How to Lose an Indonesian Accent and Speak Clear, Natural English

If you’re searching for how to lose your Indonesian accent, you probably already know the specific moments where it shows up. The “f” where English wants a “v.” The “t” or “d” where “th” should be. The slightly musical, evenly-paced rhythm that tells a native English speaker you’re not from an English-speaking country — even before they’ve had time to identify exactly why.

Indonesian speakers come to English with a significant advantage: Indonesia has one of the most widely spoken second-language English populations in Southeast Asia, and most Indonesian professionals working in international environments have been learning English since childhood. Grammar and vocabulary are typically strong. Reading and writing comprehension are often excellent. The gap is almost entirely in spoken pronunciation — a specific, consistent set of phonological transfer patterns from Bahasa Indonesia that create friction in spoken English.

The other thing worth knowing upfront: Indonesian is a relatively phonologically transparent language — it’s spelled almost exactly as it sounds, and its sound system is more compact than many other Asian languages. This means there are fewer deeply embedded phonological habits to untangle than in, say, Thai or Japanese. The targets are clear. The work is focused. And the progress tends to come faster than Indonesian speakers expect.

In this guide, I’ll walk you through exactly what creates an Indonesian accent in English, which features matter most for clarity, and a practical step-by-step approach to modifying them. Let’s get into it.

Can You Really Lose an Indonesian Accent in English?

To a degree that genuinely transforms your professional communication — yes. Complete elimination of any accent is rare and not the goal. What is consistently achievable, usually within 2 to 3 months of targeted daily practice, is reducing the patterns that create friction for English listeners to the point where they stop registering.

Indonesian speakers tend to make faster-than-average progress on certain targets — particularly /v/ production, /th/ placement, and final consonant clarity — because the Indonesian sound system is relatively compact and the substitution patterns are clean and consistent. Clean patterns are easier to target than complex, overlapping ones.

The goal isn’t to erase your background. It’s to develop a clear, professional English where your ideas land cleanly, without pronunciation creating interference. You’re adding precision to a foundation you’ve already built.

Introduction to Accent Reduction

Accent reduction is the process of modifying specific speech patterns — individual sounds, syllable structure, word stress, sentence rhythm, and intonation — so that your spoken English is easier for native listeners to process without extra effort.

For Indonesian speakers, this is almost never about grammar or vocabulary. It’s about the physical mechanics of producing sounds that don’t exist in Bahasa Indonesia, adjusting how syllables are timed and stressed, and training a handful of deeply automatic substitution habits to redirect toward English targets.

Effective accent reduction works at three levels simultaneously: ear training (hearing distinctions that Indonesian doesn’t mark), articulation practice (physically producing new sounds), and fluency drilling (making new patterns automatic at conversational speed). All three are necessary. Ear training always comes first.

Understanding Indonesian-Accented English: The Foundation for Change

Bahasa Indonesia and English come from different language families — Austronesian versus Germanic — but Indonesian has been borrowing vocabulary from English, Dutch, and other languages for centuries. This means many Indonesian speakers have a deceptively familiar relationship with English words — they recognize them, they read them, they understand them. But the sounds those words are built from often follow Indonesian phonological rules in speech, even when the speaker is fluent in English.

Understanding where the two systems diverge is the foundation for targeted, efficient improvement.

Key Differences Between Indonesian and English Sound Systems

Consonant Challenges:

