How to Fix Your Accent and Sound Like a Native [in 4 Steps]
*This blog is reader-supported. I may earn a commission for purchases made through links in this post. Read full Affiliate Disclaimer here.
Table of Contents
The benefits of having a native-like accent
How I learned to pronounce like an American
Your 4-step solution to native pronunciation
Step #1 - Be like Eddie Murphy
Step #2 - Be open to feedback
Step #3 - Loop it & slow it down (like a musician)
Step #4 - Record yourself (and compare it to a native speaker)
Bonus Tips
Conclusion
Can anyone develop a native-like accent?
Even if you don’t necessarily have a natural talent for it?
You certainly can.
Just because you feel you’re not talented at it, doesn’t mean you can’t get amazing native-like pronunciation.
If you just work on the right things.
Talent only takes you so far.
You still have to spend time consciously improving it.
A lot of the advice out there is focused on what “not to do” to get a great accent (which I went through in my previous post: The 5 biggest pronunciation MYTHS you need to stop worrying about).
The problem is:
They don’t tell you what to do.
I have found there is a lack of clear simple steps of what you need to do to improve your accent.
The problem is also that in our society we rely more on our eyes than we do our ears.
Many of us stop using our ears.
(Even though it’s something we used to be experts at as children!).
It’s a skill to develop, just like anything else, and the right exercises will open up your ears again.
This post is for those of you who feel stuck with your pronunciation and don’t know how to improve it.
I will give you the steps you need to take to develop world-class pronunciation.
To show you not only what to do but how to do it.
How far you want to take it is up to you.
The more you improve, the more you’ll experience the benefits of speaking with an amazing accent.
The benefits of having a native-like accent
You’ll be effortlessly understood
You’ll blend in better in the culture
It will massively improve your confidence when speaking
Native speakers will be impressed (making their jaws drop)
Back in 2010, I moved to California for 3 years.
During that time, a lot of people either didn’t know I was from Sweden or they seemed to completely forget I was.
It wasn’t like I was trying to hide where I was from.
It just didn’t always come up in conversation.
Speaking with a very American accent made it very seamless for me to live in the US.
I never felt out of place or like I didn’t belong.
I felt like “one of them”.
A part of the culture.
(The better my accent gets in languages like Cantonese, Finnish, and Spanish, the more I experience this when spending time with people from those cultures as well)
I think a big part of it is the confidence you get when you speak with really good pronunciation.
When you’re confident people will feel comfortable being around you. Which will make it easier to strike up conversations and make friends.
Another thing you will find is that conversations will run more smoothly.
You’ll avoid those “what!?”-moments where you have to repeat yourself.
It will make it that much more enjoyable for you and the person you’re talking to.
There’s also nothing that will impress a native speaker more than speaking with excellent pronunciation.
How I learned to pronounce like an American
The thing I get the most compliments on in the languages I speak is my pronunciation.
Especially in English.
I often hear that I sound just like an American and that they can’t tell I’m from another country.
Pronunciation is something I’ve always been interested in.
But I wasn’t born with it.
It has taken time to develop.
How did I do it?
Well, I started playing drums at the age of 9.
By the time I was 13, I was completely obsessed with it.
I rushed home from school to practice every day (I even woke up early so I could practice before school!)
I constantly listened to music.
Not only did I listen…
….but I listened intentionally.
Because I wanted to be able to play myself what I heard others playing.
If I couldn’t hear a certain drum part (or even on piano or guitar), I would slow it down and listen to it on repeat.
Until my ears could figure out what was going on.
I had to really stretch my ears. So I could pick out the details.
Without even trying to, it really improved my listening ability.
It became obvious when I played certain songs to some of my friends. I would point out a particular detail or aspect only to find out:
They couldn’t hear them.
It became clear to me that we weren’t hearing the same thing.
I also noticed this if I heard a song that I hadn’t heard for a while.
I heard details that I hadn’t noticed before.
It could be a guitar part that was only in the background. Or a certain keyboard or drum part.
When I last heard that song I didn’t even notice them.
Now I could hear them clearly and it was a completely different experience.
It almost felt like listening to a different song!
Why did this happen?
Because my ability to really “hear” what was going on had improved significantly since the last time I heard it.
