In this blog post, I'll answer one of the most commonly asked questions my students ask me when they first start working with me.
Quick Answer: it depends. (on you)
I get asked this question by basically everybody in the first session we have. Unfortunately, I can't give you an exact timeline of how long it'll take. It's different for everybody. Some people may pick up a certain sound really quickly while somebody else struggles with it. Mastering the neutral American accent works just like mastering any other skill. It takes time, practice and patience.
How often do you practice?
The more disciplined you are about practicing what we work on in our sessions, the faster you'll progress. This doesn't even require you to spend 2 hours on it daily. I usually recommend multiple bite-sized drilling sessions spread through the day to keep your mind fresh. You don't want this to turn into a chore. You want to keep it as fun as possible so you're able to be consistent over time. Overwhelming yourself with practice sessions that are too intense will lead to burnout. Again, this depends on you. Maybe you work best with 15min sessions. Maybe 30min sessions. Maybe you're so busy that you need to take a different approach like whenever you're stuck in traffic, that's your prime time to practice. Alternatively, you can take just a couple minutes to practice whenever you feel like you have a brief period of time where you don't have anything to do. Maybe you find yourself just scrolling away on your phone without any purpose or maybe you're in the bathroom. I always compare this to having a pull up bar in your apartment. Every time you walk under it, you do a couple of pull ups. If you keep that up, you'll be surprised by how many reps you get in.
Do you re-watch the class recordings?
When you work with me, I record our sessions in Zoom and send them to you afterwards. I know it seems like a big time commitment to rewatch a whole hour of class but rewatching a session, taking some more notes, listening for the notes I'm giving you and if you can hear what I'm talking about is incredibly helpful.
Do you record yourself while practicing?
This one's extremely important. Practicing itself is good but practicing and being able to listen back to what you just said is best. Your goal should be to be as self sufficient as possible. The act of recording yourself and re-listening to what you just did will help you to develop an ear for your own speech and mistakes. It happens very often that I demonstrate the mistake a student made and then the adjustment, they try to make the adjustment and still say the same thing and aren't able to tell that that's what happened when they tried to do it on their own. However, when I demonstrate both versions, they can clearly hear the difference. This is completely normal and, over time, you'll get better and better at recognizing your own mistakes as you're speaking/drilling. If you do not record yourself, that'll take significantly longer. Again, the goal here is for you to be able to correct yourself as opposed to having to rely on me forever to correct you.
Do you take notes during class?
This one depends. Sometimes people learn perfectly fine without taking notes. Others thrive on notes. I find that my students who take notes usually have a more specific plan of what they want to work on between our sessions. Often, I may make up a drill for you on the spot that you can use to work on your trouble area. This would be something important to write down so you don't forget it the next time you're putting in some work.
How many sessions per week are you having?
Think about mastering a skill. The more time you actively spend on mastering it, the faster you'll progress. This doesn't mean you need to have sessions every day, of course.
In an ideal world, three times a week is a great frequency. It'll give you plenty of one-on-one time with me as well as time in-between sessions to work on and to solidify what you learned in class. If you're able to, especially as a beginner, three times a week is great (when I was in acting school, I had group classes twice a week and one-on-one coaching once a week). With work schedules, budgets, family obligations, this one doesn't tend to be possible for most people though.
Two times a week is the average frequency for all my students. It's more manageable time-wise. Sure, we're not having that extra session (which would be great to have) but we still have a good amount of one-on-one practice time and lots of time for you to drill and work on what you learned in class. When meeting three times a week, it's "easier" to get away with not practicing as much between classes. For two times a week, you should definitely be drilling/practicing regularly.
Once a week is okay and sometimes all you can do and that's totally fine! We're all in different places and if you can only meet once a week, you will still progress. It won't be as fast, even if you drill very diligently, just based on how much material there is to cover. Here it is vital to practice as much as you can and to record yourself as much as possible as well. You want to make sure that you're not only practicing but that you're not going to accidentally practice something the wrong way that whole time between classes and then we have to re-adjust when we meet again. This is why, for beginners, I don't usually recommend just doing one session a week. Commonly, they could have caught a mistake much earlier if they had had that extra session and their practice time would have been even more productive. In the beginning, you might not be able to pick up on your mistakes yet, at least not reliably, even with recording yourself. As a beginner, you might just not know yet what exactly to listen for and you haven't invested enough time yet to understand what kinds of mistakes you might run into. I will always try to cover this in class as well but then applying it on your own without external guidance can be tricky. Our goal in class is to build new and correct habits for the sounds we're learning. We really want to avoid thinking we're forming a good new habit when in reality, in the time we spend on our own, we're forming a new habit that's slightly off. Of course, we'd address that in our one session per week but it's much faster to have that check in with a higher frequency.
How long did it take me?
It took me a year to a year and a half until I felt fully confident I was blending in with Americans and I was able to audition for American roles. This does not guarantee that it'll take that same amount of time for you. I had three classes a week (2 group classes and 1 one-on-one class) and practiced consistently every day.
For you it might take shorter... or longer. It's hard to say. I definitely had a noticeable accent when I started and a very good base in grammar and vocabulary. I recorded myself all the time and had lots of time available to practice. I also really enjoy working on accents in general, not just the neutral American accent so I found practicing fun and interesting.
Any questions? Please don't hesitate to reach out. Want to get started on reducing your accent? Book a session!
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