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Can I Learn a New Accent?
Can a person actually learn a new accent? Many people feel that after a certain age, it's just not
possible. Can classical musicians play jazz? If they practice, of course they can! For your American
accent, it's just a matter of learning and practicing techniques this book and CD set will teach you. It
is up to you to use them or not. How well you do depends mainly on how open and willing you are
to sounding different from the way you have sounded all your life.
A very important thing you need to remember is that you can use your accent to say what you mean
and how you mean it. Word stress conveys meaning through tone or feeling, which can be much
more important than the actual words that you use. We'll cover the expression of these feelings
through intonation in the first lesson.
You may have noticed that I talk fast and often run my words together. You've probably heard
enough "English-teacher English"—where ... everything ... is ... pronounced without having to listen
too carefully. That's why on the CDs we're going to talk just like the native speakers that we are, in a
normal conversational tone.
Native speakers may often tell people who are learning English to "slow down" and to "speak
clearly." This is meant with the best of intentions, but it is exactly the opposite of what a student
really needs to do. If you speak fairly quickly and with strong intonation, you will be understood
more easily. To illustrate this point, you will hear a Vietnamese student first trying to speak slowly
and carefully and then repeating the same words quickly and with strong intonation. Studying, this
exercise took her only about two minutes to practice, but the difference makes her sound as if she
had been in America for many years.
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