There is no easy answer. It really depends on a variety of factors. These include:

1. Your Listening Skills

You must be able to hear the difference between the sounds and patterns in your native language and the sounds and patterns of American English. This is really important. If you can’t hear the difference you won’t be able to make changes.

2. Techniques and strategies

Once you understand what sounds and patterns from your native language are contributing to your accent you need to learn some accent reduction techniques. Accent reduction books and classes will teach you specific techniques you can use to change the sounds and patterns that you currently use when you speak English.

3. Time spent on focused practice

Once you learn the correct accent reduction techniques,  you must practice every day! Daily practice will help your mouth and tongue develop the new ‘muscle memory’ that they need for you to articulate American English sounds correctly.

The more you practice and repeat the exercises (with the correct feedback), the more you’ll improve. You simply must practice a sound or pattern over and over for it to become a habit.

One of the best ways to practice is to use an American Accent Audio Course. That’s because you can download the lessons to your phone or computer to listen and practice again and again.

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Here is my response to that very important question.

Most people will never sound like a native American English speaker, but everyone is capable of reducing their accent and making their speech more clear and comprehensible.

Accent reduction training will teach you to make changes to your current speech that will enable others to understand you more easily. This this will make speaking English much more enjoyable for you and for your listeners!

How long it takes to improve your accent depends on a few variables. These include:

1. Your understanding of how your native language affects your accent
2. Your listening skills and ability to hear new sounds and patterns
3. Time you spend practicing in a focused and efficient way

Click here to read more about this topic How Long Will it Take to Reduce My Accent?

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If you are interested in taking an online accent reduction class, follow the link below to see a great course taught by a talented and very experienced instructor.

The American Pronunciation-Online Accent Reduction Course

I highly recommend this class for people who want to study American English pronunciation and accent reduction online. You can click on the link to see a preview of everything that you will learn in this course.

The course comes with a guarantee. You’ll see that when you click on the link.

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Course participants learn the following accent reduction techniques:

• How to use syllable stress correctly so that Americans will understand you
• How to pronounce the /w/ sound (this sound has several spellings)
• How to pronounce  the voiced and voiceless th sounds (2 of the most common sounds)

All accent reduction coaching is done live online using Skype video. Lesson plans and course materials  are be sent to you in advance of each session.

To learn more about how accent reduction coaching can help you speak English more clearly you can follow this link-Learn American Accent Online

Koreans often pronounce /I/ vowel sound as in the words sit, still, & live more like the /iy/ vowel sounds in the words seat, steal & leave.

The /I/ sound is a lax or relaxed sound. You don’t need to pull back your lips to say this sound. Instead, relax your facial muscles. Placing your hands lightly on your jaws as you say words with the /I/ sound often helps.

To practice put your hands lightly on your jaws and say: give, live, fill, milk, did. Make sure that your facial muscles are relaxed.

Another American English vowel sound that is difficult for Korean speakers to pronounce is the /ae/ as in the words cat, laugh & sat.

Koreans often pronounce the /ae/ like /e/ so that mat, laugh & sat sound like met, lef & set. In order to make the /ae/ sound correctly you must make sure that your tongue is very low and flat in your mouth.

I will focus on the most common American English pronunciation problems for Korean speakers in my upcoming class called Accent Reduction for Koreans.

Take a look to see if this class is right for you.

Foreign born scholars at the University of California at Berkeley may have PhD’s but they found that spoken American English is a very tricky subject.

Before the class, few of the scholars knew what their specific English pronunciation problems were. They certainly had no idea how to overcome them. That’s why they were willing to pay for American English pronunciation classes.

If you are serious about improving your American English pronunciation please take a look at my Accent Reduction Coaching Course.

Correct pronunciation of these grammatical endings is extremely important if you want to improve your American English pronunciation. If you pronounce the “ed” incorrectly your speech will have an accent (it may even mark you as uneducated). 

Read this article in my Accent Reduction Classroom to see the 3 RULES for pronouncing “ed” in American English and start using this technique right away! 

When you take a pronunciation or accent reduction class your instructor will teach you lots of new vocabulary to explain the pronunciation features that you must learn. Here is a mini pronunciation glossary with words that I taught the students in my accent reduction classes this month.

1. Reduced speech-The relaxed pronunciation of commonly used words and phrases that American English speakers use when talking to each other.

 2. Schwa- A reduced vowel sound that sounds like “uh”. The schwa sound is used to represent the vowel sounds in many unstressed syllables. The IPA symbol for schwa is /ə/.

3. Thought Groups-Groups of words that go together to express an idea or thought. English speakers use pauses and a low pitch at the end of  a thought group.

4. Voiced sounds-Sounds made with the vocal chords vibrating such as /d/ & /z/.

5. Voiceless sounds-Sounds made without the vibration of the vocal chords such as /t/ & /s/.

If you want to know more about the terms used in accent reduction and pronunciation classes heck out this nice pronunciation glossary from English Club.

In spoken American English each sentence or phrase contains:

A Focus word-the most important word

Content words-very important for meaning

Function words-not important for meaning

Josef Essberger, the founder of the great website EnglishClub.com says that word stress and sentence stress are “the golden key” to English pronunciation. Many pronunciation teachers feel the same!

You can see some examples of sentence stress by reading this article in my Accent Reduction Classroom.