Here are 3 ways to sound like an American

Native-like American pronunciation is difficult to achieve for second language learners, but there are simple things you can do to sound more like an American. Here are my 3 tips to achieving native-like pronunciation:

Link Your Words

Native English speakers link their words together in normal speech. Here are a few examples showing how native English-speaking Americans connect words together.

• “What are you” = “Whaddya”
• “Going to” = “Gonna”
• “Should have” = “Shoulda”
• “Stop it now” = “Stopit now”
• “I need it” = “I needit”
• “Play a song” = “Playa song”
• “Read a magazine” = “Reada magazine”
• “Big gun” = “Bigun”
• “Sit down” = “Sidown”

Stress Content Words, Not Function Words

Content words are any words in a sentence that give information. Function words are necessary words for grammar, but don’t give any informational content to the sentence. One way to sound like a native English speaker is to stress content words like “shoe” and “meeting”, but don’t stress function words like “and” or “the”.

Examples of content words: post-it, silently, Alabama, uncle, backpack, Europe, bowl, swimming, lifted, red, soft, careful, where
Examples of function words: and, of, the, in, for, am, has, could, a, any, they

Here is how stress sounds in a sentence when you focus on stressing content words and not stressing function words. (I capitalized words that need stress): I DROVE to the POST OFFICE last THURSDAY, because I was REQUIRED to MAIL a LETTER to my AUNT.

If you can master placing stress on the correct words, you will become closer to sounding like a native English speaker.

Speak in American slang

Slang is one of the more difficult things to acquire when learning a language, but if you can learn a few commonly used American slang phrases, you’ll sound more like a native speaker. Native English-speaking Americans rarely say “How are you doing today?” to a good friend. Instead, they will say “What’s up, Tina?” or “Hey, how’s it going?” If you can find some socially acceptable slang to use in your speech, you will fit right in to an American conversation.

Here are a few basic slang phrases that you can use next time you’re in an informal conversation:

• For real – Speaking honestly and truthfully
• That’s cool – It’s fine
• Dude – This can be used in just about any situation. It all depends on the intonation you put with it.
• You bet – Sure
• Whatever – I don’t care

If you can master linking, stress, and slang, you will sound more like an American than you ever have before. Let me know if these tips help you by commenting below.