Since we were at the topic of learning English, I might as well recall some issues faced when I was in middle school. One issue that I had thought a lot about was the accent. Let me explain. It was in the mid-late 80s and back then, the British accent was the only accent taught in middle schools. Since I already started listening to VOA, I was deeply fascinated by the American accent. Growing up in Beijing, I like the American accent better than the British one as it is closer to the Beijing dialect of mandarin. To be clear, I’m not a big fan of 京片子, especially the “blurry” nature of its pronunciation. But I like the northern dialect of Chinese (I guess I should call it 北京普通话 to avoid confusion), which features a “clearer” pronunciation than its southern counterpart. I found two things American English is similar to the Beijing dialect: 1) The “er”s at the end of a word are pronounced like 儿话音; 2) Both pronounce every bit of a word clearly, no matter how fast spoken. (Again, don’t confuse北京普通话 with 京片子); 3) Both use the stomach more to generate the sound, as opposed to speaking shallowly from the upper throat. So I began following VOA and learned to speak the American way. I was one of only two people speaking with an American accent. (The other student was, interestingly, a rock band guitarist, whose interest was probably sparked by his exposure to the popular American culture.) It was a little rebellious for a kid like me that usually went with the norm, but nonetheless cool and satisfying.
For a long time, I mimicked the VOA anchor of Special English down to every detail of their pronunciation. I can bet if you listen to both the real broadcaster and me, you will not be able to tell which is which.