It’s like going from watching a movie in black and white to watching it in color.
Or going from listening to a song on a shabby old car stereo to listening to it through top-of-the-line professional sound equipment.
When I hear a song I’m going to notice things that the drummer plays that someone who is not a drummer won’t even notice.
Because I have spent a disproportionate amount of time (compared to the average person) listening to and focusing on what the drums are doing.
Learning this skill to really listen deeply is what set the foundation for me to learn to pronounce English like an American.
(That, plus my habit of trying to make funny impressions of others, and watching a ton of American movies and TV shows as a teenager).
Because the foundation of pronunciation is all about hearing with depth.
Grab (for free) my language guide
”Intuitive Language Secrets”
to learn about the most natural way to learn languages:
Your 4-step solution to native pronunciation
How do you develop amazing pronunciation?
There are 4 key things you need that I have broken down into 4 different steps.
The first 2 steps are attitudes you need to have.
Adopting a certain way of thinking.
The last 2 are the actual things you need to work on to improve your accent.
It takes time, but the more you develop the more satisfying your interactions with natives will be.
Step #1 - Be like Eddie Murphy
Most of you are probably familiar with Eddie Murphy.
You don’t hear about him nearly as much anymore, but he used to be HUGE in the 80’s. He was in a lot of movies, especially comedies like the Beverly Hills Cop movies, Trading Places, Coming to America, and many others.
He was also massively popular as a stand-up comedian. Selling out stadiums.
I personally have never heard Eddie speak another language (to my knowledge, he only speaks English).
However, I’m 100% confident that if he would ever learn another language he would speak with an amazing accent.
Why?
Because he’s really good at mimicking other people (he does some amazing celebrity impressions).
To be good at impressions, you have to be good at a particular skill:
Noticing how people say things. The details that most people won’t notice.
This is the core of what speaking with a great accent is.
You’re simply making an impression of what another person sounds like.
It’s exactly what children do.
It’s the reason you speak with a certain accent in your native language.
You might feel like you’re not good at it anymore.
Well, you used to be (as a child).
You just need to refresh that ability.
You need to value it.
Really value it.
What you value you pay attention to.
You listen.
Just like comedians like Eddie Murphy do.
The first step to good pronunciation is being conscious of it.
To be curious about it.
Which means you actually care about it.
Simply by being interested in how people talk is going to automatically sharpen your ears and listening ability.
This alone is going to massively impact your pronunciation in the long run.
You’ll start noticing details and nuances.
The things that make the difference between being “good” and being “amazing”.
Step #2 - Be open to feedback
Quite a few years ago I had a conversation with an American guy at a church in Nashville.
He complimented my pronunciation and told me that he couldn’t hear that I was from another country.
We talked for a while and I said something about going through “different phases” to which he said:
“Oh yeah, I can hear it now.”
He pointed out that I pronounced it like “faces” when an American would say it more like “phazez”.
It was a slight difference, but it was a dead giveaway.
I was just unaware of it.
I have several memories like this one. Times when people pointed out things I said incorrectly and sometimes downright funnily!
(One of my best friends said many years ago that when I said “as far as” it sounded like I was talking about a certain rear-end body part).
These experiences can feel difficult in the moment. But they are very valuable.
You tend to remember these mistakes that people point out. Because you’ve just become aware of something you weren’t before.
It’s not always easy.
It takes humility and swallowing our pride.
But:
It’s much better to know the truth than to walk around thinking your accent is better than it actually is.
We all have holes in our awareness. Mistakes we make repeatedly without knowing.
It’s completely normal.
Being open to others telling you these things will expand your level of awareness.
That awareness is a huge key to refining your pronunciation.
Because you can’t fix and improve something you’re not aware of.
Step #3 - Loop it & slow it down (like a musician)
Back in the early 2000s I used an extension called Winamp to play mp3 files.
(It’s obviously highly antiquated these days)
I remember downloading a plug-in for it that let me change the speed of the music without affecting the pitch.
It was a complete game-changer.
It was so useful to me as a teenager because (like we talked about earlier) I was always transcribing songs or parts of songs.
