I’ve frequently heard that it’s impossible to perfect an accent after the age of twelve. But this can’t be true; actors and singers do it all the time, and we’re not any smarter or better than the rest of humanity. We just care about pronunciation—we have to; no one will pay us for bad German—so we take the time to do it right: we start early, and we gain an awareness of what’s going on in our mouths when we speak. Half of a good accent is simply a matter of timing.
