Are you concerned your accent is too strong?
Every speaker of every country has an accent. There’s nothing wrong with having an accent. Your concerns about having a strong accent are valid, though. Not being understood creates problems.
The education on accented speech is that every country has a standard phonetic pronunciation pattern deemed to be the preferred accent. It typically sounds like the dialect used in radio and broadcast media. Speakers who “don’t have an accent” are just speaking with the preferred accent.
It’s perfectly acceptable to be concerned about being held back in your career or social life because your accent is too thick. Listeners need to ascertain a minimum of 85% of your speech in order to fully comprehend you. If you are looking for help or wondering where to go to lessen your accent, you must become familiar with the pronunciation patterns for the country’s preferred accent/dialect. Modifying your pronunciation patterns from your existing pattern and working closer to the preferred pattern is the way to go. Moving your pronunciation patterns toward the preferred accent targets, also known as accent modification, will help lessen the strength of your accent.
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