If you’re tired of failing your do-or-die New Year’s resolutions, maybe you should make a resolution lite.

Can’t see yourself losing 50 pounds? Why not shoot for 15?

Don’t want to read a book a week? Maybe a page a day is more your speed.

And if you’re not ready to learn a new language, here’s an alternative: Acquire an accent instead.

Learn Accents from a Pro

Professional help is just a couple clicks, and a couple minutes, away. Just listen to Gareth Jameson, London-based actor and voice coach, and you’ll be speaking like a Brit, or an Aussie, or a German speaking English, in no time. Take your pick from Jameson’s series of 19 videos at Videojug.

“The key to any accent,” says Gareth Jameson, “is to isolate the sounds that are specific to that accent.” Isolating—and reproducing—those sounds is tough for me. To my ear, there are two kinds of English: American and non-American. Tell me to imitate a Scott, and it comes out as something like a parody of Ringo Starr. Same for imitating a South African or an Australian. I know they don’t really sound alike, but I just don’t know exactly why.

So hear you go (yeah, I meant to do that). Click on the photos below for a sampling of videos, or go to the complete gallery, and soon you’ll be well on your way to annoyi . . . I mean, impressing your friends.

[photo: “Happy New Year!” by Chris Chabot, used under a Creative Commons license]