10 Easy Tips to Help You Learn an American Accent

Do you want to learn an American accent? Looking for some useful tips? In this article I’m going to show you 10 excellent methods to improve your American accent. Here they are!

1. Read something aloud

You can’t improve your accent if you don’t speak. You should speak as much as you can. While it’s not always easy to find a native American speaker to speak with, you can always find an interesting text in English and read it aloud. While reading, exaggerate your pronunciation, remember about the correct intonation (content words like nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs are stressed, structure words like articles, prepositions or pronouns are not). Record yourself while speaking to find out how your accent sounds and what you should work on!

2. Find a language partner

There are numerous sites that connect people who look for a pen pal. Use sites like Polyglot Learn Language, Livemocha or Italki to find a language partner from the United States and practice your accent with him or her. Teach them your native language in exchange for the opportunity to improve your accent.

3. Sing or rap along

Pick your favorite American song and sing or rap along to it. It’s a very fun and tremendously effective method!

4. Talk to yourself or with your friends

I’m pretty sure that you know some people that speak English. So, practice with them. If you can’t speak with other people, talk to yourself – practice is the key.

5. Use Forvo

If you aren’t sure how to pronounce a certain word or a phrase, try Forvo.com. Forvo is a place where native speakers of more than 250 languages pronounce words in their native languages. There are also many American speakers. Make sure that you are listening to a native American speaker and then repeat the word at least a few times.

6. Listen to the American radio

Just google “US radio stations”. You can also listen to VOA News Special English radio broadcasts. The speakers read at a slower pace, about two-thirds of the speed of standard English. Thanks to this, it’s very easy to understand them. What’s more, there’s always a transcription of a given broadcast!

7. Watch American movies with subtitles

And try to imitate actors. If you watch a movie with subtitles, it will be easier for you to understand the actors and repeat after them. It’s a very effective and fun method. However, keep in mind that watching movies without paying attention to the way the actors speak won’t help you much.

8. Travel to America

It’s unquestionably the best method available, because it will make it very easy for you to completely immerse yourself in an American accent. Pay close attention to how native speakers speak and speak only American English! Can’t travel to America? Don’t worry, you can…

9. Invite Americans to your home

How? Use Couchsurfing.org. The idea of Couchsurfing.org is very simple: it connects travelers with locals. The locals want to host people at their homes in exchange for cultural exchange, friendship and learning experiences. And the travelers have an opportunity to lower the financial cost of their travel and stay with locals. So, if you sign up on this site, there’s a chance that there will be some American people who will want to stay at your home. You can practice your accent with them! And always remember to…

10. Live through American English

Speak and listen to American English as much as you can. Make it a habit. Thanks to this, you should notice improvement in your accent after a few weeks. Keep in mind that learning an accent is a process, you can’t get a new accent overnight. But if you start living through American English, if you immerse yourself in it, you will drastically shorten the time needed to learn an American accent.

Good luck and have fun!

Visit Learn American Accent now to get your FREE lessons and additional tips on how to learn an American accent.