intelligibility, comprehensibility and accentedness
There are three common ways of analysing an English learner’s pronunciation: a) intelligibility, b) comprehensibility and c) accentedness.
Intelligibility refers to the ability of English speakers to understand your pronunciation. This is the most important aspect of your pronunciation.
Comprehensibility refers to how much attention or effort is required when listening to your pronunciation. Ideally, it should not require too much effort to understand you. Comprehensibility is also very important, but not as important as intelligibility.
Accentedness refers to how strong somebody’s foreign accent is. This is the least important aspect of your English pronunciation. Everybody has an accent. I have a Canadian English accent. Other people have American accents, Australian accents or accents based on a foreign language. But keep in mind – people can understand you and understand you relatively effortlessly most of the time even if you have a foreign accent.
Most research into the learning of pronunciation shows that age is the most important factor in learning the pronunciation of another language. Almost without exception, young children who move to an English-speaking country before age 7 or 8 will develop an accent that is the same as monolingual English speakers who were born in that English-speaking country. Generally speaking, people who move to an English-speaking country after puberty will have a noticeably non-English accent.
So, you need to be realistic when it comes to improving your English pronunciation if you moved to Canada, the US, the UK etc. as an adult. Chances are, you will never sound like a native speaker. But research shows, that pronunciation training can noticeably improve your pronunciation. And keep in mind – even if your accent isn’t “perfect” – that’s OK, we will still understand you, most of the time, often almost always. We humans have a remarkable capacity for language. And that includes understanding foreign accents – particularly when we have some experience listening to a particular non-English accent.
Leave a comment
Mike Tiittanen
I'd like to share my knowledge as an ESL pronunciation and grammar teacher with you.
Doctor Mike's English Center 
Yes, everyone has an accent, and what matters most is getting our message across. Dr. Mike, your sentence “We humans have a remarkable capacity for language” is really encouraging. Thank you!
According to a National Post article prepared by linguistic experts, there are approximately 30-million speakers of Canadian English, and the differences in spelling, pronunciation, and terminology are noteworthy from city to city and province to province.
There are eight distinct “language regions” in the English-speaking parts of Canada.
They are Aboriginal English, Cape Breton English (spoken by Scottish Cape Bretoners living in Inverness County, a rural community in Nova Scotia), Lunenburg English (part of Nova Scotia as German settlers have left their mark on its dialect), Newfoundland English (attributed to the long-lasting British colonial influence), Ottawa Valley English (which is held to be predominantly Irish, or perhaps Irish with some admixture of Scots traits derived from the settlement history of the area), Pacific West Coast English (bears traces of the Californian tongue), Quebec English (with many French phrases have mutated into English ones, as well as innumerable mixed expressions), and Inland Canadian English. Each has its own peculiarities of accent, of vernacular, of idiom, even of grammar.
I have to say “thank you” once again to Dr. Mike as his video also motivated me to take a look at American Sign Language, and learn the fingerspelling alphabets. Now, I can introduce myself (by spelling my name) to a friend who is deaf…
…and as always, Mike is truly a genuine, sincere, and diligent teacher who wants us and helps us to do well.