How to distinguish between different English accents?

[daemon99]

[prezbucky]

Nina, dahling:

To do the American R, curl your tongue so that the sides of your tongue are touching the gums just inside of your back/side teeth. (molars and pre-molars). Then just breathe the "errrr" sound, and you should have it.

Laboratory = LAB-ra-tory

... We omit the first O, more or less

[NinaZara]

And I suppose the the tip of the tongue touches the palate? Right,Tommy?

[Jamie (K)]

[NinaZara]

You're right, it doesn't, in the middle, but somehow, in the end, it ended at the back of my front teeth. Maybe that's what I'm doing wrong.

[Jamie (K)]

You're supposed to curl it back behind your alveolar ridge, which is that "ledge" right behind your teeth.

This website will show you a diagram of where your tongue should be:

http://www.uiowa.edu/~acadtech/phonetics/

[NinaZara]

It's there, but the tip touches it when I say somehting in the past form, like "curled"

Great site, thanks!

[prezbucky]

this is an interesting discussion

nina, it sounds like you need to do tongue-tip curling exercises so that you can hold the curled tip of your tongue under, but not on (not touching), the alveolar ridge (as described by jamie). YOU CAN DO IT!

hehe

[NinaZara]

Tom, you made it sound like it can be done in the gym.

And thanks for the kind words, I'm sure somehow I'd manage. Thing is, on days when I spend too much time on English, my friends started asking why I sound like "gaijin" (foreigners, aliens). It's hard, juggling between languages. It's frustrating too, sometimes, but I try focussing on the fun side of it.

[NinaZara]

After mustering all the courage I had, I decided to post my recording here. I just registered with Kantalk (I did this because I am just so free today), and I see a lot of people do this.

Maybe you can tell my Malay accent?

http://www.kantalk.com/Recording/Play/ID/4551

Oh, BTW, I am not sure whether I said "snack" correctly.

[Jamie (K)]

Nina, you sound like you've made real progress with those R's. Most of them sound good.

[NinaZara]

Really? Isn't there anything that doesn't sound right? I still cannot enunciate the R's in "her brother".

[Jamie (K)]

[NinaZara]

Oh, I see. I thought three syllables was correct. I just checked the pronunciation on Dictionary.com. Fewh, I'm so glad you told me!