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Learning in your native accent? | ||
Tags: Native Language | Accent | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Sprachjunge Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 7167 days ago 368 posts - 548 votes  Speaks: English*, GermanC2 Studies: Spanish, Russian | Message 9 of 16 22 February 2010 at 2:13pm | IP Logged | |||||
This is true. In your original post, though, you specifically excluded all people on this board, which immediately made me think of all of the people learning, say, English in America--not because they think it's neat, but because they need it to do their job effectively and interact in society. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| JoshN Newbie United States Joined 5412 days ago 8 posts - 9 votes Speaks: English* | Message 10 of 16 23 February 2010 at 7:41am | IP Logged | |||||
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I didn't want to come across as a weisenheimer. I specifically excepted people from this board from being egotistical in their endeavors.
It seems to me that the folk on this board are intelligent and interesting people. So I figured it best to note I wasn't singling out anyone, just making an observation. :-) 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| katilica Bilingual Diglot Groupie United States Joined 5473 days ago 70 posts - 109 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish* Studies: French, Catalan | Message 11 of 16 23 February 2010 at 8:40pm | IP Logged | |||||
I do know that since English is such an international language a lot of accents sound pleasing to speakers. However, although I might find it amusing for a while that somebody has a thick accents in say, Spanish, It would get old very fast and I would not find it pleasing. Keep in mind that the study was about learning words in your current accent so it would be horrible in any language if you kept it up. These girls you are talking about do try to put on some type of English accent and it is not perfect but the effort is there, if it weren't, then it would be much thicker and incomprehensible to some. You might think that this is exaggerated but I hear people complain even when a person has a decent accent. For example, one time in middle school, there was a substitute teacher from Eastern Europe (I don't remember which country) and she spoke decent English yet the students would fail to understand her sometimes and I was the only who understood and 'translated' for them. Maybe this was because I am so used to hearing people with accents. Now imagine if she never tried to improve her accent, it would have been much worse (not that it was but some thought so). I think we shouldn't reach for a native like accent simply to boost our ego but we should aim for it in order to be understood. I think it is easier to understand others in English because almost every person and their dog speaks it nowadays and we get all different types of accents. Other languages however, do not tolerate such poor accents not because they're rude but because it seriously is hard to understand someone even if they think they have correct pronunciation (the pronunciation key was most likely right but their accent is way off). Gah! Sorry if my post did not make much sense but I was kind of all over the place. Just for the record, I do like accents in English as you do, yet for some reason am not so keen on foreign accents in Spanish unless subtle. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Johntm Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5424 days ago 616 posts - 725 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 12 of 16 24 February 2010 at 5:37am | IP Logged | |||||
As another American, I like how there's a variety of accents, but the Cockney accent makes me want to blow my brains out, I absolutely hate it. It's alright when Emma Watson talks thought :). I don't mind the Australian accent, but I don't like the New York or Boston accent. Then again I'm a Southern and love Southern accents, so yeah... But how is someone who wants to get an accent in a foreign languages egotistical? Wouldn't it be egotistical to talk with a terrible accent and expect everyone to understand you? I would like to learn Spanish to a near-native or native level, because I like the accent. I love the trilled R, I find myself trying it on English words. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6013 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 13 of 16 24 February 2010 at 11:58am | IP Logged | |||||
What's a weisenheimer when it's at home? Anyway, you described some of and then said "I'm not talking about you". People who genuinely focus on accent do so because of the recognition that it aids communication. Many of us also realise that certain grammatical rules are a side-effect of pronunciation and that it is impossible to fully internalise these rules if you don't pronounce the sounds properly (eg English -tion; Spanish o->ue, e->ie; French liaison). On the other hand, an oversized ego is the language learner's worst enemy. The learner with an ego doesn't try to develop a good accent because he believes his accent is already perfect. He doesn't work on his errors because he doesn't believe he ever makes mistakes. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Morgan89 Newbie United States Joined 5523 days ago 7 posts - 8 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 14 of 16 01 March 2010 at 10:23pm | IP Logged | |||||
Come sit in on my Spanish class in the Southern US some time, then. (Although after four semesters, it has officially quit being funny.) ETA: To answer the original question, I think the above-mentioned class actually does provide a useful example. Professors are very lenient on pronunciation in the first two semesters. By the time we hit intermediate-level classes, many students cannot force themselves to use correct pronunciation despite repeated correction by native speakers. So I think intentionally learning a foreign language with your native language's accent is a terrible idea. Edited by Morgan89 on 01 March 2010 at 10:25pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| cordelia0507 Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5840 days ago 1473 posts - 2176 votes Speaks: Swedish* Studies: German, Russian | Message 15 of 16 01 March 2010 at 11:11pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Well I for one had quite a shock when I moved to the UK and was immediately sent to Sheffield on an assignment. Suffice to say the Yorkshire accent was very foreign to me and I had serious problems understanding some people even though my English was completely fluent. Next up I started working on a project where I had to interview employees at an oil company in Aberdeen. I frankly could not understand what some people were saying. Now I could, but back then I had no exposure at all to Scots.
It would have been beneficial if I had at least been aware that these accents existed. I thought everyone in the UK spoke like BBC or possibly someone out of East Enders. Aberdeen and Sheffield were not quite on my horizon. Later I worked with Americans, from Texas and got a boss from Bronx, New York. Suffice to say they did not speak like someone from a Hollywood film or CNN. It's not just the accent, it's also idioms, slang and culture... 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Johntm Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5424 days ago 616 posts - 725 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 16 of 16 01 March 2010 at 11:12pm | IP Logged | |||||
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