Indonesian does not have a native /v/ phoneme. In Bahasa Indonesia, /v/ appears only in loanwords and is typically pronounced as /f/ — “video” is “fideo,” “visa” is “fisa,” “vitamin” is “fitamin.” Applied to English, this produces consistent /f/ substitution: “very” becomes “fery,” “voice” becomes “foice,” “have” becomes “haf,” “review” becomes “refiew.” This is one of the most immediately noticeable features of Indonesian-accented English
Indonesian lacks the English /th/ sounds — both unvoiced /θ/ as in “think” and voiced /ð/ as in “this.” They are typically replaced with /t/ and /d/ — “think” becomes “tink,” “the” becomes “de,” “this” becomes “dis,” “three” becomes “tree.” Some speakers use /s/ and /z/ instead, particularly for the unvoiced /θ/
Indonesian does not have a native /z/ phoneme. Like /v/, /z/ appears only in loanwords and is typically realized as /s/ or /dz/ — “zero” becomes “sero” or “dsero,” “zone” becomes “sone,” “amazing” becomes “amasing,” “realize” becomes “realise” (voiceless). This affects a large number of common English words
The Indonesian /r/ is a trill or tap — the tongue tip makes rapid contact with the alveolar ridge, producing a vibration. American English /r/ is a smooth retroflex approximant with no tongue contact at all. The Indonesian trill is one of the most consistently recognizable features of Indonesian-accented English
Indonesian has /f/ as a phoneme (particularly in loanwords), but some older speakers or those from certain regional backgrounds may substitute /p/ for /f/ — “coffee” becomes “koppi,” “office” becomes “opiss.” This is less common among younger and more formally educated speakers but worth mentioning
Indonesian /h/ is a voiceless glottal fricative — similar to English /h/ in phonetic character. However, in informal Indonesian speech, /h/ is frequently dropped in medial positions, and this habit can carry into English — “behind” becomes “be-ind,” “perhaps” becomes “per-aps,” “vehicle” becomes “ve-icle.” This is more variable than most other Indonesian accent features and depends heavily on the speaker’s regional background and formality level
English /dʒ/ (as in “judge,” “job,” “major”) exists in Indonesian as “j” — “jalan,” “juga,” “jenis.” This is a genuine phonological advantage: Indonesian speakers typically have no difficulty producing the /dʒ/ affricate that trips up speakers of many other Asian languages
English /tʃ/ (as in “cheese,” “church”) exists in Indonesian as “c” — “coba,” “cepat,” “kecil.” This is another genuine advantage: /tʃ/ is usually not a problem area for Indonesian speakers
English /ʃ/ (as in “shop,” “wash,” “machine”) exists in Indonesian loanwords — “syarat,” “masyarakat.” Most Indonesian speakers produce this sound without difficulty

Vowel Differences:

Indonesian has six vowels: /a/, /e/, /i/, /o/, /u/, and the pepet /ə/ (the “e” in words like “besar,” “serta,” “kepala”). The pepet is a mid-central vowel similar to English schwa, but it functions differently — in Indonesian it is a full vowel in its own right, not a reduction of another vowel. English has 14 to 20 vowels, with many distinctions that simply don’t exist in Indonesian
The English tense/lax vowel distinction — “ship” vs. “sheep,” “bit” vs. “beat,” “full” vs. “fool” — does not exist in Indonesian. Indonesian speakers typically produce both members of these pairs as the same sound, using the long/full vowel version
The English /æ/ vowel (as in “cat,” “bad,” “man,” “have”) doesn’t exist in Indonesian. It is typically replaced with /a/ or /ɛ/ — “cat” sounds like “kat” or “ket,” “bad” sounds like “bad” with a different vowel quality, “man” sounds like “men”
English uses schwa /ə/ constantly in unstressed syllables — “about,” “important,” “human,” “the,” “a.” While Indonesian has its own pepet, it doesn’t reduce unstressed vowels in the same systematic way English does. Indonesian speakers often give full vowel quality to English unstressed syllables, removing the rhythmic architecture that English listeners rely on to parse sentences
Indonesian vowels are generally pure and consistent — there are no diphthongs in native Indonesian words comparable to the English diphthongs /oʊ/, /eɪ/, /aɪ/, /aʊ/, /ɔɪ/. Indonesian speakers sometimes produce these as flat, pure vowels — “go” sounds like “goh,” “day” sounds like “deh,” “time” sounds like “tahm” — which gives speech a slightly flat vowel quality even when consonants are accurate

Final Consonants:

