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Anonymous Posted 14 years ago
Speech & Pronunciation

I want to learn the RP accent but I don't know what to do with it.

I'm a Hong Kong people and I want to learn the RP accent. I've started to train my accent for a few weeks. I've tried to learn it by watching videos and reading articles, but my accents still sounds stiff and unnatural. How can I talk to people like a native speaker? What's the key to learn RP accent?
  

Top answer

Actually, anonymous, you are a Hong Kong person, and I advise you to waste no more of your time trying to learn Received Pronunciation. If your own accent is understandable to those with whom you communicate, just continue to be yourself. By attempting an accent which doesn't come naturally to you, you are in danger of sounding pretentious or ridiculous.

— Rover_KE

  • Actually, anonymous, you are a Hong Kong person, and I advise you to waste no more of your time trying to learn Received Pronunciation.
  • If your own accent is understandable to those with whom you communicate, just continue to be yourself.
  • By attempting an accent which doesn't come naturally to you, you are in danger of sounding pretentious or ridiculous.
  • Other readers may like to know that RP is the sort of accent used by cultured English actors of the era of James Mason, David Niven, Alec Guinness etc.
  • It is rarely taught in British Schools nowadays and regional accents are accepted in virtually every walk of life.
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2 Answers
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Actually, anonymous, you are a Hong Kong person, and I advise you to waste no more of your time trying to learn Received Pronunciation. If your own accent is understandable to those with whom you communicate, just continue to be yourself. By attempting an accent which doesn't come naturally to you, you are in danger of sounding pretentious or ridiculous.

Other readers may like to k
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Unless you are trained in articulatory phonetics, just listening to tapes doesn't help much. You need a fine control over your vocal instrument, which is not possible by mimicking. Mimicry is good when you can recognize and produce all sounds on the IPA chart. Otherwise, you end up replacing the target sounds with sounds you know.

Talk to some dialect/accent reduction coach, and learn all
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