Accents

In fact everyone has an accent, even the native English speakers.Accent is just a way to pronounce words and to utter sounds.  British, Australian and American accents are quite different, even a layman can tell them apart. 

• Accents part 1, part 2 - have fun
• And if you want to be taken aback, just listen to some Scottish accent. I had a couple of Scottish friends, to be honest, sometimes even people born in the UK didn’t understand them. 

Do we have to imitate a native speaker? I would say communicating in a clear and effective way is more important than a posh accent. People won’t buy that you are native English, as it comes with culture and traditions. 95% of English speakers are not native speakers in the world. Why would we pretend to belong to the 5%, when we most probably communicate with the 95%? Still, you can try, it can be fun, and it can be a good way to practice English, anyway.