Indonesian does allow final consonants — /k/, /p/, /t/, /m/, /n/, /ŋ/, /l/, /r/, /s/, /h/ can all appear at the end of Indonesian syllables. However, the final stops /k/, /p/, /t/ are typically unreleased in Indonesian — the mouth closes but no air burst follows. This carries into English, making final stops sound swallowed or incomplete
Indonesian words do not end in voiced stops (/b/, /d/, /g/) or voiced fricatives (/v/, /z/). When these appear at the end of English words, they are often devoiced or dropped — “bed” sounds like “bet,” “bag” sounds like “bak,” “have” sounds like “haf,” “realize” sounds like “realise”
This final consonant devoicing, combined with the /v/ → /f/ and /z/ → /s/ substitutions already in place, means that voiced fricatives and stops at the end of English words consistently lose their voicing in Indonesian-accented speech

Syllable Structure and Rhythm:

Indonesian is a syllable-timed language — syllables receive more equal duration than in stress-timed English. English is strongly stress-timed: stressed syllables are noticeably longer, louder, and higher in pitch, while unstressed syllables are compressed and reduced toward schwa
Indonesian word stress tends to fall on the penultimate syllable — similar to Polish. While Indonesian stress is somewhat less rigid than Polish penultimate stress, the tendency exists and produces predictable mis-stressing of English words: “imPORtant” becomes “imporTANt,” “preSENtation” becomes “presentaTION”
Indonesian allows consonant clusters, but they are less common and less complex than in English. Initial clusters like “str-,” “spr-,” “scr-,” “spl-” can cause difficulty, with some speakers inserting a vowel between consonants — “street” becomes “sitreet,” “spring” becomes “sipring.” This is generally less pervasive than in Thai or Vietnamese but worth addressing
Function words in English — “the,” “a,” “of,” “to,” “for,” “and,” “in” — are nearly always unstressed and heavily reduced in natural speech. Indonesian speakers often give these words full syllable weight, which removes the rhythmic contrast that makes English sound natural

Intonation:

Indonesian intonation patterns differ from American English — Indonesian uses different pitch contours for statements, questions, and emphasis. The overall pitch range in Indonesian is somewhat narrower than in American English, and the specific melodic patterns are different
Indonesian speakers sometimes produce English statements with a rising or level final pitch rather than the falling pitch that English statements typically use, which can make them sound uncertain or interrogative
Question intonation in Indonesian follows different patterns, which can make Indonesian-accented English questions sound unusual to native English ears

Common Patterns in Indonesian-Accented English

When working on Indonesian accent reduction, these are the patterns that most consistently affect clarity:

Consonant Substitutions

Indonesian pattern: /v/ replaced with /f/ — “very” sounds like “fery,” “voice” sounds like “foice,” “have” sounds like “haf,” “review” sounds like “refiew,” “video” sounds like “fideo” Clear English: Upper front teeth rest lightly on the lower lip with airflow and voicing — not both lips together, not lips open with teeth only

Indonesian pattern: /th/ replaced with /t/ and /d/ — “think” sounds like “tink,” “the” sounds like “de,” “this” sounds like “dis,” “three” sounds like “tree” Clear English: Tongue tip placed between or just behind the front teeth — forward tongue position is the key distinction

Indonesian pattern: /z/ replaced with /s/ — “zero” sounds like “sero,” “amazing” sounds like “amasing,” “realize” sounds like “realise,” “because” sounds like “becaus” (voiceless), “his” sounds like “hiss” Clear English: /z/ is /s/ with voicing added — identical tongue position, add the buzz from vocal cords

Indonesian pattern: Trilled or tapped /r/ — “right,” “very,” “around,” “report” have tongue-tip vibration Clear English: Smooth retroflex American /r/ — tongue curls back without touching the roof of the mouth, no tapping or trilling

Indonesian pattern: Final consonant devoicing and unreleased stops — “bed” sounds like “bet,” “bag” sounds like “bak,” “have” sounds like “haf,” “stop” sounds like “stoh” Clear English: Voiced finals maintain voicing to the end; stops are released with a small audible burst

