Pronunciation myths and realities

When you speak English, if you don’t sound like a British, American or other anglophone person, you haven’t reached a good enough level.?

Do you believe this?

After being told for the 999th time, “ You speak good French but why do you still have an accent?”,? I realised that there a lot of myths around accents in a foreign language. The most pervasive, and the one which causes the most problems, is that if you speak a language at a high level, and you make an effort, you will sound like a person from that country.?

Let me ask you a couple of questions: Are you under 16? Did you spend a lot of your childhood and adolescence immersed in a foreign language??

If you answered no to these two questions, I have to give you some bad news: you will (almost) never be able to erase your accent that comes from your mother tongue. (I say almost because some people are very good at imitating other people’s speech or are lucky enough to work with a professional voice coach. A Hollywood actor for example…)

In a way this is not bad news, it’s actually good news: setting your expectations to more realistic goals means that you won’t feel bad when you inevitably won’t meet your goal of sounding exactly like an American.?

Would you like to get my guide to some simple spelling and pronunciation rules which explain how to pronounce vowels? Just click here.

Why can’t you get a “perfect” accent as an adult? Scientists are not 100% sure of the reasons, but something happens during adolescence that prevents you from being able to make sounds that don’t exist in the language(s) you grew up with.?

This doesn’t mean that you can’t learn new sounds, or improve your pronunciation. In English we have one sound for “u”. In French there are two sounds - usually spelled as “ou” and “u” which to English-speakers sound the same. I worked a lot on these two sounds in French, so that I would be able to say “dessus” and “dessous” as two totally different words. It wasn’t easy I can assure you! I can do it now, but when I’m not concentrating, I sometimes say “vu” instead of “vous”. I don’t think it will ever come completely naturally.?

You’ll also find words - usually with a combination of difficult sounds - that seem like you’ll never be able to say correctly. For me in French, this is “grenouille.” Impossible to pronounce!?

So what should you be aiming for? First of all, stop thinking about “accent” and think about “pronunciation.” You should have the goal of clear pronunciation that everyone can understand, even with your charming accent. This means you will need to work on clear enunciation.?

If you want to improve your accent in English, you may need to work on specific sounds - certain consonants or vowels - and sentence stress, to make sure your message is always clear. You can work on this alone by using an AI transcription or you can work with a specialised coach, who can identify which aspects of your pronunciation cause comprehension difficulties and work with you to correct them.

A very good way of checking how clear your pronunciation is, is by calling a voice activated phone line. (I'm not joking!) Phoning to make an appointment at my local hospital was extremely frustrating, but once the system finally understood me (luckily I was never calling for an emergency) I was really proud!

Remember that I said this applies to you if you’re an adult??

For children, it’s very different. The more you hear a foreign language when you’re a child or a teenager, the closer your accent will be to a “native speaker”. English lessons at school are not enough - immersion over a long period is the key. I have had university students who had such amazing accents, I thought they?had spent time in the US: it turned out they just watched a lot of Netflix! Get your children to watch in the original language. I haven’t met a teenager who doesn’t watch YouTube - encourage them to watch videos in English. You may get annoyed with the amount of time they’re on their screen, but if they’re doing it in English, it’s for a good cause!

So remember: set realistic expectations for your pronunciation. If you think you’re not easy to understand, ask for some feedback. And get all the children around you to watch more Youtube!