My accent is getting close to a native american?

Question

That's my accent:Which words I do pronounce like a native, and which are still different.How's it? Am I close to the american accent?

CalifJim · Accepted Answer

AnonymousAm I close to the American accent?

Yes. Very close. You certainly have a native feel for where the pause words go (I mean, you know, like, well, yeah, OK) and your delivery seems very spontaneous and unrehearsed, so that's excellent.

Here are the words that came out slightly non-native to my ear, but only slightly. I've used bold face type for the portions of the words that were a little different from native pronunciation. They are given in the same order as they occurred in your video.

reduce, everything, listening, pronunciation, don't know how I sound, can't imagine, dream English, start a project, working on it, some point.
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Summary.

It boils down to long u after d (reduce), short u in general (****unciation, some), short i (everything, listening), one ng (everything), one l (English), the er sound (working) and final t (don't, can't, start), and a stress pattern problem with the longest word in your video (pronunciation).
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Details.

reduce: There is more than one way to pronounce it. dooss or dyooss. You seem to be hitting something in between.

everything: Edging toward every-theen, though other ng's in your video were good.

listening: Edging toward leesening.

pronunciation: Should be proNUNciAtion. Yours was closer to PROnunciAtion, thus placing a little too much stress on the first syllable.

English: Very well done in some occurrences, but at one point you almost added a syllable to create Engelish. It always has to be two syllables Eng- glish, so that the gl is heard as a unit in glish, not as ge lish.

working: I believe you said this more than once. It was very good in all but one case. At one point the vowel was a little wrong - too close to the "or" sound when it is not after a "w". (The "w" affects the pronunciation of "or". After "w", "or" should be said as if "er".)

some: Be careful not to be fooled by the spelling with o. It's said exactly as the word sum. You shaded the vowel towards an o.

Final t's should typically be unreleased. Sometimes you almost leave them out (don know); sometimes you aspirate them too much (can't imagine). "start a project" is probably best said as if it were a single long word with an American d, thus: stardaproject.
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This may sound like a lot of problems, but I assure you, it's less than one percent of the total video. You are completely understandable, and your accent is definitely American (not British or Australian, for example).

Excellent.

CJ

My accent is getting close to a native american?

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