more videos on this channel so you'll be able to see my progress (if any) going forward.
Talk to you again soon!
UnclePolyglot 1 year ago
You are awesome. I speak four chinese dialect My in-laws are Indonesian and so I always try to impress them with my Indonesian every year when I visit them. Now I am 45 year old and is still learning Japanese by myself and thought all these language learning is crazy and I should stop until I see your youtube video!
My advice for you. Forget about American accent. Just go with no accent, it's better when speaking universally.
tidakada1965 1 year ago
@tidakada1965 Many thanks for your encouraging comment! I, too, sometimes think that all this language learning is a bit much, and that I will have to stop at some point. But I guess I'm addicted to languages and I simply cannot stop learning! Thank you also for your tip on the accent. Guess I shouldn't worry too much about my accent, as was also pointed out by many other YouTubers who have watched this video. Talk to you again soon!
UnclePolyglot 1 year ago
Hi Mandalearn,
Thank you for checking out my video, and for leaving a kind comment!
I will be posting more videos in English so my viewers can monitor my progress in terms of my fluency and pronunciation.
Please keep a lookout!
UnclePolyglot 2 years ago
You don't have a strong accent. You shouldn't be woried about it that much.
kosuke0810 2 years ago
Hi kosuke0810,
Many thanks for checking out this video!
I was relieved to read your comment that my accent isn't that strong.
Perhaps you're right that I shouldn't be too concerned about my accent. Think I should focus on developing my fluency instead.
Thank you once again for the valuable input!
UnclePolyglot 2 years ago
actually, you're doing good enough! 頑張って！！！！
liuoyama 2 years ago
Hi, liuoyama,
Thank you for your kind comment! I know that my accent still leaves a lot to be desired, but I will keep trying to improve it!
Many thanks for watching this video!
UnclePolyglot 2 years ago
Honestly, you don't need that book at all. You accent is light years ahead of most Japanese people. For the most part, you sounded like a native speaker to me. The exceptions were words here and there that were pronounced slightly different than a native speaker's pronunciation.
If anything, you should just leave your accent the way it is. That's my opinion.
mrhansmoleman 2 years ago
Hello, mrhansmoleman!
Many thanks for checking out my video! I am encourage that you think that my accent is good for the most part.
As you have pointed out, maybe I shouldn't be that concerned about perfecting my accent, as it takes up a lot of time and energy!
However, I do need to focus on improving my delivery skills, including how to enhance the tone of my voice and to adjust the speed of my speech so that I can make myself understood better.
A million thanks for your comments!
UnclePolyglot 2 years ago
When watching Terminator, isn't it kind of a charm to listen to Schwarzeneggers accent? Would Arnold really be the same Arnold without that accent? Not to me.
You are already speaking very clear and I don't think you need to focus on your accent to the extent of studying through a whole book like that. English is also my second language, but I would rather spend the time it takes to study through that book on learning a new language instead. But if you really want to do this, then go for it! :)
TheCrazyStudent 2 years ago
Hello! Many thanks for checking out this video! You're perhaps right that I need not be that concerned about mastering the correct accent, as my accent, albeit not that standard, can be part of what makes me different from the others. I'm still in the process of going through this book, but I might not go all the way through, if I do decide that it's not worth my time and energy. We'll see. Thanks a lot for your comment!
UnclePolyglot 2 years ago
Your channel is a nice find for me. I'm an American living in Japan (studying Japanese daily). I must say your accent is quite good. I understood you. But being you want to study accents, I say 頑張って！ As with every country there are many accents in the US, especially regional, ethnic, and class accents. Pick one you like and keep going. You're already great in speaking :)
shearoberts 2 years ago
Hi, shearoberts!
Many, many thanks for checking out this video! I am so relieved to know that you've understood every word I said.
I've been learning English for a long time, but for me speaking with a good accent has always been a difficult task. But I am really encouraged by your comment today, and am determined to improve my accent through hard work.
Also, thank you very much for subscribing to my channel. I will try to make my channel more and more interesting!
Talk to you again soon!
UnclePolyglot 2 years ago
Your accent isn't that bad, I understood every word that you said. I'm American.
One quick tip- the word ¨Mirror¨ should be pronounced like ¨meer¨... like steer, deer, we're, here, beer, etc. We don't say Mee-Rah.
Keep it up, you will do great. I look forward to seeing more of your videos.
multibucket01 2 years ago
Hi! A million thanks for your comment! I am really encouraged!
Will continue working hard on my accent. Hope in my next video I can show some progress!
UnclePolyglot 2 years ago
Congratulations on your choice of accent! :) By the way, I had no difficulty understanding your first video. You are quite fluent in English already with very little Japanese accent. I look forward to seeing your future videos and the changes you make to your accent.
KanjiKeith 2 years ago
Hi Keith,
Many, many thanks for checking out this video! I am encouraged by your comment!
There is still a lot of room for improvement, and I will keep working to reduce my accent!
UnclePolyglot 2 years ago
you're gettin' there, keep up the great work!
Dirxenxgrey 2 years ago
Many thanks for your kind comment! I am so encouraged!
The American accent is really difficult for me, but I will keep trying, trying, trying!
UnclePolyglot 2 years ago
Wow, you speak English fluently!
I can wait your next video.
Keep up your good work!
nobuo2006japan 2 years ago 2
Thanks a lot for your kind comment!
I will keep trying to improve my English accent.
I will be posting more videos in the near future, so please keep a lookout!
UnclePolyglot 2 years ago