Three things distinguish German accent:
Germans do not distinguish between voiced and unvoiced consonants.
Lack of liaisons
Intonation patterns
1. For example, the words “sad, mad, Dad” with voiced /d/ ending and “sat, mat, debt” with unvoiced /t/ending have different meanings, but Germans pronounce them in the same way.
2. The second feature of a German accent is they often tend to separate words in a phrase while English glide from one word to another and use liaisons.
There are three main skills you need to master in order to speak fluent English:
Contractions
In good fluent speech the particle “not”, verbs “to be” (“am, is, are”), “to have” (“has, had”), “will” and “would” are shortened. The shortened version of a word is called a contraction."Throwing away" skill, an expression used by actors. That involves using schwa, or neutral vowel in prepositions (for, from, to, etc) and articles (a, an, the), thus "throwing away unimportant words", an expression used by actors.
Connected speech patterns or liaisons; liaising prepositions with words. In our app Fluent English Speech, we list eight connected speech patterns and have a whole chapter devoted to each with practical exercises.
Speak in phrases or "word blocks", rather than in separate words, connecting words in a phrase. For example in the phrase "I'd like a cup of tea", we have two blocks: 1. I'd like, and 2. a cup of tea.
3. Often Germans speak English in a monotonous way which makes them sound dull and boring.
To sound more interesting we recommend working on the sentence stress and inflection.
To get rid of German accent we recommend apps based on RP:
Elocution Lessons, Get Rid of your Accent UK1, Business English Speech and Fluent English Speech (British English) or American Accent App and Fluent American Speech (American English), and Power, Pitch, Pace, Pause.
There are also two accompanying video courses: Get Rid of your Accent Part 1 and Get rid of your Accent Part 2.
The same apps are also available on Google Play. The functionality is ideal: read, listen, record and compare your speech with the model. The apps have spelling variations for all English sounds and mouth diagrams to help you create the correct speech organ positions in words, phrases and poetry.
When starting your practice with these apps, first go to “How to use this app” and click on: the difficult sounds typical for your nationality, then click on your nationality to work effectively with a more focused approach.
The apps contain exercises for:
1. Difficult and connected speech patterns
2. Natural flow of speech
3. Intonation and sentence stress
4. Pronunciation and articulation