More on accents

Hello everyone
As I’m travelling to Germany this coming weekend, I am recording my chatcast today.
Today’s chatcast is about language learning and accents.
I think a lot of people who learn English have concerns about their accent. First and foremost, is it understandable to other people? Does it sound "right"? What do native speakers think when they hear it? Will it ever become like a "native speaker"?
Many questions like this come to mind. I have talked to many people over the years who are learning English and I often hear them say " I would like to improve my English" and also " I would like to improve my accent – to sound more "British" or "American"
I often wonder why this is. Why does it seem important to have a "near-native" accent? Maybe it is because it is a personal ambition to speak well, where people will appreciate the learner’s ability to speak naturally, without the need to explain "I am from this country or that country"
On the other hand, it can be a desire to lose the accent of the mother tongue, because maybe the learner don’t like their own language so much and would prefer to speak English – or even to live in an English-speaking country.
I get a bit concerned that some people would like to "hide" their accent and work very hard to sound exactly like a native speaker, because which accent should they copy? For instance in England there are many different accents and dialects that are not the "standard" accent – which in our country is called "received pronunciation"
More native speakers speak with a regional accent than speak "received pronunciation"
The important thing surely is communication? As a native English speaker I hear a lot of different accents when I travel around the country, on TV and radio and when I travel to other countries. I’m sure I speak for many of us native speakers when I say that for us accents matter less than good communication. In other words, a person speaking with a foreign accent is fine as long as we can understand what is being said. We are used to hearing many different English accents – not just across the country but from around the world. We don’t think it so important when we meet someone from another country who is learning English and we hear an accent.
In fact, very often many people from foreign countries speak more clearly and with better grammar than many native speakers.
My advice is to try to improve your accent if you want to or if you can, but don’t get too concerned about it if you feel you are not making progress.
Having said all this, I can give you some tips and hints for a more natural-sounding English.
First, relax! Try not to get stressed and anxious about speaking – most people are friendly and appreciate that you are speaking English. Some mistakes are acceptable.
Secondly. Take your time speaking – don’t rush to say all you want to say. Many non-natives try to speak too quickly when they speak English. Try listening to a few English native speakers and you’ll realise that not many speak very fast.
Thirdly. There is no need to apologise for example "I’m sorry my English isn’t so good" A better approach would be " I keep trying to improve my English"
Fourthly. Take note of the stress that is put on words. This is very important in English for a good pronunciation – irrespective of what accent we have. To show you an example: the number 42 is pronounced FOURTY -two. If it said without stress on the first syllable "four-ty-two", it could sound like "for tea too"
To give you an idea what I mean. See what you think about these words, the first pronunciation is correct
Confident – conFI-dent – Con-fi- DENT
Solution – SOL – u- tion - SoluTION

I hope you have a nice weekend
Bye for now