Since then there have been lots of programs created that do an even better job at it. The one I have been using for a long time now (both for music and language learning) is called Transcribe. Ex-Michael Jackson guitarist Jennifer Batten uses it, and it’s a required software for guitarists studying at Berklee College of Music in Boston.
I like it because it’s easy to use.
It also has another very useful feature:
It lets you loop a certain passage over and over again.
This one is especially helpful when you have difficulty hearing what is actually being said.
I used this program when I was working through the course Cantonese Conversations by Olly Richards (also available in 8 other languages).
It was early in my Cantonese journey and the speech was too fast for me to be able to recognize what those native Hong Kongers said.
I missed so many words and sounds.
By looping it and reducing the speed, I could really zone in my listening and start to pick up those sounds.
Doing this really stretches your ears to be able to hear at a deeper level.
By doing it consistently, you will develop an ability to pick out nuances in the language you’re learning.
Which is what you will need to transform your pronunciation to sound like a native.
How to practically do it
Here’s what I suggest you do:
Choose a piece of audio. It can be from a dialogue, a YouTube video, or a speech. Anything in your target language.
Preferably a phrase or a sentence of around 3-10 words.
Then create a loop for it and listen to it on repeat.
Play around with the speed and listen to it at a slower speed as well (try 70%, 50%, or even 30%).
This will help you notice certain details much more easily.
Focus on trying to notice the details of how they say things:
The sounds. The melody. The rhythm.
Try to pay attention to things like which sounds are short, and which ones are long. Do they slur certain sounds? What parts of the sentences do they emphasize? Do they go up or down at the end?
Focus on one aspect at a time.
You’re looking for things that you have not heard before.
Once you notice a particular aspect and you feel like you “got it” - your brain will more or less automatically move on to notice another aspect of that same audio.
Your ears will automatically zone in on different things when you work with a passage of limited duration like this.
Because you’re giving your ears as much time as it needs to be able to hear.
It increases the depth of what you’re able to hear in a powerful way (which is the purpose of this exercise).
It’s quite intense to do focus-wise.
Since you are stretching your abilities (like working out a new muscle at the gym).
It’s also very relaxing.
Because when you do it for a while you will enter this “flow”-like state. You’re just completely unaware of anything else.
This happens when you’re deeply focusing and putting 100% of your attention on picking up on details in what you’re listening to.
It’s what provides the foundation to be able to produce the language with more accuracy.
Because you can only produce (speak) what you're able to truly hear.
Step #4 - Record yourself (and compare it to a native speaker)
When I was 13 and I thought I was the best drummer ever.
Then I recorded myself and listened back to it.
It was as good as I had imagined.
I was shocked at how “all over the place” my playing was.
It was quite a rude awakening for me.
It honestly really hurt.
But it was absolutely the best thing that could have happened to me at the time.
It showed me what I needed to work on. To record myself to get instant feedback on what it actually sounded like.
I could then make the necessary adjustments to make my playing sound more and more like what I wanted it to sound like.
(To sound more like my favorite drummers)
If you want to seriously improve your accent, you want to do the same thing:
Record yourself and then compare it to a native speaker.
Let’s talk about the two main ways of doing this.
The micro approach
When I started learning Cantonese back in 2017 I found this app (I forget the name of it), which taught you simple words and sentences.
It wasn’t the best app or anything, but it had one useful feature:
Recording with instant playback
It worked like this:
I’d hear a native speaker say a sentence.
Then I could instantly record myself saying it.
It then played back what I just said.
Then it played back what the native said one more time.
That way, I could compare my pronunciation to the native speaker.
This is why it’s important to train your ears first (as we went through in Step #3).
Without training your ears first, you won’t be able to hear the difference between you and the native speaker.
Once you’re able to hear it, you will then (and only then) be able to adjust your pronunciation.
How to record yourself:
You probably own a smartphone, which lets you easily record audio.
What I suggest you do is the same thing that you did in “Step #3:”
Take a piece of audio of 3-10 words.
Make a loop of it and play it on your computer just like before.
Only this time - you’re also recording yourself using your phone.
Then compare yourself to the native speaker.
You might find out that there are certain sounds you’re not able to pronounce.
This just means that you haven’t found the right muscles in your mouth to be able to produce them.
Experiment with things like the shape of your mouth and your tongue position. Does the sound come from more in the back of your mouth? Or more in the front of the mouth?
