Accent Neutralization

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By Guruji Sunil Chaudhary

Welcome to a post which may be highly useful for you if you are looking for ways to neutralize your accent. Many people suffer from MTI(Mother Tongue Influence). It means when they speak any language, their tone sounds similar to their mother tongue instead of the language they are speaking that moment. Here I am sharing some Accent Neutralization Tips and Techniques with all of you.

First of all, there is nothing wrong. It is just a natural phenomenon. if someone told you you have MTI, it is okay.

Now, you need to understand how to take care of that. 

It is easy and you can neutralize your accent in just 5 days drastically.

Accent Neutralization Top Tips Techniques

The English Language has many varieties or you can say local versions around the world. You are not required to understand or study any of them.

Actually, you just need to remove your Mother tongue influence from the language you are speaking. In the case of this post which is the English Langauge.

North Indian has different Accent and South American has a different accent. 

What is Accent Neutralization?

It is the process of understanding the subtle differences in a way any language is spoken and adopting its ways of speaking so that you can sound more neutral.

Once You Have Neutral Accent, You can Talk To Anyone From Any Corner of the World in That Particular Language.

Although, there is one standard neutralization in terms of language learning and speaking. However, companies make their employees adopt the accent of the people they are targeting to deal with.

Accent Adoption is different from Accent Neutralization.

Phonetics Speed Up Your Accent Neutralization

I suggest you find the lessons on phonetics and study and practice them. This will surely speedify your process of accent neutralization. Here are some lessons related to phonetics:

There are many more lessons, Just Explore with the help of any good Search Engine.

I recommend you study Syntax and Semantics as well to Neutralize Your Accent

The more knowledge you have the more confident you are. Therefore, you must study the structure of the English language. it is better good to study some grammar. Understand the common sentence structures of the English Language. Learn All Parts of Speech like Articles, Adverbs, Prepositions, Interjections, etc. This way you will sound more confident.

In How Many Ways People Use The English Language

Of course, there are more than thousands of ways around the world. Way of speaking changes every six kilometres. Most of the accent neutralization programs only give a brief idea about all this.

Today the whole world is on a single platform and well connected with the help of Media and the Internet. So, you may have to converse with anyone from any corner of the world. So, be ready to face that.

So, it is important to keep your accent as neutral as possible so that people can understand us easily.

Keep Your Speech Rate Moderate and Open Your Mouth

You are habitual of speaking your language and your mouth muscles have already adapted to that in kind of addiction. So, when you are learning other languages, you should keep your rate of speech slow and open your mouth a little more than required. This advice is applicable to the initial stage only. Later on, you will automatically adapt to the language. It happens naturally.

There are many more factors like Intonation, Stress, Voice Control, etc.

Understand Culture and Interpersonal Skills – Accent Neutralization Tips

Many learners find it unnecessary. However, as per my experience, I can say this with conviction. Once you have some understanding of the culture associated with the language you are going to master, you will be more confident and will sound more neutral and normal.

Accent Neutralization Top Tips Techniques

First of all, understand the culture, people, geography, watch some movies, and read some books.

Be Positive and Think Good About Others

This point may have nothing to do with Accent neutralization. However, I am adding it here because when you have sweet thoughts about the people you talk to, you sound sweet and confident and your face muscles are relaxed. Just to mention, when you are in tension, it is really hard to hide from your face. So, Smile and think Good.

Let me share the story of Kanchi Kanchan – Accent Neutralization Tips

She learnt 6 levels of German at Pune Max Mueller Bhavan. First, she thought she was really good at speaking German. However, when she met the native speakers, she got the real picture. It was an eye-opener for her. She spent a month among the germans. Germans spoke as they sang. She continued with her Indian accent and learnt their accent after some time.

Now, she suggests us to spend some time watching movies and TV Shows related tot he language we wish to neutralize our accent. 

Some shows like How I met your mother, Game of Thrones, Castle, Homeland, House, etc. are really popular in India. Borrow copies of any interesting shows from friends and watch them. While watching, take small breaks and put the show on pause. Try to imitate some sentences you heard a couple of times. Repetition is the secret. Practice makes a man perfect.

Study Phonemes – Accent Neutralization Tips

There are 44 of these phonemes. You can find them in any good dictionary. Buy a Good Dictionary from Amazon.

44 phonemes are the sounds with which the 26 alphabets are pronounced. Then look at a word in the dictionary. Next to the headword [the word being defined], you will have the ‘phonemic transcription’ which is the way in which the word is pronounced. Thus, ‘academic’ will be something like / aekadaemik /. Here, the aca- is pronounced as  / aeka -/; the ‘-de-‘ is pronounced as / dae / and the  ‘-mic-‘ is pronounced as  / mik /. You can learn the 44 phonemes and their pronunciation in one or two hours. Thus, if you have a British English dictionary you can get a British pronunciation. If you want to deliver a speech, you can look up the transcriptions of most of the words in the speech and then deliver the speech with a British, American, Australian, Canadian, etc accent. These dictionaries are available on the Internet.

Don’t Be Smart – Be Humble

Though I advise being humble forever, It becomes far more important when you are in the initial stage of learning. Talk to expert and native speakers and do not feel bad if you make any mistake. Take feedback positively if you are getting any.

In the end, I would like to say, Just believe, it takes time. Do not be mad about getting the perfect accent. 

The Best Tip – Speak Slow and Open Mouth More than Required

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