Personal Experience: How to Learn to Speak with an American Accent

Some people can instantly pick up new accents. How do they do it? Is it possible to learn to easily imitate different pronunciations? Journalist and writer Hannah Devine explored this question for Air force.

"Dialect coach Jennifer Scapetis-Tycer smiles at me from her computer screen as she prepares me for my first-ever acting experience," writes Hannah Devine.

"You're an American office worker living in Cincinnati," she says. "You come home with a pile of bags and try to get everyone in the house to unpack them."

On the subject: Conversational English: What it is and how to learn it correctly

She pauses briefly, switches to an American accent, and gives me the line: "Hi, I'm home! Where is everybody?"

In real life, I'm a journalist born in Germany and living in England. I've never been to Cincinnati and have never tried to speak with an American accent. But we're chatting via video because Scapetis-Tyser is American, an associate professor of voice, speech, and dialect at the University of Connecticut, and the co-author of a paper on why some people find it so easy to change accents. And the best way to understand her research is to try it yourself.

Since "American accent" is such a broad term, she chooses a variant called General American. This accent can be heard, for example, in Cincinnati.

Over the next few minutes, Jennifer teaches me to lift the back of my tongue, direct my voice diagonally forward and upward, open my mouth wider, change the "o" sound, and form the American "r" using my tongue and back teeth. My first attempts sound strange and strained—not at all like hers. Clearly, I have a lot to learn.

A simple definition of an accent is "a way of speaking shared by members of a language group." This could be from the same region, city, country, or age group. An accent includes not only the pronunciation of words but also the melody of speech, pitch, tempo—everything we hear when we talk about an accent.

Many people learning a foreign language know how difficult it can be to try to accurately imitate these characteristics. Sometimes they even deliberately change their accent due to accentism—prejudices against certain accents.

In acting, an accent is important because it tells part of the story: where the character is from, what identity they carry.

First, the brain must understand how the new accent works. For example, in the Upper Midwest, people might pronounce the word "bag" as "baig." The brain must understand that it's the same "bag" and that this pattern likely applies to other words as well.

Unsurprisingly, understanding speech with an unfamiliar accent requires much more brain effort. But with practice, it gets easier: the more we hear a particular accent, the less effort it takes to understand it.

Research shows that we can even unconsciously begin to slightly copy the accent of the person we're talking to—people often match each other in speech.

Once your brain has figured out the accent, you need to force your vocal apparatus to produce those sounds. In the case of the "Cincinnati" accent, I needed to move my voice deeper into my mouth, open it wider, and form the sounds differently.

Researchers tested 92 native American English speakers by asking them to imitate accents from Yorkshire, Edinburgh, and the Eastern Cape. They also assessed their musical ear, articulation speed, and personality traits.

The best predictor of success turned out to be speed and dexterity of articulation. A good ear for music also helped greatly. People with high openness to experience were better at imitation.

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Jennifer Scapetis-Tyser notes that many of these skills are already being taught in theater schools: openness, as well as working with articulation, rhythm, pitch, and sometimes even singing.

I'm also giving it another try with a Cincinnati accent. It's coming out a little better, though still far from perfect. This shows that even with a certain amount of ability, practice and the ability to not be afraid of looking stupid are important."

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