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Arekkusu
Hexaglot
Senior Member
Canada
bit.ly/qc_10_lec
Joined 5382 days ago
3971 posts - 7747 votes 
Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto
Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian
| Message 201 of 255 25 April 2013 at 3:03pm | IP Logged |
vogue wrote:
luke wrote:
I would expect people who don't care much about accent to have a terrible one. Even someone who wants a good may fall short. Someone who doesn't care much is generally difficult to listen to, unless their accent has some prestige (say a Russian speaking English) or they are good looking.
It may have something to do with the native language. Spanish doesn't sound pleasant with a thick American accent. Most foreign languages don't sound pleasant to my ears with a thick American accent. |
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My Spanish accent has a very distinct American accent, but it doesn't impede understanding. I actually had a discussion one day with some friends where they said my accent was thick, but I had a much better vocabulary than a mutual friend who spoke like a native but didn't have the same level of Spanish. They said it was far easier to talk to me, because I understood and could give more complete answers than her (mind you - her Spanish is still quite good, but I am more accustomed to living in Spanish than her).
Clearly an accent isn't always an impediment to understanding, and I'd take the 'you know more' compliment over 'she has a better accent' any day.
On the other hand, it's a clear problem when your accent is thick enough to impede understanding. I've heard people speaking English and have had no idea what they were saying. Likewise, I've said things in Italian that went un-understood until I wrote them and my pronunciation was corrected (usually I was emphasizing the wrong syllable). |
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The idea that a "thick" accent doesn't impede understanding -- however comforting -- is always subjective, and your friends' opinion, who are used to your accent, is sure to differ from that of people you speak to for the first time.
1 person has voted this message useful
| Arekkusu
Hexaglot
Senior Member
Canada
bit.ly/qc_10_lec
Joined 5382 days ago
3971 posts - 7747 votes
Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto
Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian
| Message 202 of 255 25 April 2013 at 3:09pm | IP Logged |
Tsopivo wrote:
Solfrid Cristin wrote:
| Aiming for a bad accent makes zero sense to me. |
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I don't think anyone aims for a bad accent. The question is more: how much efforts are you willing to put into improving your accent?
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This is a very common response and it shows how people view this problem from different angles depending on what they've been able to achieve.
Those who tend to find accents easy don't consider that accents take a lot of time because actually, they don't usually devote a lot of time to the task, as they simply remain mindful of their pronunciation over the course of their study.
On the other hand, those who can't find an effective way to improve or fix their pronunciation problems are of the opinion that spending any more time on the issue is pointless as anything they have tried in the past has had minimal impact. This should not, however, lead the student to the conclusion that pronunciation is not important and, as others have pointed out, approximate pronunciation has just as much impact as approximate grammar.
2 persons have voted this message useful
| tarvos
Super Polyglot
Winner TAC 2012
Senior Member
China
likeapolyglot.wordpr
Joined 4708 days ago
5310 posts - 9399 votes
Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans
Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish
| Message 203 of 255 25 April 2013 at 3:20pm | IP Logged |
vogue wrote:
luke wrote:
I would expect people who don't care much about accent to
have a terrible one. Even someone who wants a good may fall short. Someone who
doesn't care much is generally difficult to listen to, unless their accent has some
prestige (say a Russian speaking English) or they are good looking.
It may have something to do with the native language. Spanish doesn't sound pleasant
with a thick American accent. Most foreign languages don't sound pleasant to my ears
with a thick American accent. |
|
|
My Spanish accent has a very distinct American accent, but it doesn't impede
understanding. I actually had a discussion one day with some friends where they said my
accent was thick, but I had a much better vocabulary than a mutual friend who spoke
like a native but didn't have the same level of Spanish. They said it was far easier to
talk to me, because I understood and could give more complete answers than her (mind
you - her Spanish is still quite good, but I am more accustomed to living in Spanish
than her).
Clearly an accent isn't always an impediment to understanding, and I'd take the 'you
know more' compliment over 'she has a better accent' any day.
On the other hand, it's a clear problem when your accent is thick enough to impede
understanding. I've heard people speaking English and have had no idea what they were
saying. Likewise, I've said things in Italian that went un-understood until I wrote
them and my pronunciation was corrected (usually I was emphasizing the wrong syllable).
