careful. people might not recognize you
In any case, you could always talk to a speech coach.
this post was submitted on 01 Dec 2023
97 points (88.2% liked)
No Stupid Questions
35880 readers
3597 users here now
No such thing. Ask away!
!nostupidquestions is a community dedicated to being helpful and answering each others' questions on various topics.
The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:
Rules (interactive)
Rule 1- All posts must be legitimate questions. All post titles must include a question.
All posts must be legitimate questions, and all post titles must include a question. Questions that are joke or trolling questions, memes, song lyrics as title, etc. are not allowed here. See Rule 6 for all exceptions.
Rule 2- Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material.
Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material. You will be warned first, banned second.
Rule 3- Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here.
Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here. Breaking this rule will not get you or your post removed, but it will put you at risk, and possibly in danger.
Rule 4- No self promotion or upvote-farming of any kind.
That's it.
Rule 5- No baiting or sealioning or promoting an agenda.
Questions which, instead of being of an innocuous nature, are specifically intended (based on reports and in the opinion of our crack moderation team) to bait users into ideological wars on charged political topics will be removed and the authors warned - or banned - depending on severity.
Rule 6- Regarding META posts and joke questions.
Provided it is about the community itself, you may post non-question posts using the [META] tag on your post title.
On fridays, you are allowed to post meme and troll questions, on the condition that it's in text format only, and conforms with our other rules. These posts MUST include the [NSQ Friday] tag in their title.
If you post a serious question on friday and are looking only for legitimate answers, then please include the [Serious] tag on your post. Irrelevant replies will then be removed by moderators.
Rule 7- You can't intentionally annoy, mock, or harass other members.
If you intentionally annoy, mock, harass, or discriminate against any individual member, you will be removed.
Likewise, if you are a member, sympathiser or a resemblant of a movement that is known to largely hate, mock, discriminate against, and/or want to take lives of a group of people, and you were provably vocal about your hate, then you will be banned on sight.
Rule 8- All comments should try to stay relevant to their parent content.
Rule 9- Reposts from other platforms are not allowed.
Let everyone have their own content.
Rule 10- Majority of bots aren't allowed to participate here.
Credits
Our breathtaking icon was bestowed upon us by @Cevilia!
The greatest banner of all time: by @TheOneWithTheHair!
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
I won't delve into the reasons you shouldn't based on 'coolness', but...
There are half-ways between the pronunciation you're mentioning: the short 'a' sound can be used (common in British English), and wouldn't seem so jarring to me.
You can drop your Ts for weak Ds in things like 'water', so the tip of your tongue gently taps the roof of your mouth instead of pronouncing the typical British hard T (a lot of us don't pronounce it like that, mind you).
However, "speak like an American" doesn't necessarily mean one accent, as there are many in the US. Choose one, I suppose.
a medical condition in which patients develop speech patterns that are perceived as a foreign accent[1] that is different from their native accent, without having acquired it in the perceived accent's place of origin.
Foreign accent syndrome usually results from a stroke,[1] but can also develop from head trauma,[1] migraines[2] or developmental problems.[3] The condition might occur due to lesions in the speech production network of the brain, or may also be considered a neuropsychiatric condition.[4] The condition was first reported in 1907,[5] and between 1941 and 2009 there were 62 recorded cases.
Here's to becoming number 63!
Are you in the US? If so it makes a bit of sense if you want to "fit in" socially, but it's also fine if you just like the accents. If you don't live in the US then it might seem bizarre to people if you switch up your english accent (whatever it currently is). Bare that in mind.
But it's your life, you do what you want. Plenty of people have elocution lessons for various reasons. If you feel embarrassed for whatever reason then tell people you're taking elocution lessons. You could tell them you've chosen an American accent as you like the sounds, or it helps you project confidence or even because you feel it will open doors for you when communicating with other English speakers as it will remove bias or prejudice against your current accent.
There are lots of ways of justifying it if you feel the need. But hopefully your friends and family will just understand if you say you just like the way it sounds.
load more comments
(1 replies)
I used to have a southern accent because I grew up in North Carolina. Then I lived in Wisconsin for five years and developed a midwestern accent more or less.
It just happened naturally, just from being in a different environment.
Like others, I won't comment on whether this is a good idea or not.....
Consider that all of the changes happened over time. (Unless you're speaking with a Queen's English accent, which is a posh fabrication created by the upper class BUT I DIGRESS)
So, for example, take the word "water". Look at the first syllable, 'wat'. Imagine it with a British accent, then with an American one. Think about just the vowel, the A. Try to say that vowel out loud in one accent, and hold it, then slide to the other one.
It will take lots of careful thought but you can do a similar "slow slip" for consonants and entire words too.
Good luck, I guess?
As an American (Los Angeles) I think the main difference between how I pronounce water and the way Judi Dench does it is the t. We treat the t like our brake pedal at a stop sign with no other cars around, barely a tap, basically a d sound. The a we pronounce ah. Judi's ah sounds similar but maybe a little oh-ish to us.Then of course there's the -er, which we do pronounce, while Judi says -uh, in the classiest way evah of course!
Scorched earth method. You are now John Black, you have no friends or family. You are an American with nothing but a pack of bubblegum and a desire to take names (of your brand new friends)