Indonesian pattern: /h/ dropped in medial position — “behind” sounds like “be-ind,” “perhaps” sounds like “per-aps” (variable, speaker-dependent) Clear English: English /h/ is produced at every syllable boundary where it appears — a soft, open exhale before the vowel

Vowel Patterns

Indonesian pattern: No distinction between tense and lax vowels — “ship” and “sheep” sound identical, “bit” and “beat” sound the same, “full” and “fool” sound the same Clear English: Tense vowels (/iː/, /uː/) are longer and more peripheral; lax vowels (/ɪ/, /ʊ/) are shorter, more centralized, more relaxed

Indonesian pattern: Diphthongs produced as flat monophthongs — “go” sounds like “goh,” “day” sounds like “deh,” “time” sounds like “tahm” Clear English: English diphthongs must glide — “go” moves from /o/ toward /ʊ/, “day” moves from /e/ toward /ɪ/ — the vowel travels

Indonesian pattern: /æ/ replaced with /a/ or /ɛ/ — “cat” sounds like “kat” or “ket,” “bad” sounds like “baad” (Indonesian /a/) or “bed,” “man” sounds like “maan” or “men” Clear English: Drop the jaw lower; sound is produced low and slightly forward in the mouth

Indonesian pattern: Full vowel quality in unstressed syllables — even syllable weight removes English rhythm Clear English: Unstressed syllables collapse toward schwa — shorter, neutralized, nearly colorless

Stress and Intonation

Indonesian pattern: Penultimate stress tendency applied to English words — stress falls on second-to-last syllable regardless of English stress rules Clear English: English word stress must be learned word by word — it does not follow a positional rule

Indonesian pattern: Rising or level pitch on statement endings Clear English: English statements close with a falling pitch on the final stressed content word

How to Lose Indonesian Accent: A Step-by-Step Method

Here is the systematic approach I use with Indonesian-speaking clients.

Step 1 — Train Your Ear for English Distinctions

Indonesian phonology marks different contrasts than English. Many distinctions English relies on — /v/ vs. /f/, /z/ vs. /s/, tense vs. lax vowels, voiced vs. voiceless final consonants, stressed vs. reduced syllables — either don’t exist in Indonesian or function differently. Your ear needs to build awareness of these contrasts before your production can catch up.

Daily listening exercises:

Drill minimal pairs targeting your specific gaps: “very/ferry,” “vine/fine,” “vote/float,” “think/tink,” “the/de,” “zero/sero,” “zip/sip,” “bed/bet,” “bag/bak,” “ship/sheep,” “bit/beat,” “go/goh”
Listen to American English podcasts or TED Talks and pay close attention to rhythm — notice how some syllables nearly disappear while the stressed ones carry most of the sentence’s weight. Function words like “the,” “a,” “for,” “and” are almost inaudible in natural English
Pay attention to sentence endings — notice that English statements close downward in pitch, not upward or level
Focus on final consonants — notice how voiced finals in English (“bed,” “bag,” “have,” “realize”) stay voiced and audible through to the very end of the word

Fifteen minutes of focused listening daily before moving to production. The ear leads; the mouth follows.

Step 2 — Shadow Native Speech

Shadowing directly addresses the features of Indonesian-accented English that are hardest to fix through isolated drills: the syllable-timed rhythm, the reduced unstressed syllables, the statement intonation pattern, and the natural connected speech that blends words together.

Choose a 30 to 60 second clip of natural American English — a podcast, TED Talk, or interview segment
Listen once for meaning
Play again, repeating each phrase immediately after the speaker
Narrow the gap until you’re speaking almost simultaneously with the recording
Record yourself and compare — focus on: are you reducing the same unstressed syllables the speaker reduces? Are your statements closing downward in pitch? Are your stressed syllables noticeably longer and louder than the unstressed ones?

