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[zigzagmyway]

How I can I (foreigner) learn to pronounce correctly, improve my grammar, learn to write cohesive sentences, and overcome my accent? I have experienced that it is extremely hard to overcome the accent. Can anyone suggest an excellent book, guide or instructions on audio/video? Or even courses in some University/community college. I am in North Texas. Thank you.

[bacardiandlime]

Contact the drama department at a nearby university, and ask for some recommendations of vocal coaches.

[goldenapple]

Our state university offers English as a Second Language classes that specifically focus on accent improvement. This is not unusual. Contact your local community college and ask about ESL classes that serve this purpose.

CDs and books can give you suggestions, but you need to work with real people to improve.

[daurousseau]

When it is the other way around, American English speakers learning a language like French, the only proven way is to work with a specialist in remedial pronunciation and diction. So that may be true of the reverse. The phonetic alphabet is a useful tool because it is indifferent to which language one is coming from.

First try to find the person in the university where you work who is a specialist. When you have done all you can with that one, then hire a tutor and talk with her or him every day.

[kamiakin]

And do not be embarrassed to ask people during conversation if you are saying something correctly. People like to be helpful and will appreciate your efforts.

[laurel_knx]

And do not be embarrassed to ask people during conversation if you are saying something correctly. People like to be helpful and will appreciate your efforts.

The important part is to ask. People like to be helpful, but most will not critique your accent without prompting, because Americans think it's rude to do that (at least Southern US Americans).

[balancing_act]

Last year I helped a Chinese graduate student who was in child psychology with her language. She had a series of questions to ask children, etc. What she wanted was to record my voice so that she could hear proper pronunciations.
But, when I listened to her read the questions, pronunciation wasn't as much of an issue as inflection and accentuation. She said she listens to radio and T.V. news to help her with her pronunciations. When I saw her later, she said that listening to my voice, and repeating what I said has helped her a lot.

Words on paper can help with grammar; listening and repeating can help with inflection and pronunciation. Basically, you have to practice.

[ideagirl]

How I can I (foreigner) learn to pronounce correctly, improve my grammar, learn to write cohesive sentences, and overcome my accent? I have experienced that it is extremely hard to overcome the accent. Can anyone suggest an excellent book, guide or instructions on audio/video? Or even courses in some University/community college. I am in North Texas. Thank you.

Can you imitate an American accent in your own language? You know, how Americans can imitate a French person or a German person, etc., speaking English? If you can mimic an American accent in your own language, you're already halfway there: just keep doing that same type of mimicry, but start saying English words instead of words in your own language. Do like so:

(1) Say a few things in your language in an American accent. Say random stuff--you could read out loud from a book or something, so that you don't have to think up more things to say; just read out loud while trying to sound like an American who's trying to speak your language.
(2) Grab a newspaper or cereal box or other object with English writing on it, and keep on reading out loud in your American accent--but now you're reading English words.
(3) Repeat as necessary.

[helpful]

I am in North Texas. Thank you.

Watch G.W. Bush speeches and acquire his accent that way.

You are welcome.

[bcantaire]

I am in North Texas. Thank you.

Watch G.W. Bush speeches and acquire his accent that way.

You are welcome.

Lol

;D


Spend time listening to English. Movies, radio, whatever. I am a singer, and I am finding that the same skills I used to get really good at that, are helping me to understand and speak Spanish. My teacher was surprised at how much I can understand already, and I know it is because I have developed my "ear" for music. With music, I deconstruct and restructure the patterns of sound in my mind, and the more I do it, the more subtle things I notice. I was singing R&B music, which can actually be very difficult (runs, pronunciation, different ways to use your voice...very subtle things).
Maybe thinking of it in a musical way can help you. (If you are into music, or find that you can hear pitch easily, this might actually be a good way to look at it)  I am not sure. Just an idea!

[forest1227]

I don’t want to discourage anyone who wishes to improve his/her English, but I believe that you need to grow up in the right social environment to be able to master their language and culture. Childhood experience is critical. It is hard to rewire adult brain to suit a foreign language. I grew up in China, and I found < 5% of all the people there could master Mandarin even though Mandarin had been the official tool of communication and education for a long time. Also, I found among the internet posts in Chinese there are often one grammar mistakes in every other sentence. My own Mandarin is better than most of them, but far from perfect. I wonder if I should improve my Mandarin first or my English first.

[dellaroux]

Your English is pretty strong, but there are a few errors in your post.

1) "It is hard to rewire an adult brain" ("brain" needs an indefinite article there; you could also say, "the adult brain," but that may sound too stilted.)

2) The word "tool" in the phrase, "tool of communication" might better be said, "form" or "means" (unless you intend a fairly ironic dismissal of Mandarin, which is what the word "tool," for an inanimate object, suggests to me in English).

3) ..."there are often one grammar mistakes" has two disagreements of number (are/one; one/mistakes). That sentence could be re-worked a couple of different ways.

You might want to say, instead, "Also, internet posts in Chinese often have a grammar mistake in every other sentence."

I agree that a social context helps with language learning, and it's harder for adults; I feel the same way about French.

[quietly]

Listening alone is not enough--a vocal coach is necessary.  I once had a friend in neurolinguistics who explained to me that fMRI studies show people who grew up with one set of phonemes (say, the English set) physically COULD NOT HEAR the differences between certain phonemes in a new set (e.g. Japanese) without extensive retraining.  This is why people from certain Asian backgrounds struggle so much with the "r"/"l" distinction--it really does sound like the very same letter to their brains.  I myself experienced this when studying a certain Bantu language with fused consonant pairs that don't occur in English.  Extensive and deliberate retraining is required to hear the difference.

Of course, people learning a language with the same set of phonemes will have few to no problems.  It's relatively easy to move one's brain around among Indo-European languages, but moving across major language families (e.g. Tai-Kindai, Niger-Congo, Sino-Tibetan) is much harder.  OP, if that's your situation, get a professional coach.

[dellaroux]

The suggestion of a drama coach is a good one; someone who teaches vocal music would also be able to help you with vowel and consonant formation and inflection.

It's the "music" of the language that goes with, suspends, or infuses the words' meanings; it conveys the more subtle meanings meant by "accent."