Is it possible to sound like a native speaker?

[kacper6768]

Is it possible to learn English to have the same accent and use the same words in a given situation as a native speaker and not let anyone notice that I am Polish? For example, a Russian has been living in Poland for over 20 years and I still hear a Russian accent in his voice. Which English is better the British or American from the point of view of a European? On the one hand, Great Britain is closer and most Poles emigrate there for work, but American English definitely reigns in the world.

 

[rgd1101]

sure. actor/actress do different accent

 

[Deleted member 2731765]

Actually, honestly speaking, changing one's accent depending on his/her country of birth and language, it would not be THAT easy to fully change one's accent.

As a matter of fact, to sound more like a native, extensive practice of phonemes and pronunciation should be done. However, the chances of sounding like a native speaker are still lower, but not impossible.

Practice makes a man perfect ! BUT, you cannot (always) lose your original accent completely. Many factors will actually determine how your accent will turn out in the end — how long you’ve been learning the language, the level of immersion/dedication, how young or old you were when you started learning, among other things.

Improving your accent takes a lot of work, so don’t expect to be able to change it overnight.

Also, some readers may never fully attain that accent’s nuances (some even go to speech therapists for this), but they can surely get very close!

 

[Deleted member 2731765]

Oh BTW,

American English and British English are both great, and equal. Choosing one over the other is just a matter of personal preference/choice. Some prefer an American accent because they grew up watching American movies and listening to American music.

Some think British English sounds more proper and prefer that instead. Some manage to speak both accents, lol.

 

[Eximo]

Actors don't always achieve perfection either and everyone sounds a little different, doesn't really matter if you can pass.

A lot depends on the particular English/American dialect/region. Certainly many English/Scottish accents that would be seen as bad/easily dismissed. And many dialects in America that get the same reputation. Certainly some urban areas that have very distinct accents, some of which you may have heard of like Cockney. The acceptable accents you see in English media are usually from a few distinct areas of Scotland and Southern England. The famously made fun of one is the Chav, which is people that attend "public" school (private school pretty much everywhere else) and the high class universities like Cambridge. That is the high class British aristocrat, someone like Boris Johnson is an interesting example.

If you want a very interesting example, listen to Sandi Toksvig. She is Danish, but grew up in America, went to an English boarding school and adopted the accent of a famous black and white British actress.

What you see on American television and media is closer to Standard American English when actors aren't doing something regional on purpose. This is what broadcasters are taught in school, regardless of where they are from.

Ohio. Northern Indiana, Michigan, Illinois (Minus Chicago) are generally considered to be closest to this standard. East Coast and urban cities have distinct accents across America. Boston, New York, Chicago as examples. West Coast accents are also pretty noticeable, but because things like LA/Hollywood are where the US popular media comes from, a lot of that area also holds more closely to SAE. with greater differences in sentence structure rather than accent.

US also has the Southern (East Coast South) and Western accents (South West). These are your Louisiana/Deep South accents and are often the butt of jokes in US. Though there is also high class Southern which is more traditional among the wealthy in that area. Western accents go more towards your classic cowboy / farmer and it spreads through most regions of the US. If you make a living around livestock or farming pretty much anywhere in the mid-west, you will see this type of inflection and word choice.

 

[punkncat]

According to where you choose to travel, but in many cases I think it would be better to sound like a Brit than a Yank. The US isn't particularly popular with everyone around the world.

 

[DSzymborski]

Is it possible to learn English to have the same accent and use the same words in a given situation as a native speaker and not let anyone notice that I am Polish? For example, a Russian has been living in Poland for over 20 years and I still hear a Russian accent in his voice. Which English is better the British or American from the point of view of a European? On the one hand, Great Britain is closer and most Poles emigrate there for work, but American English definitely reigns in the world.

I think speaking clearly and having good diction is far more important to listeners than what accent someone has. I do a lot of radio and the occasional TV spot and as long as I speak well, nobody really cares if there's a mid-Atlantic Baltimore tinge on a word from time-to-time.