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In my opinion, both help, but if you have a good accent, you're making it easier on
other people. You can't substitute a bad accent for bad grammar, you need both, but a
good accent makes it easier and prevents switches.
1 person has voted this message useful
| tastyonions
Triglot
Senior Member
United States
goo.gl/UIdChYRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 4666 days ago
1044 posts - 1823 votes
Speaks: English*, French, Spanish
Studies: Italian
| Message 204 of 255 25 April 2013 at 3:50pm | IP Logged |
I think working hard on an accent pays off. I speak French almost daily and one thing I have noticed is that I am almost never asked, "What did you say?" or asked to repeat anything. If there are misunderstandings, it's because I made a grammar mistake, used the wrong word, or phrased something in an unusual way.
Edited by tastyonions on 25 April 2013 at 3:56pm
2 persons have voted this message useful
| vogue
Triglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 4255 days ago
109 posts - 181 votes
Speaks: English*, Italian, Spanish
Studies: Ukrainian
| Message 205 of 255 25 April 2013 at 6:26pm | IP Logged |
Arekkusu wrote:
vogue wrote:
luke wrote:
I would expect people who don't care
much about accent to have a terrible one. Even someone who wants a good may fall
short. Someone who doesn't care much is generally difficult to listen to, unless their
accent has some prestige (say a Russian speaking English) or they are good looking.
It may have something to do with the native language. Spanish doesn't sound pleasant
with a thick American accent. Most foreign languages don't sound pleasant to my ears
with a thick American accent. |
|
|
My Spanish accent has a very distinct American accent, but it doesn't impede
understanding. I actually had a discussion one day with some friends where they said my
accent was thick, but I had a much better vocabulary than a mutual friend who spoke
like a native but didn't have the same level of Spanish. They said it was far easier to
talk to me, because I understood and could give more complete answers than her (mind
you - her Spanish is still quite good, but I am more accustomed to living in Spanish
than her).
Clearly an accent isn't always an impediment to understanding, and I'd take the 'you
know more' compliment over 'she has a better accent' any day.
On the other hand, it's a clear problem when your accent is thick enough to impede
understanding. I've heard people speaking English and have had no idea what they were
saying. Likewise, I've said things in Italian that went un-understood until I wrote
them and my pronunciation was corrected (usually I was emphasizing the wrong syllable).
|
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The idea that a "thick" accent doesn't impede understanding -- however comforting -- is
always subjective, and your friends' opinion, who are used to your accent, is sure to
differ from that of people you speak to for the first time. |
|
|
Considering I've lived in two Spanish speaking countries without problems in this
regard, and have relations with many Spanish speakers outside of those countries, I'm
going to say that my American accent has not caused problems in understanding, but
nonetheless it's obvious I have an American accent. That doesn't make me
incomprehensible, just as much as someone with a German accent isn't incomprehensible.
I have a friend from Barvaria that has an accent, he's easy to understand but his
accent is DISTINCTLY German.
But why spend 10000 hours perfecting an accent rather than on vocab and grammar? Maybe
if you have all the time in the world, or wish to pass as a native speaker it's a
worthwhile goal but for many of us that's not our intention in learning a language. I
want to be able to communicate with little confusion on both sides.
No one is saying one shouldn't strive to speak accent-less for maximum understanding,
but I'm of the school of thought that grammar/vocab takes precedence in this regard. At
least with languages where accent will not significantly ruin understanding. That is to
say an American speaking Spanish. An American speaking Arabic WILL need to work on
their accent because even slight variations to a word can make it incomprehensible. I
imagine this problem is more compounded with tonal languages like Mandarin.
Edited by vogue on 25 April 2013 at 6:30pm
2 persons have voted this message useful
| casamata
Senior Member
Joined 4263 days ago
237 posts - 377 votes
Studies: Portuguese
| Message 206 of 255 25 April 2013 at 7:16pm | IP Logged |
vogue wrote:
Arekkusu wrote:
vogue wrote:
luke wrote:
I would expect people who don't care
much about accent to have a terrible one. Even someone who wants a good may fall
short. Someone who doesn't care much is generally difficult to listen to, unless their
accent has some prestige (say a Russian speaking English) or they are good looking.
