Im a native English and Japanese speaker as I was born in Canada but have a Japanese mom. I used to primarily speak Japanese until around 5 years old when I started going to school. From there, my Japanese has heavily regressed and had even went to a point where I couldnt remember 1st grade level words.
However, once I hit the 9-10th grade, I started wanting to improve my Japanese and started watching many Japanese shows. I learned many words and have improved my overall vocabulary. HOWEVER, one big issue I find with myself is my accent. I always assumed that I had a native Japanese accent because I spoke since I was younger and when watching videos of my younger self, my japanese seemed very natural. But this was definitely not the case now. I had to record my own Japanese for a certain school project and learned that my Japanese sounded very foreign. Although some of my words and statements sounded native, a lot of them had a foreign accent on them.
After relistening to my recorded voice, I started being very self conscious about my accent and can sometimes even catch it while Im currently speaking. So my question is, what ways can I improve my accent and pronunciation? Will it be impossible to have a native accent? I think its still possible to fix because I know and can easily hear when I have an accent when saying certain words. What can I do to improve my accent as a whole?
TL;DR – How can I improve my Japanese accent? Does me being a native speaker in the past give me any advantages?
6 comments
I have no actual facts or evidence only dreams and aspirations…
My girlfriend (Japanese) is very self conscious of her English accent not sounding Japanese. So much so that when she was first learning English she would spend ages listening to native recordings of the words and practicing them over and over.
If I try and explain English pronunciation to her. I’ll usually pronounce in my native accent (Australian) but also give her an option in my best American accent to indicate how different they are and which letters they focus on so she can get it right (right being Aussie accent because we live there).
Why is this relevant to your question? I dunno. But maybe the way to do it is to investigate what characteristics makes a Japanese accent and practice those. In the same way my girlfriends hears an accent speaking English and cringes at how Japanese their English is. There are dialect and accent videos that give interesting explanations on how different sounds and words are formed with the tongue etc (I’m recalling English accent videos). Maybe there’s some explanations of accent coaches that explain the subtleties.
You might find Dogen’s [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/user/Dogen/videos) and [Patreon](https://www.patreon.com/dogen) lessons helpful. On YouTube, he has a [Japanese pitch-accent & pronunciation playlist](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLxMXdmBM9wPvsySiMoBzgh8d68xqKz1YP), as well as a few videos where he reviews people’s Japanese and gives them feedback (titled “Japanese Teacher Grades Your Japanese”).
Otherwise, identify the specific areas where your accent or pronunciation sounds off, figure out how to do that correctly, and then drill those words, sentences, patterns, etc, until you can say them comfortably. One technique you can use is shadowing – basically speaking along with a recording until you’ve got the pronunciation perfectly matched… can be anything TV, songs, podcast, whatever.
The fact that you’re a native speaker should help, since you already know what it’s supposed to sound like, and when you sound off.
Another option worth thinking about, just as an option, is to accept that your accent isn’t native sounding anymore. By all means try and make it sound more native if thats what you want, there are lots of helpful suggestions here on how to do that. But know that your accent doesn’t make you any less Japanese. You have had a very specific upbringing and your accent represents who you are and what you’ve done.
I can’t tell what kind of accent you’re talking about, but regardlessly, I’d say you’ll find one when you start to use them actively.
There are accent that are typical to speakers of certain language – like that of English speakers, Koreans, Chinese etc. And it shows both in their pronunciation and pitch – however I suppose your pronunciation is immaculate and that it’s not the typical English-speaker *accent* that we think about. In that case, I think you can pick up one that your family uses, or maybe ones from the Standard Japanese ie Kanto dialect. Depending on where your mom’s from, your standard for accent might be different from those – and if so then I think it’s more of an impressive feature especially for those who are from the region your mom grew up in.
Many people in Japan becomes very self conscious when they move to big city they’re further away from where they come form (I suppose it’s somewhat prevalent thing anywhere though). So if you were talking about that then I’d say it’s kinda natural thing. Whichever ways, like how my British friends picked up more of American English after living in Japan for a while, I think you’ll naturally pick it up as you use, within the certain circle. And honestly, I think it’s a waste of time to mold yourself into accent (unless you actually enjoy picking a few different accents.)
It’s absolutely possible to pick up an accent (I have no idea how since I can’t even do other English accents) but I saw a Japanese man whose British accent was so spot on that I had to do a double take and questioned if he was a native…nope, just really good at it!
I have a similar background as you as I also grew up speaking some Japanese as my mother had taught me. But around 5, my parents wanted to focus solely on English as they were worried I wasn’t grasping it as well or might’ve had other issues going on. Still over the years I would try and learn as much as I can but would regress to elementary levels. If you don’t use it enough, you lose it, right? When I visit Japan, I can navigate well enough but because I am hāfu and have an accent they can see I am non-native. Nevertheless though, they still understand me clearly and still think I speak well enough. I used to be hung up on how I sound and I still am to some degree, but I would focus on correct pronunciations and continue to improve as much as I can while also embracing my mixed background as it is what makes me unique.