ACCENT REDUCTION

On April 22 I went to an accent reduction class. Why? well, because I have an accent...or people say I do. It bugs me that everyday I get asked the dreaded "where are you from?" at least twice! I don't hear myself having an accent though. Anyway, the class was taught by a speech coach named Andy Krueger a native of San Francisco, CA. He said he was going to teach us how to speak "american" and I almost had a heart attack but I stayed in the class nevertheless. There was a Rumanian that new everything, Ran, my Israeli friend, a woman from Brazil, one from Peru and the other 10 Asians. Ran and I were the donkeys of the class, worse than the japanese, korean or chinese, yikes!!
We were taught how to position the tongue and open the mouth to create the right initial sound and how to accentuate the first syllable in order for the rest of the word to just "roll out", and guess what...it works!!
We are supposed to practice everyday until it becomes second nature, however, the practicing part has been a little difficult as we are required to speak V - E - R - Y slowly in order to get all the positioning right, so it takes a LOOOOONG time to say anything and you sound quite retarded, so I am thinking, do I prefer to sound like a "foreigner" or a "retard", hahaha. So I am being retarded but all on my own, perhaps walking down the street, driving around or just alone in my place...now...that is a pretty pIC-t - u - r -- e!