Question to the advanced students: How does one train to get rid of the western flavor "西方味儿“from their spoken Chinese?

I don't mean saying your zh/sh/ch properly. I don't mean si/shi being spoken correctly. I also don't mean the tones. After all of those are corrected, there is still a certain something that is different on the ears.

I know this isn't a Skritter question, but we have some pretty high level guys here. Anyone managed to get rid of that 西方味儿？ If so, how?

From my own experience, there isn't a uniform "西方味儿". The standard foreigner accent, the one that is also used and ridiculed in many TV and radio ads, appears to be the North American accent (实话实说吧，美国人的口音忒搞笑了。。。).
UK natives have an astoundingly different accent. So the method of getting rid of it should be similar to other languages.

@west316 Can you think of any non-native speakers of your native language who DON'T have an accent? My native language is English and the only non-natives I've seen who can speak without a noticeable accent are

-- people who moved here before they were 10-11 years old
-- highly trained actors
-- one or two unusual examples like Luca - see http://thelinguistblogger.wordpress.com/2008/08/23/luca-the-italian-polyglot/ I can only comment on the quality of his Spanish and American English videos, but in those he has native-level accents with very, very few deviations.

I'm a relative beginner at Chinese, but I have been working on my Spanish accent for several years and some sounds are still extremely difficult to produce at a native level. I would imagine Chinese is substantially more difficult.

James

@jww1066: Actually, that is what makes Mandarin different. I would never dream of asking that question for Spanish or French. Very few people of my generation can truly claim that Mandarin is their native tongue, though. I have known a few Chinese people who can say that, but they are few and far between. Some of the languages they speak are incredibly similar, but there are still some big differences. Mandarin is an artificial language. It is mostly man made, not naturally grown.

Since almost everyone speaking the language are speaking their second language, you can blur into the crowd as it were. It is their culture. It is their written script. 普通话 as a spoken language is different, though. I have know numerous Chinese people who make comments about meeting foreigners who didn't have it. It is possible to lose it. It isn't just a hand full of actors on TV either. I just have yet to spend any time asking one how they did it.

Beside the consonants, vowels and tones, one must also properly stress the words and the sentences. Sentence stressing is too difficult a subject so I won’t talk about it. (Actually, I don’t have any clue how to stress a sentence.) But I think everyone should pay some attention to word stressing because the rules are not too difficult but the effect is very prominent and is one step away from the “西方味儿”.

Here are the rules: Usually the primary stress (重) is on the last character of a multi-character word. So the stress pattern is as follow:
2 characters words – 中、重
3 characters words – 中、次轻、重
4 characters words – 中、次轻、中、重

An example： in 泡沫, the primary stress is on the character 沫. But in 泡沫塑料，the stress for 沫 is only 次轻. The pronunciation of that same word 泡沫 will change according to whether it is a standalone or in combination with other word.

Then some 2 characters words have the primary stress on the first character. One type is those what we called light tones. The are read as – 重、最轻。 Then, there are the optional light tones which are read as – 重、次轻。The problem here is in knowing whether a word belong to the light tone or optional light tone.

@west316 interesting point. A number of people have told me that German is similar; as there are so many regional accents, a foreigner with a high level of German can more easily pass for a native than in English. I don't speak German so I don't know how true that is.

James

@pts I have never heard that before. That will give me something to ponder and play around with. Thanks.

Is a simple example of a "light tone" two syllable words ending in neutral tone? For example 哥哥?(read that with main land pronunciation)

Some people are also more naturally talented in the audio part of the brain - and will use their ears rather than their concious brains to figure this out.

It's fun calling people on the phone and for a few minutes at least they are quietly trying to figure out which province the terrible accent is from.

@west316 Yes, they are those neutral tones. The character 轻 has a profound influence on my mind.