Often it is not so much what you say, but how you say it.

Often it is not so much what you say, but how you say it.

For example, I have got this one friend, who always manages to drag me along to his weird events just because he manages to sound so convincing. He manages to provoke action with his way of speaking.

On a larger scale this also true with accents in a foreign language. When I was studying Physics in Vienna we had one lecture which was partly in English. Of course our professors all were geniouses BUT their thick German accent just made them sound so uneducated. It really crushed their credibility. We actually came up with a name for that - the aesthetic paradox!

Yet even though our professor sounded funny, after listening to him for a while it was clear that he was an expert on his field. And since our field of expertise is languages we really really ought to get down our pronouciation! For the sake of our credibilty!

So I came up with a structured plan to help me improve my pronounciation.

Block 1 - erasing every last bit of German in my English...

Because....unlucky for us, a German accent doesn't sound charming like the French one.

v/w sound
The video by this funny Canadian woman really helped me to get the theory behind the v and the w sound.

Also a good exercise:
Whether the weather be cold, whether the weather be hot, we'll be together, whatever the weather, whether we like it or not.

the/three

Block 2 - different accents

I've decided to challange myself to learn the Australian and the Irish accent.
And maybe some more if these first two work out.