Okay,I'm going to talk about a problem while learning how to speak English correctly. When we are trying to copy the way American and English people speak English.

The fact,they are using different accents for each part of their country (ex. southern and northern America speak in different ways.) And especially in America, Afro-American and Latin-American stay with their own styles.

The European,Most of Asians,Australian,Singaporean etc. also have their own style, but sometimes they sound so hard to understand :D
So,which one do u prefer? Or have you decided to speak English in your own way?

Hi des_jung..

Yeah, different country means different accent. Most singaporean with their singlish, most japanese with their catasthropic english, most afro-american with their try-to-look-cool english, and many others.

As for me, to tell you the truth, I'm not that good in speaking now. Got to one to talk to now. So, my accent is not that great.

But, for my standard of accent, i used to refer to American English. The pure American spoken by Caucasians (no means to be racist here). It is because, when I observed closely, i found that American English is no different with British English, but British has some awkward accents sometimes. Australian English is of no difference with those two.

So, I can certainly sure that my accent referral is from the hollywood movies i used to watch.

For your question, I think you just choose whichever accent that you think really suit you and make you comfortable to pronounce it. because the most important thing is that your words can be understood by others.

i love british accent ..

so royal... . ahahah

Well, for me, it sounds cool to hear from someone who has a British accent :)
but, I admit it, I'm agree with Tangerine that I used American accent when I talk to someone..
Maybe because some of my relatives are from American and Australian that I began to speak like them >.<
Wish that I have a relative from England hahaha..


btw,
try-to-look-cool -> lol =))

@tangerine nice addition. and the point is "understandable". I hope accent won't become a big problem to communicate with the others :)

@kwang agree,but to learn it perfectly, we have to move to england.haha it's a kind of heavy accent.

@boyboy when the US rules the world. english has become international language.haha and it's correct to follow theirs :)

I've read your 'historical international English' thread,
hahaha..
yeah, I agree with you :D

i don't think you can speak english with whatever accent you like, well maybe singlish was okay. accent is heavily influence by neighbourhood and social culture surrounded the people there. i bet ten box you can't speak english accent authentically.. except you lived there for ten years maybe..
even in english itself there's a lot of different accent. cockney, scouser, manchester. people can recognized where someone come from from their accent.
and yes, i am too are heavily influenced by holywood movies i watched. esp the bastarished one. haha
and there's also hillbilly accent that even americans can't understand.
for the japs speak english, i think i have a better terms : broken english!

BojepJoe wrote:

i don't think you can speak english with whatever accent you like, well maybe singlish was okay. accent is heavily influence by neighbourhood and social culture surrounded the people there. i bet ten box you can't speak english accent authentically.. except you lived there for ten years maybe..
even in english itself there's a lot of different accent. cockney, scouser, manchester. people can recognized where someone come from from their accent.
and yes, i am too are heavily influenced by holywood movies i watched. esp the bastarished one. haha
and there's also hillbilly accent that even americans can't understand.
for the japs speak english, i think i have a better terms : broken english!

LOL..
Japanese English:
milk = miruku..
convenience store = convini..
FAIL!! haha..

Japanese english: Chocolate = Chokoreto hahaha
sounds funny,they use katakana to convert it

In addition,beside of the effect of neighborhood,i think it also depends on what kind of romanization is being adopted by those countries. some countries in east asia don't even use alphabet. :D

harry potter used british accent..so do james bond :)

Personally, i think british are better, more elegant, and it's so much harder to speak with british accent compared to american

the british accent only sounds weird, because we are too used to american accent from hollywood movies

not all japanese are bad in english, remember "dalton tanonaka" from morning news? he's awfully good. i guess tanonaka was a japanese name *correct me if i'm wrong

hahah !
I read those comments above..
lol >.<


then have you ever talk to someone who speaks India-English ?
darn, its really hard to guess what the heck is he saying --a

most ppl from japan, china, india . they are a little bit hard to be conversed with
ppl from singapore are better if you remove all the accents.
ppl from taiwan are much more better


*experience says*

yeah, I have watched several movies about india, and their english sounds funny :) but there are plenty of english speakers in there.
btw I don't think people from taiwan speak english well,
but compare to japan and korea.yeah..hehe

I've talked with Korean and Iranian before. Their accent are okay. I've also talked with Japanese professor before, well, he still has Japanese accent flowing while speaking English, but his English is not the type of those broken Japanese English. Hoho.

So, some minority from Japan, India, Taiwan, and other countries speak English well or so so, while the majority speak awfully.

btw,if u want to improve your accent,just go to US/England. that's the best way :D

well, in my case, i am sure that i'm talking to an educated japanese man, he was a sales technical support (i met him at a machine expo). He was one of those "broken english"user LoL

des_jung wrote:

btw,if u want to improve your accent,just go to US/England. that's the best way :D

Australia is a good choice too :)

st_fanuc wrote:

well, in my case, i am sure that i'm talking to an educated japanese man, he was a sales technical support (i met him at a machine expo). He was one of those "broken english"user LoL

lol..
=))

british accent remind me to Johny english..
hahaha.. :p
Oh i ever heard the japanese english too when i watch japanese movie..
Miracle become Mirakuru
Power become Bawa
laugh and feel funny the first time i heard it..

