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I have some questions about pronunciation. I've never had an experience of talking to a native English speaker, so these questions might be silly.
1) I have troubles with pronouncing the 'r' letter in the plural forms of some nouns. For example, I pronounce 'user' without 'r' at the end, but I find it very difficult to pronounce 'users' without 'r' (same with 'sinner' and 'sinners') so I pronounce them as in American English. On the other hand, I do pronounce 'cars' without 'r' and I think there are plenty of other examples, but I can't recall them now.
2) Usually, I pronounce words as if I'm speaking British English, but I'm very used to pronouncing some words as in American English. For example, I pronounce 'schedule' as 'skedʒuːl', 'privacy' with 'praɪ' at the beginning.

Is it critical to change my pronunciation? I don't think I can speak American English since I'm used to British English, so it would be more rational to choose British English as my goal, but it would be also very hard to get rid of these Americanisms. Would it sound funny or stupid if I talked to someone?

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    Interesting. I think there would be some websites that facilitate internet/video calls for language learners. My first thought is that it's difficult to attain native-like accents, and my second is that the only real test is to speak to a native speaker of English. It might sound funny if you speak with an unusual accent, but hey, that's language learning - I probably sound as silly or worse when I attempt to speak French. If anyone does call you stupid for speaking with an unusual accent though, I wouldn't pay any attention to them.
    – jimsug
    May 11, 2014 at 11:37
  • Received pronunciation is very much a form of British English and is non-rhotic. This means the Queen won't pronounce the r's in your example words either, so I wouldn't worry about it.
    – Alan Third
    May 11, 2014 at 20:22
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    I don't worry so much about not pronouncing 'r' as I worry about pronouncing it. Anyway, as I've understood, it's not very important to have ideal pronunciation. However, I admit the importance of speaking correctly, but the only way to find out whether or not my pronunciation is understandable is to talk to somebody.
    – Vlad Stryapko
    May 11, 2014 at 20:57

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Everyone will understand what you're saying, the English are very aware of Americanisms and so it may sound a bit weird that you're mixing the two - but we get it!

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  • I would worry least about the word "schedule". Pretty confident that if you asked ten random people from across Britain, half will pronounce it 'skedʒuːl'.
    – Easy Tiger
    Jan 28, 2016 at 18:01

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