Pay particular attention to function words — how short and quiet they are in natural English. “The,” “and,” “for,” “a,” “to” in natural speech are barely there. Shadowing trains you to let them compress the way English requires.

Step 3 — Target Your Specific Problem Sounds

Work one target at a time until it’s reliable in words and simple sentences, then move to the next.

For the /v/ sound (replacing the /f/ habit):

This is typically the highest-priority fix for Indonesian speakers because /v/ is extremely common in English and the /f/ substitution is immediately noticeable to native ears.

Rest your upper front teeth lightly on your lower lip — not pressing hard, just resting
Push air through the gap between your teeth and lower lip
Add voicing — you should feel a buzzing vibration in your lower lip
The key distinction from /f/: /f/ is voiceless (no buzz), /v/ is voiced (buzz present)
The key distinction from /w/: /w/ rounds both lips together with no teeth contact. /v/ requires upper teeth on lower lip
Hold your hand on your throat — you should feel vibration for /v/ but not for /f/
Word practice: “very,” “voice,” “video,” “have,” “live,” “believe,” “review,” “over,” “seven,” “ever,” “give,” “love,” “move”
Minimal pair drills: “very/ferry,” “vine/fine,” “veil/fail,” “vet/fet,” “vote/float,” “cave/cafe,” “live/life,” “have/half”
Sentence practice: “I have a very valuable review to give you.” — every /v/ gets voiced dental-lip contact

For the /th/ sounds:

Bring your tongue tip forward to the back of your upper front teeth, or gently between your teeth
Unvoiced /θ/ (think, thank, three, both, tooth, health): blow a gentle, continuous stream of air over the tongue — continuous fricative, not a quick stop release like /t/
Voiced /ð/ (the, this, that, they, them, together, breathe): same tongue position, add voicing
The critical difference from /t/ and /d/: no air pressure buildup and stop release — /th/ is continuous airflow
Practice: “think,” “thank,” “three,” “both,” “truth,” “method” / “the,” “this,” “that,” “they,” “breathe,” “together,” “although”
Priority target: “the” — the most common word in English, and every “de” has large cumulative impact across an entire conversation

For the /z/ sound (adding voicing to /s/):

/z/ is simply /s/ with voicing added — the tongue position is completely identical
Place your tongue in the /s/ position, then switch on the vocal cord buzz
Hold your hand on your throat — feel vibration on /z/, no vibration on /s/
Practice in isolation: alternate “ssss” (no buzz) and “zzzz” (buzz) — feel the difference
Word practice: “zero,” “zone,” “zoo,” “amazing,” “realize,” “because,” “please,” “news,” “goes,” “his,” “was,” “easy,” “busy,” “music”
Pay particular attention to final /z/ — this is where devoicing most commonly occurs: “his” (not “hiss”), “has” (not “hass”), “goes” (not “goess”), “news” (not “newss”), “please” (not “pleass”), “his friends” (not “hiss frenss”)
Minimal pairs: “sip/zip,” “seal/zeal,” “sue/zoo,” “price/prize,” “race/raise,” “ice/eyes,” “advice/advise”

For the American English /r/ (eliminating the trill):

Stop the trill — no tongue-tip vibration whatsoever
Retract or curl the tongue tip backward and upward — it points toward the roof of the mouth but does not touch it
Round the lips very slightly
The sound is smooth, resonant, and continuous — hold it in isolation: “rrrr” — no tapping, no friction, pure resonance
Start with /r/ in medial position where the trill habit is slightly less automatic: “very,” “sorry,” “around,” “during,” “period,” “story,” “America,” “every”
Then move to initial /r/: “right,” “road,” “read,” “report,” “result,” “really,” “run,” “three,” “bring,” “from”
Then final /r/ (important in American English — rhotic): “her,” “for,” “more,” “there,” “where,” “better,” “water,” “number”
Record and compare to a native speaker — listen specifically for any residual vibration or tapping

For final consonant voicing and release:

For voiced finals (/b/, /d/, /g/, /v/, /z/, /dʒ/): maintain the voicing buzz through to the very end of the word — don’t switch it off early
The vowel cue: the vowel before a voiced final consonant is slightly longer than before a voiceless one — “bad” (longer vowel) vs. “bat” (shorter), “bag” vs. “back,” “have” vs. “half”
For final stops (/p/, /t/, /k/, /b/, /d/, /g/): release them — let the small air burst happen. In Indonesian these stops are unreleased; in English, especially in citation form and careful speech, they have an audible release
Practice pairs: “bed/bet,” “bad/bat,” “bag/back,” “big/bick,” “have/half,” “live/life,” “road/wrote,” “jobs/chops,” “dogs/docks,” “his/hiss,” “plays/place”
Record yourself — the voiced versions should sound clearly different from the voiceless ones

For English diphthongs (fixing flat vowels):

English diphthongs are moving vowels — they start in one position and glide to another within a single syllable
Start with /oʊ/ (go, home, know, open, most): start with lips relaxed, then round them slightly as the vowel ends — feel the movement
For /eɪ/ (day, late, make, they, wait): start with a mid-front vowel, then close slightly toward /ɪ/ — feel the tongue rising
Record yourself on “go” and “day” and compare to a native speaker — listen for whether your vowel moves or stays flat
Extend to: /aɪ/ (my, time, right, night), /aʊ/ (now, out, how, about), /ɔɪ/ (boy, join, voice)
Note: getting the diphthong movement in “voice” also helps the /v/ → /f/ issue since the word requires both a correct /v/ and a correct /ɔɪ/

For English stress-timing:

In every multi-syllable word, one syllable carries primary stress — noticeably longer, louder, higher in pitch
The unstressed syllables compress toward schwa — shorter, quieter, neutralized
Common Indonesian mis-stressing patterns to correct:
- “imPORtant” (not “imporTANt”)
- “preSENtation” (not “presentaTION”)
- “comMUnication” (not “communicaTION”)
- “inFORmation” (not “informaTION”)
- “UNiversity” (not “univerSIty”)
- “deCISion” (not “deCIsion” or “DEcision”)
Function words — “the,” “a,” “and,” “for,” “to,” “of,” “in,” “at” — are almost always unstressed and compressed in natural English. Practice making these nearly disappear in sentences
Shadowing is your best tool for internalizing rhythm — rule-following alone is not sufficient for the automatic, unconscious compression that natural English requires

Step 4 — Record, Reflect, Repeat

Speak naturally for 1 to 2 minutes on any topic — unscripted
Listen back and note where patterns slip: /f/ for /v/, /s/ for /z/, /t/ or /d/ for /th/, trilled /r/, devoiced final consonants, flat diphthongs, equal syllable timing, rising statement endings
Drill those specific patterns for 5 to 10 minutes
Record again and compare
Do this daily — most people significantly underestimate their progress without recordings to reference

Common Indonesian Accent Examples (And How to Fix Them)

Here are typical sentences showing how Indonesian accent patterns affect clarity, alongside their clearer alternatives:

Indonesian accent: “I tink dis is a fery important decision.” Clear English: “I think this is a very important decision.” (th → think/this, /f/ → /v/ in “very,” stress on “imPORtant,” /z/ → “deCIsion”)

Indonesian accent: “Please refiew de report before Friday.” Clear English: “Please review the report before Friday.” (/f/ → /v/ in “review,” th → the)

Indonesian accent: “He hass a fery good idea — let’s realise it.” Clear English: “He has a very good idea — let’s realize it.” (final /z/ → /s/ in “has,” /f/ → /v/ in “very,” final /z/ → /s/ in “realize”)

Indonesian accent: “De team is amasing — sero complaints from clients.” Clear English: “The team is amazing — zero complaints from clients.” (th → the, /s/ → /z/ in “amazing,” /s/ → /z/ in “zero”)

Indonesian accent: “I half to tink about de presentaTION carefully.” Clear English: “I have to think about the preSENtation carefully.” (final devoicing in “have,” th → think, th → the, penultimate stress on “presentation”)

By targeting these patterns consistently, you’ll make rapid, measurable progress in your Indonesian accent reduction work.