Think about it like repeating a melody.
Like signing along to a song.
By recording yourself you can hear what it sounds like when you try different things.
You might need to experiment for a while, but it will eventually click as you keep trying different things.
Once it does, you just have to practice it enough so that it becomes part of your “muscle memory”.
The cool thing about pronunciation is that once you have a certain breakthrough in pronouncing something correctly…
….it’s yours forever.
If you want a more automatic way of training it then there are apps that have this recording feature. Glossika is a great one (← try a 7-day trial to try this feature out). It’s a very convenient way to record yourself since the app already has this function built-in. Once you record yourself saying a sentence, you can go back and forth and listen to yourself and the native speaker.
You can stay on a single sentence as long as you want to. To keep re-recording yourself. That way you can keep experimenting as you try to get your pronunciation closer and closer to that of the native speaker.
There are also apps that provide speech recognition functions.
However, I believe you need to actually hear the feedback for yourself to make the adjustments you need.
There’s no better feedback than your own ears.
The macro approach
You can also take a more overall approach to improving your pronunciation.
For example:
I always record my iTalki lessons (← receive an extra $10 using this link).
(Another great option is LanguaTalk ← take a free trial lesson with a language tutor).
For the first year of learning Cantonese, I took a lot of conversational practice lessons.
I made it a habit to always listen through them afterward.
Doing this, you’ll hear what you actually sound like.
What you’re looking for here is just general tendencies.
If you notice making the same mistake over and over again you can then focus on that particular mistake and work on it (using the “micro approach”).
I know it’s not the most comfortable thing to listen to recordings of yourself. Especially if you haven’t done it before.
The good news is:
You don’t have to record yourself forever.
After a while, you will start to really hear things in real time as you’re saying them.
You can then correct and adjust how you’re saying things in the middle of conversations with natives.
This is very powerful because once you’re able to do this, you’ll see fast improvement in your accent.
Bonus tips
Here are a couple of bonus tips that you might find helpful for improving your accent.
Improvement, not perfection
When recording yourself, view it as improving. Not trying to be perfect.
It’s a gradual process, not some kind of performance.
Take my Spanish pronunciation right now for example:
It’s definitely not at a native level.
But I have the foundational pieces in place, and I know it will continue to get better and better.
I just happen to be at a stage right now with my Spanish learning where my attention is mostly focused on comprehension.
The better it gets the more my attention will gradually move over to noticing the subtleties of pronunciation.
As we discussed in my previous post:
Really improving your accent typically comes quite late in the learning process.
Do your own impressions!
This one is not a requirement, but a great way to just have fun with the language.
And fun is important!
Take the attitude you adopted in “Step #1” and try to do humorous impressions of people.
Impressions are a great way of improving since you’re typically doing an exaggerated version of the person you’re mimicking.
That way you really need to find the right muscles in your mouth.
When you exaggerate something you build it into your muscle memory much faster.
Also, when you’re learning to speak like a native it will many times feel like you’re exaggerating things.
When I try to make an over-the-top impression of what I think a Finnish person sounds like, my wife will tell me:
“Now you sound just like a native!”
What feels like an exaggeration to you often sounds more native-like than you realize!
“Without training your ears first, you won’t be able to hear the difference between you and the native speaker. Once you’re able to hear it, you will then (and only then) be able to adjust your pronunciation.”
Conclusion
I’ll be honest, improving your pronunciation isn’t an overnight thing.
It takes a lot of time.
It’s important to not see it as something you need to accomplish by a certain deadline.
But instead, something you’re interested in always improving.
Making it part of your life and the way you think.
I’m still making small adjustments even in my English. Especially when I speak a lot with Americans.
I just listen to how they say things.
Trying to mirror them is almost automatic at this point.
It’s just something I enjoy.
Whether you believe you’re talented or not, you can take your pronunciation to as high of a level as you want to.
The only limit is your own beliefs about yourself.
There are plenty of “untalented masters” out there.
By following the steps outlined in this post you will begin to really transform your accent and pronunciation.
Eventually, if you keep working at it, you’ll start to sound just like a native.
What has been your biggest challenge when it comes to pronunciation? Let me know in the comments below!
