if the content is well known to audience you are speaking to, intonation and word stresses are very important. If the content is not familair to the audience, the pronouciation is a key to get your point crossed. When we talked about work-related stuffs, nobody asked other to repeat, since we know what words you are spiling out. If we go off line to chat about hobbies and families, we would be asked to repeat some key content words due to inaccurate pronounciation.
We all learned New Concept English from years in China, so we are very used to people speaking that way, we understand each other very well, we might create NCE accent on our own. But in America, you will be asked to correct lots of British accented pronounciation since non-chinese speakers couldn't understand lots of common words pronounced in that way. I have been in trouble many years to just open mouth big and add R to the end.
There is no fast track to speak like native speakers. Due to time and resource, we cannot practice our English all day. We must focus on the one needed most to improve.
We all learned New Concept English from years in China, so we are very used to people speaking that way, we understand each other very well, we might create NCE accent on our own. But in America, you will be asked to correct lots of British accented pronounciation since non-chinese speakers couldn't understand lots of common words pronounced in that way. I have been in trouble many years to just open mouth big and add R to the end.
There is no fast track to speak like native speakers. Due to time and resource, we cannot practice our English all day. We must focus on the one needed most to improve.