How Long Does It Take to Lose an Indonesian Accent?

Based on what I observe with Indonesian-speaking clients using consistent daily practice:

First noticeable improvements: 3 to 4 weeks — /v/ production and /th/ placement tend to respond fastest because they rely on physical awareness more than deep motor retraining. Many Indonesian speakers get reliable /v/ within two to three weeks of daily drilling
Significant reduction in communication barriers: 2 to 3 months — the most impactful patterns are significantly reduced; colleagues notice the shift in clarity and naturalness
Comfortable, natural-sounding speech: 4 to 6 months — new patterns feel automatic; stress-timing and diphthong movement, which take longer to internalize, become more consistent

Indonesian speakers often make faster initial progress than speakers of tonal languages like Thai or Vietnamese, because the Indonesian phonological system is less architecturally different from English. The patterns are clean and well-defined, which makes targeted work efficient.

Benefits of Accent Reduction for Indonesian Speakers

Professional clarity: In English-speaking workplaces and international business environments, clear pronunciation means your ideas land as ideas. When your speech flows naturally — correct /v/ sounds, clear /z/ voicing, audible final consonants — your expertise registers immediately rather than getting filtered through listener effort.

Confidence in high-visibility moments: Many of my Indonesian-speaking clients describe accent anxiety that surfaces specifically in presentations, client calls, and meetings with senior international colleagues. As those patterns improve, that anxiety fades and the mental bandwidth goes back where it belongs: to the content of what you’re saying.

Career advancement: For professionals in senior or client-facing roles, pronunciation clarity directly affects perceived credibility and authority. In international business settings — where Indonesian professionals frequently operate at a high level — natural-sounding English is a real professional differentiator.

Expanded range in English: Formal professional English and casual conversational English require different levels of fluency. As your accent reduces, informal registers — networking, small talk, humor — become more accessible and more rewarding.

Resources and Tools for Indonesian Speakers

Apps:

ELSA Speak — AI pronunciation feedback at the phoneme level; particularly effective for drilling /v/ vs. /f/, /z/ vs. /s/, /th/ placement, and final consonant voicing with instant accuracy scores
Speechling — record and compare against native speaker models; good for tracking which patterns you’re still defaulting to over time and measuring improvement
Forvo — native speaker audio for any English word; particularly useful for checking stress placement and diphthong quality on words you use regularly

YouTube:

Search specifically for “American English /v/ sound” and “American English /th/ pronunciation” for targeted articulation tutorials with visual mouth diagrams
TED Talks at 1.0x speed make excellent shadowing material — clear diction, natural connected speech, and varied vocabulary that exposes you to English stress patterns across a wide range of words
Searching “American English /r/ pronunciation” will surface tutorials explaining the retroflex /r/ — look for videos with clear physical tongue position explanation

Podcasts:

NPR programs (Fresh Air, How I Built This, Hidden Brain, Planet Money, Radiolab) offer clean, consistently-paced American English ideal for rhythm and stress shadowing
Business English podcasts are particularly useful for Indonesian professionals in international environments — search for “Business English pod” or similar

Books:

American Accent Training by Ann Cook — systematic, sound-by-sound approach, widely used and available with audio
Mastering the American Accent by Lisa Mojsin — well-structured for self-study with a strong audio component

Frequently Asked Questions

Why do Indonesian speakers replace /v/ with /f/ rather than /b/ like some other languages?

This comes directly from how loanwords are treated in Bahasa Indonesia. Indonesian borrowed /v/ words from Dutch and English but adapted them to the Indonesian phonological system, which has /f/ but not /v/ as a native sound. Over time, the convention became to realize borrowed /v/ words with /f/. So when Indonesian speakers encounter English /v/, the automatic mapping goes to /f/ rather than to /b/ (which is what Arabic and some other languages default to). The fix is the same regardless: upper teeth on lower lip with voicing. But the starting point is /f/, not /b/.

