I have an accent!
Do you speak English with an accent? Do you wish you didn’t have an accent? Are you ashamed of your accent?
The truth is that unless you started speaking English when you were very young, or unless you have a very unusual gift for languages, you will probably have an accent.
And that’s okay!
Actually, most of us Americans love to hear someone speaking with an accent. If you have been to the U.S., you will notice that we all have accents too. Someone from New Jersey, where I was born, does not sound much like someone from Kentucky, where I live now. We all speak English, but our accents and even the words we use depend on where we grew up. It’s probably the same in your country.
Since you can’t get rid of your accent, what should you aim for in your spoken English?
The most important thing is that other people understand you. If you speak to someone in English, and they look puzzled or ask you to repeat what you said, you probably need a little improvement. Usually your grammar does not have to be very good for you to be understood. But you may have to work on your pronunciation, your intonation, and your pace.
Problems with pronunciation usually arise from your first language (what we teachers call your L1). Native Chinese speakers have different pronunciation problems than native Arabic speakers, or native French speakers. Some sounds are just harder for people to say (or even to hear!) than other sounds. I think the best way to fix pronunciation problems is to work with a native English speaker. You don’t have to be face-to-face. Make use of new technology to connect with people. Ask them to listen to you carefully and to correct your mispronunciation. Keep practicing!
Intonation is another problem. This means that your voice naturally rises and falls. Intonation patterns can really vary from one language group to another. If you don’t try to copy English intonation patterns, you may have trouble being understood. A great way to improve intonation is to listen to English language TV shows or movies. Pretend you are one of the actors and speak their lines.
Finally, there’s pace, which means how fast or slow you talk. Maybe you have been studying English in a classroom or with recorded materials. But when you watch an American movie, people seem to be speaking a different language, and much more quickly! Unless you are really, really good at English, I think it’s better to slow down when you speak. If you have problems with pronunciation and/or intonation, speaking quickly is only going to make it harder for people to understand you. Even in a test like TOEFL, when you only have a minute to answer a question, slow down. TOEFL is looking for speech that is “clear, fluid, and sustained.” You don’t need to speak rapidly, and if you do, you may not be understood.
When you are speaking to someone in English, they may repeat some of your words or phrases. This does not mean that they are correcting you. It’s what we do naturally when we want to make sure we have understood something. Remember that the goal of learning a language is to communicate. With or without an accent, if your English is good enough so that you can be understood, you should be very pleased with your fluency.
