muxa - if you want to compare with a native speaker, check the link in my auto-signature. You can go there, and somebody will record the whole clip for you so you can compare word for word. But remember, an accent can be chic

Quote Originally Posted by muxa View Post
I think it's very hard, if not impossible, to get rid of your accent in a language you started learning as an adult. I'm doing my best to reduce it, though. I think most people can reduce their accent by tons and tons of listening (and speaking).
I started English when I was JUST past the limit of not getting it native (9 yo I think it was). Heard it a lot on TV growing up, and that helped, plus was forced to speak it in real life situations quite early. After moving to England after uni, I worked on it a bit, and now I can pass myself off as English. I couldn't do it with any other language though.

All the SOUNDS in Russian are fine, but the rhythm and the colossal number of consonants stacked on each other are too different from my native language (Swedish) to ever get right.

Plus, there is no chance that I'll ever get perfect Russian grammar, so that will give me away anyway! Particularly if I waste my time in the Political forum...lol. I did some Russian in school when I was 14-15 but found it was well past the cut-off line for native. I found it so incredibly hard at the time that I ended up wrangling out of it, when I realised it could ruin my final grades. It wasn't the pronunciation but the grammar that just made me feel it was an overwhelming task. I was genuinely interested in Russia, the culture and language though. Just too lazy or untalented Now I'm back on the task though! Better late than never!
Btw - your written English is too perfect to be native...

And fortunately, for everybody's info: BOTH native English speakers and native Russian speakers are very tolerant about mistakes and non-native speakers.