Does Indonesian actually have /z/? I’ve seen it in some Indonesian words.

Indonesian does use the letter “z” in some loanwords — “zaman” (era), “zona” (zone), “fasilitas” (facilities). However, in practice these are typically pronounced with /s/ or /dz/ rather than the voiced /z/ that English uses. The /z/ phoneme is not part of the core Indonesian sound system in the way it is in English, where it appears in hundreds of extremely common words (“his,” “has,” “goes,” “was,” “please,” “because,” “amazing,” “realize”). Building reliable /z/ production in English — especially in final position — is therefore an important target.

Is the penultimate stress issue as significant for Indonesian speakers as it is for Polish speakers?

It’s present and noticeable but generally less systematic than in Polish. Polish penultimate stress is a rigid, near-universal rule; Indonesian stress is more variable and less strictly penultimate in all cases. That said, the tendency exists and produces predictable mis-stressing in English — particularly on longer words like “presentation,” “communication,” “information,” and “university.” The fix is the same: learn English word stress per word, use a dictionary to verify, and use shadowing to internalize patterns rather than trying to apply rules.

Are there any English sounds that Indonesian speakers typically don’t struggle with?

Yes — and this is useful to know so you focus your practice time efficiently. English /dʒ/ (judge, job, major) maps directly onto Indonesian “j” — generally not a problem. English /tʃ/ (cheese, church) maps onto Indonesian “c” — generally not a problem. English /ʃ/ (shop, wash, machine) is used in Indonesian loanwords — usually manageable. English /p/, /t/, /k/, /m/, /n/, /ŋ/, /l/, /s/, /h/ all have clear Indonesian equivalents. Your time is best spent on /v/, /z/, /th/, /r/ quality, final consonant voicing and release, diphthongs, and stress-timing — not on sounds Indonesian already covers well.

Can I make meaningful progress without a coach?

The techniques in this guide produce real results with consistent self-study. The main limitation is feedback quality: most people have blind spots in their own pronunciation that are genuinely hard to catch in self-monitoring — particularly final consonant devoicing (/v/ → /f/ at the end of words, /z/ → /s/ at the end of words) and flat diphthongs, which can feel correct from the inside even when they’re not. A specialized accent coach identifies your specific patterns and corrects them in real time, which compresses the timeline significantly. Self-study gets you far; a coach gets you there with greater precision and fewer detours.

Conclusion: Start Where You Are

If you’ve been thinking about how to lose your Indonesian accent, this guide gives you a clear, prioritized list of targets: /v/ production, /z/ voicing, /th/ placement, the American /r/, final consonant voicing and release, English diphthongs, and stress-timing. Those seven targets cover the most characteristic and most impactful features of Indonesian-accented English.

Start with your ear. Build awareness of /v/ vs. /f/ and /z/ vs. /s/ before you try to produce them consistently. Add shadowing for rhythm and intonation. Layer in articulation drills for your top consonant targets. Record yourself, listen critically, and iterate every day.

Twenty focused minutes a day will move the needle significantly faster than you expect — and Indonesian speakers, in my experience, tend to see early results faster than they anticipate.

Accent modification is a skill, not an overnight transformation — but with consistent practice, you can dramatically improve your clarity while keeping your authentic voice.

At Intonetic, there are two ways to get started depending on how you prefer to learn.

If you want to work on your own schedule, the American Accent Training program gives you a structured, 10-minute daily system built around the exact sounds and rhythm patterns covered in this guide. Self-paced, cancel any time.

If you’d prefer personalized guidance — a coach who identifies exactly what’s holding you back and corrects it in real time — the 1-on-1 coaching program is the faster, more direct route. You can start with a free accent assessment to see what it looks like.

Schedule Your Free Accent Assessment Today!