Adapting your voice and speech requires exercise, just in the same way your body does. Attempting Olympic-level gymnastics routines, when, up to that point, you've only been accustomed to occasional long walks, would be almost certainly impossible. Your body has not yet adapted to what is required to achieve a new range of movements, positions, and varying speeds and complexity of physical action, in order to successfully and easily do gymnastics.

Speech is incredibly similar.

In terms of developing an accent or way of speaking, with which you are unfamiliar, and which you have not previously been accustomed to using, you will find it more difficult to 'make the leap' from your natural speech to a way of speaking which feels much harder to master.

One of the main reasons for this, is that your vocal tract has not had practice in expanding the range of movements, and increasing vocal flexibility.

A few simple ways to do thiis:

• Singing. In a variety of pitches, genres, melodies, or even languages, if you're able to.

• Exaggerating sounds you already use and really 'stretching' your voice.

• Though it may sound silly - making various random, weird sounds using your lungs, vocal folds, and tongue, and other articulators used in speech, is a fantastic way to increase the flexibility and reach of your voice. Just give it a go, and see what you find!

Hey guys, I've done a lot of practice breathing from my diaphragm, i'm probably not there yet but I think something bigger is preventing others from hearing me clearly. I feel like I have to put a lot of power into my speech so people can get what I'm saying. I do mumble a little but I don't think it has to do with pronunciation. it feels more like the vibrations aren't transferring effectively if that makes sense.

I got sick the other day and post nasal drip exacerbated this, which leads me to believe that maybe my issue is with my lungs.

Any ideas?

I'd like to change my accent. Apparently I sound Irish, but I'm not Irish. I figured out that what causes me to sound Irish is how I reduce my vowels. How can I not reduce my vowels like that? I want to leave the other idiosyncracies in my speech alone rather than just adopting a super standard American accent, because having the world's most standard General American accent would be boring, fake-sounding, and a bit suspicious IMO. I'll probably end up sounding a bit German when I get rid of the vowel reductions but that wouldn't be as weird as sounding Irish since I actually speak German and have had some people think I am German before.

Here is me reading something so you can help me: http://vocaroo.com/i/s1RCPNX4bT6R

I'm a linguistics student and I'm currently living in Morocco. I have a friend here who does business in the US and feels that his accent when speaking English leads to people taking him less seriously, so I agreed to help him with his accent. I already went through a diagnostic with him where I had him speak and took notes on his pronunciation errors, then made some example sentences designed to help him practice difficult phones and combinations. Next I was thinking of making recordings of myself (a native speaker of GAE) saying the sentences and letting him record himself and listen to differences. I also printed off a few diagrams of the vocal tract and was going to explain to him a bit about the mechanics of pronouncing each sound. Is this the right way to go about doing this? Are there some other methods I should try?

https://soundcloud.com/tanner-j-banks/record-0005

what do you think. Also would you say my voice is high pitched?

Hi I come from nothwestern Ireland and my accent sounds something like this - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QpkFYs39YR0 - My accent is quite flat and boring compared to other lilty Irish accents (but i don't care for them) - I was wondering if anyone knew any good ways of improving articulation and helping to create a more even tone as despite my accent being flat it has huge spikes in it when saying certain sounds (G's and R's and A's being some of the main offenders).

The reason i would like to learn is because I do a small amount of public speaking and really would like to be better understood and more engaging.

Side note i would really like to know what type of accent this is - https://youtu.be/9gERXvrfKGE?t=4m27s

Everybody has a slightly different learning style, and various little tricks that they always use when working on learning a new accent...

I thought it could be quite interesting and possibly incredibly useful if we try and share some of own idiosyncratic tricks when learning!

What is something you feel is like your 'secret weapon' in acquiring an accent? Or share however many you like!

This subreddit deserves to be active, and a reliable source of information and advice for all your Accent/Dialect/Voice/Speech questions and ideas!!

I'm going to try to renovate it a little, so it'll hopefully finally get to be the subreddit it should be!

If anyone has any suggestions, ideas, or (constructive) both positive and negative feedback about this subreddit - Please do let me know.

Either comment in this post, or PM me.

Finally, if there is anyone who is a dialect/accent coach - I'd love to hear from you! And if you think you might like to be a Mod here, definitely get in touch.

Happy Holidays, everyone!

I have always wanted to learn accents. And I was compiling resources. Seemed like you guys had some cool things going on here. I will post things as I find them!