Reddit reviews Introducing Phonetics and Phonology

It sounds like a good introduction to Phonetics and Phonology might be of interest to you. This is the one I first used.

Oh gosh. Where to begin?

First of all, if you're a student, I suggest going to your university library and just typing "phonetics" or "phonology" into your library computer's search. You should have all sorts of books, some of which are research-based, some of which are textbooks, available to you.

As far as the textbooks I've read, there's Language Files, Introducing Phonetics and Phonology, and one other that I can't remember the name of at the moment...

However, what I would REALLY suggest you use, is Wikipedia's Index of Phonetics-related Articles. It's a treasure trove of information.

The academic discipline is called phonology. If you're the sort of person who enjoys rule-based games, like RPGs and board games, I think you'll find it a lot of fun. I like the book Introducing Phonetics and Phonology by Davenport and Hannahs as an introductory text. You need a basic background in phonetics to do phonology, and this text gives it to you.

My experience was a bit weird because for the first few years I was spending around 1/3 or 1/2 of the year in the US, then the rest in the UK. So my accent didn't start to change till relatively recently. In the past few years I've spent all my time here, and I guess after about a year I started to soften my 'r' and harden my 't'. Then the words I used frequently started changing and I started using the 'ah' in the middle of words. Now it's a really fucked up hybrid of both, so my family thinks I'm full on English sounding - and they comment on it. But English people here know I'm not English. They're just never very sure where I'm from so they have to ask.

However, I must admit that in formal situations I have learned to sound as English as possible - so ordering food, asking for directions, post office, etc. I suspect this is because I'm always aware I'm different and I get really fucking tired of people bitching about American policy or just being obnoxious about what part of the States I'm from (No, it's not near Florida. Yes, I've been to Fla. no, I don't like it there. Ugh!). So to avoid that, my brain automatically goes into formal gear. When I'm with friends I sound more Yank. When my daughter and I speak we fall back into a pattern of very fast Yank-speak.

I'm sure you could learn an accent without knowing Phonetics, but the phonetics will make it easier because it provides a framework for understanding sounds. Try an intro book like this one and you'll soon find the symbols make it way easier to understand. I haven't done much academic stuff in a while, but when I did it and my hearing was good I could 'see' the sounds people were making using the IPA in my head while they were talking. Very useful for imitation!