As strange as it may seem, I hate my accent and want to speak like an American because I think it sounds cooler and more like how I want to sound.
I’ve more or less perfected my version of an American accent on my own, I think.
But whenever I’m with other people who know me, I revert back to my old accent instinctively because that’s how they know me to sound like. I’m unsure about how I can subtly transition without them noticing a sudden change, such as through gradual exposure to my accent changing more each time they hear it. That way I could argue that I don’t know how it happened and it was a slow progression if they eventually realise it’s different, rather than something forced that I started doing one day.
The biggest thing I think is changing the pronunciation of certain words with “a”, such as going from “fahst” to “faast” for the word ‘fast’, or “mahsk” to “maask” for ‘mask’. Because it’s really one or the other, there’s no in-between. I feel like for most other sounds, a gradual transition into more American sounds can be possible, but that one’s like, how can I make the plunge and will people notice it straight away and think it’s weird?
I won’t delve into the reasons you shouldn’t based on ‘coolness’, but…
There are half-ways between the pronunciation you’re mentioning: the short ‘a’ sound can be used (common in British English), and wouldn’t seem so jarring to me.
You can drop your Ts for weak Ds in things like ‘water’, so the tip of your tongue gently taps the roof of your mouth instead of pronouncing the typical British hard T (a lot of us don’t pronounce it like that, mind you).
However, “speak like an American” doesn’t necessarily mean one accent, as there are many in the US. Choose one, I suppose.
