Are you learning English as a second language? Do you sound, how to put this… less than natural while speaking? In other words, is your non-English accent too obvious? Well, it’s an old and known problem. Nevertheless, it is possible to do something about it.

Let’s look at it closely. What in fact makes the accent? Your pronunciation of each and every sound! The stress you put, your speed of speech, and emphasis. All these things vary from one language to the other. Therefore, you cannot use your own language’s rules while speaking English. Actually, you could – but most chances are that it won’t sound natural in English.

So what can you do?

Start with learning the different sounds of English. You might be surprised, but while English has only 26 letters, it has over 40 different sounds! So when you see the letter A, for example, there are several ways in which it can be pronounced! Examine the following words: cat, arm, take, eat, about. The letter A is pronounced differently in each and every one of them! Confused? Don’t be! It’s only complicated if you try to understand everything at once.

When you take it to step by step, it all makes sense in the end. (Yes, in the end. Don’t try to rush it.) So where do you start in all of this English pronunciation mess? You can find a good online guide to English pronunciation and take the care and time to learn each sound. Listen, and practice, practice, practice. And in a time, hopefully not so far from now, you will be able to speak English much more naturally!

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