Perhaps you could try asking at one of the Swiss organisations for those with impaired hearing, found under "gehörlos schweiz", whether they could recommend an English teacher.
One way to influence one's accent is to learn from a teacher who knows how to work with deaf people. Such a teacher will not merely make a sound and ask you to repeat what you hear, but instead will be able to explain how you can reproducte the sound, e.g. where to position your tongue, how to move your lips, etc.
Depends on which American accent, mine is certainly very neutral, to the point that most people cannot place it.
Tom
I always found that spending a year or so with someone of the opposite sex with the dialect you required worked wonders.
Was also good way to learn. ( and fun )
Picked up a Scottish vocab with all its nuances from my first wife in a dodgy village in West Lothian during the time of the miners strike.
Tried the same in Namibia for a year and a bit - but lost that one after a couple of years.
Suppose as mentioned above - depends on your teacher.
My wife has picked up on my mis matched dialects - Lancashire - born in Liverpool with all the other bits I learned. We have been married over the last 19 years and she has been to all the places where my words came from. She is Chinese Asian - sounds funny when she swears. Her son (25) seems to be able to pick and choose when he uses north english.
Most dialects are diluted nowadays.
Cannot place it anywhere in the world or cannot place it in the U.S?
Didn't you leave the states in 1923 or something though?
Oh dear... I am sorry, but I may not be able to help you with this. Voicing the 'r'-s, for one, is not my cup of tea... Though, there is nothing wrong with neutral American Eng.
Can't help sharing my impressions: quite often I find myself sharing a bus with teenagers descending from the international school for a bit of shopping and 'whateverrrr'. Looks and sounds a bit silly: using words they don't really understand, exaggerating the pronunciation or overusing 'like'... And then the accent, that gives them away... And the location, small town of Zug... It's all just too incongruous.
However, hungryshark, I shall respond to your message and let you decide what's best for you.
1986.
And my accent has become much more neutral, and with a slower cadence, over the years of dealing with furriners.
Tom
You do of course know what a Merkin is?
I didn't. That exists??
Wonder how you knew that.
+1 for Canadian English, specifically the Ontario dialect.
Oh come on. Don't tell us you've never used one?!
Or roundabout there, eh?
In the words of my father (Port Seton, Cockenzie): "Aaaccent? Ahhh doant haav an aaccent!"
Can you say "Tronna"?
Tom
What you are looking for are what is referred to as “Elocution lessons” or RP (Received pronunciation). In the UK, I believe, this is offered to people who want to improve their pronunciation.
You can find more info by googling.
What you might be thinking of is the accent sometimes referred to as American Broadcast English, or General American. See here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_American
Back in the day, this was the accent favored by most television news broadcasters - the accent that couldn't be pinpointed, the one that didn't sound like the speaker was from anywhere in particular.
However this seems to have become less prevalent, or important, in recent years. Nowadays one hears many more distinctive accents on television.
Including the screetchy girly voice and worse, vocal fry that I swear did not exist 20 years ago when I left the US but now seem to be ubiquitous in the media. Hurts my ears, please don't try for that no matter how popular it is.
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My own accent has apparently been tamped down, the unconscious product of 25 years of living abroad. During a recent trip home I was out with family, ordering from a menu, when the waitress said:
"I love your accent - where are you from?"
Um, I'm Shee-cah-goe born and bred. Wot acksint?
I don't think I sound any different, nor do my family - but apparently folks back home think I sound just a tad like I don't really belong.
Like Morley Safer, or Peter Jennings?
Aren't they from Tronna?
Tom
That was my point.
RP is effectively an accent in itself: standard "BBC" accent or what used to be referred to as "Queen's English" I suppose. It used to be the standard against which all other accents were measured or judged. Now, not so much.