Reduce Your Accent and Speak with Clarity

 Once you’re aware, you’re half way there

Practice

Correct yourself when you make mistakes

A strong accent often holds individuals back and delays career progression. However good your grammar is, an indelible impression is left after a conversation with someone who has a strong accent- it is generally assumed that their English is less good than it actually is because accents are extremely deceiving. Unfair as it seems; someone with a less pronounced accent will appear more fluent.

Accent softening requires a lot of commitment and hard work, as it involves going against natural instincts and responses. Having said this, with a bit of effort on the part of the student, accent reduction is certainly achievable.

Some people fear that they will lose their identity if they develop an English accent, but it is not necessary to completely eradicate your native accent. The only thing that is important is that you can be clearly understood.

Accents are apparent in the following instances:

• Sentence/ word stress is different
• Vowel sounds are shorter/ longer
• Consonants are stronger/ weaker/ unidentifiable
• Pace and rhythm is different
• Intonation is different
• The throat is not in use
• Tone is different
• A different part of the mouth is used
• Tongue, teeth and lip positioning is different
• Individual sounds are not pronounced correctly (due to any/ all of the above)