And accents definitely can shift significantly over time and there are a lot of factors such as age and socialization. I'm told my grandmother, who was from Germany, had developed a British-accented English when she was working as a translator during the war trials, but by the time I was born (1978), it had become more German-sounding , which became more pronounced as she aged. My godfather (born in Germany in 1925) is still alive and his accent has always been noticeably German. My girlfriend on the other hand, lived in England and India until middle school and when I knew her as a teenager, she had a very obvious English accent. Over 30 years, that's faded steadily; at one point it had faded just enough that people thought it was a South African accent. Now, nobody she meets seems to even notice any remaining accent, and you can only really tell a whiff of the Received Pronunciation she was educated in by the way she hits p's and t's. Yet her mom's accent is as strong as I remember.

In the end, if people understand well what you're saying, they'll quickly forget you have one. It's an important feature of a person for about 30 seconds after you meet them and never again.

Well, except for my friend who lived 20 years in Scotland and then 20 years in rural Atlanta; the mix of a Scots burr with a southern drawl is a very unusual blend and I admittedly try to get him to say complex words from time to time.

 

[Eximo]

I do enjoy occasionally making my sister in law say Aluminium (She is from middle England) She hasn't lost the British way of saying "water" either. For some reason that trips up wait staff quite often.

 

[Deleted member 14196]

I work with a lady from Poland, and I don’t think she’ll ever lose her accent, but why would she want to

I started saying the things that she says like stop yelling on me, I just love that one. It’s an endearing thing.

A long time ago we used to fight over the design of the products, and the arguments could get heated, but through it all we remain friends

 

[kacper6768]

In English, there is "Connected Speech" that native speakers shorten normal sentences. Can any sentence be turned into a "Connected Speech" sentence? In what situations should or should not "Connected Speech" be used?

 

[Lafong]

Is it possible to learn English to have the same accent and use the same words in a given situation as a native speaker and not let anyone notice that I am Polish?

Even if no one could detect your are Polish by accent, you would be a long way from being identified as a native English speaker.

You wouldn't necessarily have any command of colloquialisms, figures of speech, regional pronunciations, and on and on.

Run this through your magic translator gizmo:

"Before the address, he said "A drawer of does could elaborate on an intimate and invalid entrance, although minute objects might cause a row and take offense at putting the project into the sewer and refuse to subject the wicked in the tower to another wound."

 

[hotaru.hino]

I believe who or where you learn English from heavily determines your "default" accent. I watched videos of people who spoke English as their second language but they sound like someone from the US because they learned more or less by watching US movies and shows.

There's also the phenomenon known as code switching, where if you stick around a certain place long enough, you'll eventually start talking like them. I noticed when I had a teacher with a noticeable southern US accent, but a few years later they lost a lot of it

 

[kacper6768]

Is it the case in English that when you say the same thing in many sentences, you replace that word with other words that mean the same thing so you don't use the same word? This is how it is in Polish.

 

[Lafong]

Is it the case in English that when you say the same thing in many sentences, you replace that word with other words that mean the same thing so you don't use the same word? This is how it is in Polish.

Generally speaking, yes.

An English writing instructor would probably admonish you for using the same word repeatedly. It's a matter of style.

Maybe repetition isn't to be avoided in some languages? I have no idea.

 

[Lafong]

In English, there is "Connected Speech" that native speakers shorten normal sentences. Can any sentence be turned into a "Connected Speech" sentence? In what situations should or should not "Connected Speech" be used?

Connected speech is extremely common and natural to native speakers. It isn't given a second thought in standard conversation.

An English speaker would be perfectly understood if connected speech was deliberately avoided, although speaking in such a way in ordinary conversation would likely be regarded as stilted, affected, or ostentatious. Probably even annoying.

Connected speech might be less common in an oration of some kind where the speaker was enunciating each syllable carefully.

 

[Eximo]

If you mean something like this:

"We can meet at the market on west street."

with a response like:

"I will see you there" With there meaning the market on west street, yes, that is common.

 

[Unolocogringo]

You see even in the US we have local and regional accents.
Someone from New York sounds totally different than someone from New Jersey and completely different than say someone from rural Alabama. Each having their own dialect and slang.
Good luck choosing and mastering one, much less all.