82
votes
Accepted
What does "ima" mean in "ima sue the s*** out of em"?
Ima is an informal contraction of I'm going to when it's used in going-to future construction - not in sentences like I'm going to London etc. It's also written i'ma or imma in informal conversations.
...
- 18.1k
59
votes
Accepted
How can I get rid of my Indian accent and sound more neutral/native
Your speaking voice is really lovely and not difficult for me to understand. However, I live in a part of the United States where there are a lot of immigrants from India and I've had many Indian co-...
- 2,472
27
votes
Accepted
Why is Christina Perri pronouncing "closer" as "cloSSer"?
Christina Perri pronounces it correctly and that's not restricted to American English. As far as I know, the pronunciation of closer (adj) with an /s/ is the correct pronunciation in almost all ...
- 18.1k
19
votes
How can I get rid of my Indian accent and sound more neutral/native
I see a few answers suggesting you speak too quickly. I don't think that's the case at all. You speak very slowly. You rarely even get into the ballpark of four syllables per second (four syllables ...
- 298
14
votes
Why is Christina Perri pronouncing "closer" as "cloSSer"?
You may be confusing two words that are spelt the same.
"Closer" (adj), meaning something that is more close (near), has an 'S' sound.
"Closer" (noun), meaning something or ...
- 111k
14
votes
Accepted
Can I completely omit "of" when speaking quickly?
In the clip which the Original Poster has been watching, most of the speakers speak a Northern variety of British English. In this type of English, the word of is often pronounced just as a vowel, ...
10
votes
How can I get rid of my Indian accent and sound more neutral/native
Loud Mouth
First of all, having worked with a fair number of Indians, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis over the last few decades, I can say that you have a very mild accent overall. This leads me to ...
- 256
8
votes
How can I get rid of my Indian accent and sound more neutral/native
While this is not a typical question for this site I compliment you on asking it here and especially on including an audio clip. I cannot think of a better combination.
I have worked with many people ...
- 89
6
votes
Is General American Accent the only choice for me so I am understood by everyone?
There are several points one could make here.
Whichever accent you choose you need to make sure you learn the appropriate dialect of English to go with it. It would sound odd if you speak with a ...
- 4,623
5
votes
Accepted
I did injured from the accident
The verb injure needs an object. Who or what was injured? If you injured yourself, tell us: "I injured myself" or "I was injured."
We only say "I did injure myself!" to ...
- 9,330
4
votes
Accepted
Does English language ever use acute accent mark to denote word stress?
English rarely uses accent marks; it’s not even unusual to see resume
or canape where résumé or canapé is intended. For the most part, the stressed syllable is determined by context, rather ...
- 4,791
4
votes
How can I get rid of my Indian accent and sound more neutral/native
There are already lots of answers here, but let me just suggest one thing: Perhaps try to "do a Canadian accent" rather than "not have an Indian accent". Listen to people on TV and imitate them, ...
- 3,364
4
votes
Accepted
How does connected speech work for accents which use the "h" sound?
Don't try to copy the dropped 'h' (this kind of dialect detail can develop naturally in your accent, but it isn't something to be learnt)
However, in British English dialects, when the 'h' is dropped, ...
- 231k
3
votes
Accepted
What type of English uses the words/pronunciations "yer", "ter", "ernly", "der" and "don'"?
JKR, the author, said in an interview that Hagrid's accent is from the same place she's from, West Country (England):
BPP2: Good question, good question. I've got another good question here ... ...
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3
votes
How can I get rid of my Indian accent and sound more neutral/native
I'm British, I've listened to your recording, and I'm going to be honest - I don't think you have an English accent. You have a lovely speaking voice and I understood every single word you said. As ...
- 111k
3
votes
How can I get rid of my Indian accent and sound more neutral/native
The speed of speech in your recording was not too fast, in my opinion. The elements that sounded characteristically Indian-accented were dampening of articles like "a" and "the" (either completely or ...
- 139
3
votes
Does this Japanese accent need subtitles?
This is not entirely, perhaps not even primarily, a matter of how "thick" the actors' accents are.
Just like voice-recognition systems on a computer, human speakers of any language have to "learn" ...
- 176k
3
votes
Attitudes and concerns over Indian-English accent
"Indian English" isn't just an accent, it is a widely recognised and spoken variety, or dialect of English.
Wikipedia states that Indian English is "the regional variant of the English ...
- 111k
3
votes
Accepted
Standing in "fries" of me?
She's saying "standing in front of me", as the lyrics say.
She either slightly mispronounces it (exhaling a little more air than she intended to) or the microphone distorted it a little, ...
- 2,307
3
votes
US-American pronunciation of 'e'
Here is the relevant paragraph from Donka Minkova's A Historical Phonology of English (2013).
(Note that the vowel you are talking about is /ε/, also referred to as the DRESS vowel.)
As with /i/, the ...
- 2,840
3
votes
Accepted
US-American pronunciation of 'e'
Preliminaries
[ɛ] is open-mid front unrounded vowel, also known as the DRESS vowel in John Wells Standard Lexical sets for English. It's the vowel in bet, dress, best, friend etc.
[æ] is near-low ...
- 18.1k
3
votes
Accepted
Is it 'an hotel' or 'a hotel'
Pronouncing the 'h' in 'hotel is a choice. In modern times in the UK, 'hotel' is very often pronounced with the 'h' sounded, so that the correct preceding indefinite article is 'a'. However, older ...
- 75.7k
3
votes
Can't understand the sentence written in Scottish accent
I'm English but I can help with a bit:
ye is you
ye'd hae it is you'd have it
the Laird's worrrd is the Lord's word (exaggerating worrrd a bit much)
banes is bones (not to be confused with bairns ...
- 922
3
votes
Can I completely omit "of" when speaking quickly?
I wanted to expand on the answer by Araucaria a little.
It's common for many English speakers, not just those speaking British English, to sometimes turn "of" into "uh". This ...
- 132
2
votes
Which region of UK speaks in Posh accent?
If the OP really wants to go to a university, and area where he's more likely to hear RP then I'd recommend either Oxford or Cambridge University.
YouTube Video Oxford University students have their ...
- 28.9k
2
votes
Accepted
Which region of UK speaks in Posh accent?
If you think that there is an idyllic part of England where everyone speaks like Jacob Rees-Mogg, then you are very mistaken. Hardly anyone speaks like that now, apart from some sections of the ...
- 6,526
2
votes
Accent reduction
Different strategies will be better suited to different people, but I will tell you what helped me the most in improving my English pronunciation: learning general phonetics. By general, I mean ...
- 1,767
2
votes
Accepted
Where does "day" sound like "die"?
This is a feature of some Australian accents.
Australian accents can be loosely grouped into three types "cultivated" (which is close to British) "general" (used by the majority of Australians) and ...
- 231k
2
votes
How to pronounce unaspirated stop sound properly? Such as the /t/ in " let me", is it just/lɛ/ /mi/?
It might depend on what accent you're trying to emulate.
For me, Northern Br E, the 'close' is at the back of the tongue to the throat.
If I emulate a generic Southern Br E or US E it seems to be ...
- 17.6k
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible