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The importance of a good accent | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| 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 225 of 255 26 April 2013 at 2:36pm | IP Logged | |||||
Too many famous musicians and singers have awful accents for this to be a reliable expectation. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Tsopivo Diglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4472 days ago 258 posts - 411 votes Speaks: French*, English Studies: Esperanto | Message 226 of 255 26 April 2013 at 5:09pm | IP Logged | |||||
Yes, I did not go into that but I entirely agree except with
Each person has their own goal and if a person decides that accent is not that important for them past whatever level they consider "good enough", then I don't see what the big deal is or how anyone else can disagree. Personally, I have a French accent when speaking English and it has no impact whatsoever in my life. On the other hand, I am one of those people for whom accent does not come easily. So it seems that for me improving significantly would require lots of efforts for little results and I am not willing to do that. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7157 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 227 of 255 26 April 2013 at 5:52pm | IP Logged | |||||
Accent is important* but it competes with abilities in manipulating vocabulary, word order and inflection. I can't say that I let a learner's high abilities in pronunciation affect my judgement of their abilities in other areas of using a language. On the other hand, my sometimes being able to express things at native or near-native levels in languages other than English seems to lead others to magnify (at least intially) my abilities in those languages. I gather that for these observers, a "good accent" is a strong or reliable indicator of equally high if not higher abilities in other aspects of using that language. *By "accent", I interpret this to include prosody. 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 228 of 255 26 April 2013 at 6:23pm | IP Logged | |||||
This is probably as close to a universal as we'll get when discussing pronunciation. If a person produces a simple sentence with hesitation, we are right away drawn to the limitations that speaker has. If, however, he or she utters a few simple sentences to perfection or to a high degree of fluency, it's only normal to assume that the rest of the person's abilities are similar. The question that follows is: is there any advantage to be had in leading a listener into thinking that our language skills are good? Yes, there is -- the listener will be more likely to continue to use the language with us, will use more natural language with more variety and is more likely to help us when we have trouble since they will assume we have gone to great lengths to learn their language well. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7206 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 229 of 255 26 April 2013 at 6:55pm | IP Logged | |||||
Not everyone. Some people are embarrased to "sound foreign" or "sound fake" (foreign). Aside from embarrasment, there is the personal question of priority. From reading this thread, clearly some people feel okay is good enough, and other strive for something better. Note, "something better" does not mean "near native". That's really an entirely different level that truly very few who begin learning a foreign language as adults will reach.
Level of "pain" varies with the speaker and the listener. Perhaps a better word than "pain" is "patience demanded". Obviously there's a difference between someone who pronounces most things correctly and another who puts a native listener on their toes in order to comprehend the message. The thing about "once you reach the point..." that gives pause is that pronunciation is often formed into habit. It seems to me that delaying vocal production until comprehension is well established helps with good accent formation. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Tsopivo Diglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4472 days ago 258 posts - 411 votes Speaks: French*, English Studies: Esperanto | Message 230 of 255 26 April 2013 at 7:32pm | IP Logged | |||||
(1) It seems to me that what you describe has a lot more to do with your fluency (and/or proficiency - I do not want to get into this debate) than with your accent. Of course, pronunciation is a part of it but I don't think that is the main thing that comes into play here. Interestingly, your example of what would cause people to assume your command of the language is limited was "hesitation". (2) Except in a job interview, I would prefer that my listener get an accurate idea of my level rather than assuming it is better than it really is due to a great accent. Of course, I understand that the contrary (your listener thinking your abilities are worse than they are) could also be a problem but the truth is that even with my very recognizable French accent, it never happened to me that people switch to French and I think most of them do not change the way they speak for me. Time will also correct their false first impression in most cases so I am not too concerned with that. Edited by Tsopivo on 26 April 2013 at 7:34pm 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 231 of 255 26 April 2013 at 9:19pm | IP Logged | |||||
(1) It seems to me that what you describe has a lot more to do with your fluency (and/or proficiency - I do not want to get into this debate) than with your accent. Of course, pronunciation is a part of it but I don't think that is the main thing that comes into play here. Interestingly, your example of what would cause people to assume your command of the language is limited was "hesitation".[/QUOTE] I used "fluency" and "hesitation" for the sake of concision. I could have spoken of pronunciation or accent in general as all those things blend together to give the listener a general impression of the speaker's ability. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5335 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 232 of 255 26 April 2013 at 10:25pm | IP Logged | |||||
Well you would lose your bottom dollar, pumpkin. :-) In Spanish my accent was at its best at the age of 11, In French at 14, in German at 17 and in Italian at 27. After that it has just gotten worse and worse. The only language which may possibly have improved a smidgen over the years is English. I think it boils down to the simple fact that for some of us pronunciation is learned as an integral part of the language, without any particular effort, and for others it takes time and hard work. This discussion actually gave me a flash back to when I was 5, and the week that I learned how to read and to tie my shoelaces. Learning how to read was no effort at all, my mom gave me a set of letters and taught me the alphabet, and by the end of the week I was starting to read children's books with big letters, and within a year I read 4 books a day. Piece of cake. 45 years down the road I do however still remember the feeling of failure, and of being scolded because I was such a clutz, that after weeks of practising how to tie my shoelaces I was not able to learn it until my mom caved and taught me the easy way to do it. I was also 10 before I learned how to ride a bike or to swim (though the latter may be connected to the fact that I had to learn at the shores of Norway). In short, what we are naturally good at seems so easy that it is hard to understand why everyone can't get it right, and what we are naturally bad at, seems like such a lot of work that we imagine that it takes a 1000 hours :-) 4 persons have voted this message useful |
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