N4 vocab mix ups

[ChannelR]

Hey, I've been working my way through the JLPT N4 vocabulary, and I've come across a few things and I'd be grateful if someone could explain them to me. A few of them I managed to get figured out, but there are still a few things I don't understand.

頼む, 尋ねる and 聞く all mean to ask, according to my dictionary. When and where would I use each one?
使用する, 使う and 用いる all say 'to use'. 
親 and 両親 for parents.
返事 vs 答 for 'answer'

Also, the last time I was in a ramen restaurant, I didn't understand what she said when she asked if I wanted it hot or cold. I could have sworn she said いくら when referring to the temperature, but isn't that reserved for only asking price? Or can it mean temperature too?

And lastly, is there any useful tips for working on accent? When learning languages, a small worry of mine is an awful gaijin accent.

[Lonthego]

Woo many loaded questions in such a small amount of space haha

頼む, 尋ねる and 聞く may sometimes translate the same in English but they are very different in Japanese. The best way for you to learn them is to read them in context, but just as a quick fast rule 頼む is to request, 尋ねる is more along the lines of "inquire" and 聞く is more of a neutral "ask".

For 使用、使う、用いる, unlike the above they all do actually mean use, the difference is that 用いる is not used all that often, 使用 is more formal, and 使う is just everyday informal talk for "use". 用いる has quite a few other uses that would not translate into 'use' in English but someone else can handle that if they want to go through all them..

As for 親 and 両親、両親 is more polite, 親 is more informal..if you are talking about someone else's parents you could for example would say ご両親, using 親 to refer to their parents would be rude..some Japanese (especially older) think even referring to your own parents as 親 (instead of 両親) is rude but a lot of people still do it

返事 means reply, usually in a written context. 答, do you mean 答え？こたえ means answer, usually when spoken, but not always of course..it can be used on tests as well to mean answer.

いくら can be used for many things, not just price. When asking a question it will generally mean 'how much' but there is another usage for it that means "no matter how much ....." which you will learn later on (ie 日本語をいくら聞いても聞きとれない)

There's a real danger when just giving English equivalents of Japanese words since many of their nuances are slightly or significantly different. So if you make flashcards or whatever be sure to include a Japanese sentence or two with how the word is used in Japanese.

Tips for accent..listen and speak as much as you can, record yourself speaking and try to make it sound like native speakers you hear. Be very aware of the intonation and stress in the language and how it differs from English. For example your Japanese shouldn't be "bouncy" stress-wise like how English is when people are trying to stress different words to convey certain meanings. "I NEVER talked to her but her sister DID talk to me" Some English speakers carry that habit into Japanese, where for the most part intonation rises in the beginning of the sentence, stays relatively flat throughout, and falls at the end.

To be a honest a lot of things you will just pick up though without even thinking about it..adults don't learn language like babies do but are still extremely competent at picking up things like stress/intonation and accent without instruction..so don't worry too much about it..it would be worse if you were self-conscious about your accent and didn't speak as much than if you didn't care about your accent and spoke a lot.