It may have something to do with the native language. Spanish doesn't sound pleasant
with a thick American accent. Most foreign languages don't sound pleasant to my ears
with a thick American accent. |
|
|
My Spanish accent has a very distinct American accent, but it doesn't impede
understanding. I actually had a discussion one day with some friends where they said my
accent was thick, but I had a much better vocabulary than a mutual friend who spoke
like a native but didn't have the same level of Spanish. They said it was far easier to
talk to me, because I understood and could give more complete answers than her (mind
you - her Spanish is still quite good, but I am more accustomed to living in Spanish
than her).
Clearly an accent isn't always an impediment to understanding, and I'd take the 'you
know more' compliment over 'she has a better accent' any day.
On the other hand, it's a clear problem when your accent is thick enough to impede
understanding. I've heard people speaking English and have had no idea what they were
saying. Likewise, I've said things in Italian that went un-understood until I wrote
them and my pronunciation was corrected (usually I was emphasizing the wrong syllable).
|
|
|
The idea that a "thick" accent doesn't impede understanding -- however comforting -- is
always subjective, and your friends' opinion, who are used to your accent, is sure to
differ from that of people you speak to for the first time. |
|
|
Considering I've lived in two Spanish speaking countries without problems in this
regard, and have relations with many Spanish speakers outside of those countries, I'm
going to say that my American accent has not caused problems in understanding, but
nonetheless it's obvious I have an American accent. That doesn't make me
incomprehensible, just as much as someone with a German accent isn't incomprehensible.
I have a friend from Barvaria that has an accent, he's easy to understand but his
accent is DISTINCTLY German.
But why spend 10000 hours perfecting an accent rather than on vocab and grammar? Maybe
if you have all the time in the world, or wish to pass as a native speaker it's a
worthwhile goal but for many of us that's not our intention in learning a language. I
want to be able to communicate with little confusion on both sides.
No one is saying one shouldn't strive to speak accent-less for maximum understanding,
but I'm of the school of thought that grammar/vocab takes precedence in this regard. At
least with languages where accent will not significantly ruin understanding. That is to
say an American speaking Spanish. An American speaking Arabic WILL need to work on
their accent because even slight variations to a word can make it incomprehensible. I
imagine this problem is more compounded with tonal languages like Mandarin. |
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Just my two cents about the progression of accent reduction.
1. Make yourself understood, though it may not sound that great.
2. Make it so your accent isn't *painful* to listen to.
3. Make your accent pleasant to hear, like it sounds "cool."
4. Make it near-native, as close as native as you want. This may require many hours spent with a speech therapist or some professional, though I don't know too many people with this goal.
A balanced approach is good, right? Focusing on grammar, vocabulary, and accent? I find that the accent just comes as you have more and more exposure to the language, however.
2 persons have voted this message useful
| Medulin
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Croatia
Joined 4669 days ago
1199 posts - 2192 votes
Speaks: Croatian*, English, Spanish, Portuguese
Studies: Norwegian, Hindi, Nepali
| Message 207 of 255 25 April 2013 at 9:59pm | IP Logged |
What does it mean, pleasant?
Many Brazilians don't find the accent of native speakers of Continental Portuguese pleasant (nor cool for that matter), and many find it difficult to understand. So, they lose 3 out of 4 points from that list.
Edited by Medulin on 25 April 2013 at 9:59pm
2 persons have voted this message useful
| beano
Diglot
Senior Member
United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 4623 days ago
1049 posts - 2152 votes
Speaks: English*, German
Studies: Russian, Serbian, Hungarian
| Message 208 of 255 25 April 2013 at 10:09pm | IP Logged |
It's all a question of degrees. If your accent is so thick that natives have to strain to comprehend what you
say, then you need to work in this area. However, a moderate foreign accent rarely causes any confusion.
Surely the vast majority of people who learn additional languages beyond childhood do actually speak with a
noticeable accent. I've heard Dutch professors speak amazing English but they still sounded Dutch as soon
as they opened their mouths. I work beside a French woman who has been here for over 20 years, knows all
the local vernacular yet has an obvious French twang. Accent is irrelevant unless it actively interferes with
communication.
6 persons have voted this message useful
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