I have a small list of things adults tell me when they sit down for a first lesson. Near the top of that list is some version of "I want to lose my accent." Almost always, they mean something different from what they said. So we start there.
You probably do not want what you said you wanted
"Losing your accent" — in the sense of sounding like you grew up in Leeds or Toronto — is almost never the right goal. It is an enormous amount of work for a tiny return. What learners actually want is to be understood the first time, and to not feel self-conscious when they open their mouth.
Both of those goals are absolutely achievable. They just need different work from "accent reduction".
The three habits we set up first
1. Record yourself, weekly, deliberately
Every Iceforma learner doing pronunciation work records themselves reading the same one-minute passage every week. We file it with date and number. After eight weeks they listen to week one and week eight back to back.
The shift is always there. The learner usually cannot hear it in real time. The recording is the receipt.
2. Drill the consonants that change meaning
There are about six English consonants that, when mispronounced, can flip the meaning of the sentence. th (three / tree). v versus w (vine / wine). l versus r. p versus b at the end of words.
We drill these — minimal pairs, ten minutes a session, until the right sound is the easier one. Vowels, by contrast, we mostly leave alone. Vowel variation is the most natural part of a regional accent and almost never blocks understanding.
3. Re-learn stress, not just sounds
This is the underrated one. English is a stress-timed language: certain words in a sentence are louder and longer than others, and the meaning rides on which ones. Most learners speak with even stress on every word, which is the auditory equivalent of writing without any bold or italics.
The drill: pick three sentences from this morning. Identify the one word in each that carries the meaning. Read it again, pushing that word forward and letting the rest fall back. Record. Listen. Repeat.
If you only had time for one drill out of three, this would be the one.
What slows people down
Three things, in order of how often I see them:
- Self-consciousness. A learner who is embarrassed will whisper-speak through the drill, which makes the recording useless. We do the first three pronunciation sessions in 1:1 mode for exactly this reason.
- Inconsistent practice. Pronunciation work needs five minutes daily, not an hour weekly. Habit beats heroics.
- Listening to music or films in your own accent. If your ear is tuned to local English most of the day, your mouth will follow. Picking one anchor — one podcast, one news bulletin — and listening daily is worth more than any drill.
The realistic horizon
Eight to twelve weeks of consistent work clears the consonant problems. Stress patterns take longer — six months for the change to feel automatic. After that, you keep your character, your accent, your origin — but every listener understands you the first time. That is the goal.
Robyn Avery is an Iceforma tutor based in Melbourne. She runs the Conversation Programme and the Tuesday adult pronunciation lab.