@boyboy did u know?my brother studying english literature and he found that australian accent is one of the worst. have any idea about this? i've never been to OZ,so i know nothing.

@josha that's japanese

@ johas
lol mirakuru
bawa LMAO
=))

@ des jung
is it ?
my uncle came from Australia, and I thought his accent is as good as British's
@___@

OZ = where is this ?

have you all ever heard of playing tonguetwister?

"she sells the seashells on the side of the seashore, on a shredded sheet"

repeat as much as you can, getting faster gradually, i can assure this is rather tough~

@boyboy maybe he is one of "better speaker". i will make a research bout their accent :)

@all

for addition,this is what called "Relaxed Pronunciation"

Of, have, and to
The words of, to, and have all tend to elide to nothing more than a schwa [ə] in many common situations. This sometimes leads to spelling confusion, such as writing "I could of..." instead of "I could have..." or "I could've".

could have: [ˈkʊɾə], coulda
must have: [ˈmʌstə], musta
should have: [ˈʃʊɾə], shoulda
would have: [ˈwʊɾə], woulda
it would / it would have: [ˈɪɾə], itta
can i have: c'ive (hard "c")
a lot of: [əˈlɑɾə], a lotta
kind of: [ˈkaɪɾ̃ə], kinda
out of: [ˈaʊɾə], outta
sort of: [ˈsɔɹɾə], sorta
going to: [ˈɡʌnə], gonna
got to: [ˈɡɑɾə], gotta
have to: [ˈhæftə], hafta
want to: [ˈwɑɾ̃ə], wanna
ought to : oughta

You
"You" tends to elide to [jə] (often written "ya"); softening of the preceding consonant also may occur: (/t/ + /jə/ = [tʃə], and /d/ + /jə/ = [dʒə])
did you: [ˈdɪdʒə], didja
did you / do you: [ˈdʒə], d'ya
don't you: [ˈdoʊntʃə], doncha
got you: [ˈɡɑtʃə], gotcha
get you / get your: [ˈɡɪtʃə], getcha
would you: [ˈwʊdʒə], wouldja

@ BoyBoyJC
OZ = australia




@ st_fanuc
yeah, seen it before.. and my tongue got twisted easily.. lol..

try this one, the most toughest one i've ever encountered:

Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.
A peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked.
If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers,
Where's the peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked?

I wish to wish the wish you wish to wish, but if you wish the wish the witch wishes, I won't wish the wish you wish to wish.

Luke Luck likes lakes.
Luke's duck likes lakes.
Luke Luck licks lakes.
Luck's duck licks lakes.
Duck takes licks in lakes Luke Luck likes.
Luke Luck takes licks in lakes duck likes.


@ des_jung
nice post.. will add your post to another section later..




@ all
regarding the accent of australian, well, i've seen some asian guy or girl who live in australia. seen them on their youtube channel. their accents are okay to me. try youtubing the video "stranger, again" (it's also a good video abut the phases of relationship) :)

tangerine : yea2, i've heard those 3, but i had forgotten the rhymes
thanks for refreshing my memory :p

ok everyone, repeat each tonguetwister at least 5 times everyday, by the time you can spit it out without a single mistake, you can speak as good, or even better than western peoples :)

st_fanuc wrote:

have you all ever heard of playing tonguetwister?

"she sells the seashells on the side of the seashore, on a shredded sheet"

repeat as much as you can, getting faster gradually, i can assure this is rather tough~

for me, this is the hardest tongue twister >.<

des_jung wrote:

@boyboy maybe he is one of "better speaker". i will make a research bout their accent :)

@all

for addition,this is what called "Relaxed Pronunciation"

Of, have, and to
The words of, to, and have all tend to elide to nothing more than a schwa [ə] in many common situations. This sometimes leads to spelling confusion, such as writing "I could of..." instead of "I could have..." or "I could've".

could have: [ˈkʊɾə], coulda
must have: [ˈmʌstə], musta
should have: [ˈʃʊɾə], shoulda
would have: [ˈwʊɾə], woulda
it would / it would have: [ˈɪɾə], itta
can i have: c'ive (hard "c")
a lot of: [əˈlɑɾə], a lotta
kind of: [ˈkaɪɾ̃ə], kinda
out of: [ˈaʊɾə], outta
sort of: [ˈsɔɹɾə], sorta
going to: [ˈɡʌnə], gonna
got to: [ˈɡɑɾə], gotta
have to: [ˈhæftə], hafta
want to: [ˈwɑɾ̃ə], wanna
ought to : oughta

You
"You" tends to elide to [jə] (often written "ya"); softening of the preceding consonant also may occur: (/t/ + /jə/ = [tʃə], and /d/ + /jə/ = [dʒə])
did you: [ˈdɪdʒə], didja
did you / do you: [ˈdʒə], d'ya
don't you: [ˈdoʊntʃə], doncha
got you: [ˈɡɑtʃə], gotcha
get you / get your: [ˈɡɪtʃə], getcha
would you: [ˈwʊdʒə], wouldja

hey,
thanks a lot !
that's really a good post and information :D