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The importance of a good accent | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| 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 233 of 255 26 April 2013 at 10:28pm | IP Logged | ||
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Obviously your accent was better at the time you used it more often, but you still had to
learn, and your first utterances weren't with a perfect accent. That was my statement. ;) 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 234 of 255 26 April 2013 at 11:04pm | IP Logged | ||
That is absolutely correct, but it was not the result of years of practising. It would be the result of a learning process which would take anywhere from three weeks to three months. Not 30 years :-) 1 person has 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 235 of 255 26 April 2013 at 11:18pm | IP Logged | ||
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Nah, but you haven't lost much of your pronunciation in French and German, it's fine,
same for your English (the other languages I don't speak). The point is, people are seeing the results after a process, and they haven't seen the beginner Cristina struggle with French because they weren't around for that episode. 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 236 of 255 27 April 2013 at 12:49am | IP Logged | ||
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Today I had another experience confirming that a decent accent can give very good impressions. I was at a French restaurant, waited for a moment when one of the cashiers wasn't busy, and asked her if we could speak in French for a bit. We exchanged a few sentences, and the way I said them must have made quite an impact, because she first asked me if I was French (! -- never happened before), then despite the fact that I said no, continued full speed ahead just as I've heard French people speak to each other. I could barely keep up. :-P
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| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5431 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 237 of 255 27 April 2013 at 4:45am | IP Logged | ||
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As @tastyonions has demonstrated, a good accent tends to dominate in the listener's perception of the proficiency of the speaker. This is not surprising because pronunciation is very salient. But good pronunciation does not trump good grammar and vocabulary, as any advanced learner knows.
This discussion makes me think of two characters in seasons 6 and 7 respectively of the Spanish soap opera Amar en tiempos revueltos. They were American characters and had quite noticeable supposedly American accents. I'm not even sure that they were played by Americans. But their Spanish grammar was impeccable. They were totally understandable and did not make any of the typical mistakes that Americans make in Spanish. The screenwriters wanted to identify the characters as American without having them speak bad Spanish. Edited by s_allard on 27 April 2013 at 4:45am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4829 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 238 of 255 27 April 2013 at 2:07pm | IP Logged | ||
You seem to be a poster child for the phonics method of learning to read. I'd like to be a fly on the wall at some hypothetical discussion of this subject between you and Stephen Krashen. (Like you, I learned to read relatively easily - don't remember how - but was late tying my shoelaces, and very late learning to swim, even in a nice warm pool (not in the sea! - brrrr! ). 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| mrwarper Diglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member Spain forum_posts.asp?TID=Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5227 days ago 1493 posts - 2500 votes Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2 Studies: German, Russian, Japanese | Message 239 of 255 27 April 2013 at 6:04pm | IP Logged | ||
I'm not sure what the phonics method details are or what Krashen's take on it is exactly (nor SolfridCristin's), but I have a hunch there wouldn't even be a debate regarding how children learn to read more effectively if SLA researchers / evangelists had a look at non-English-speaking children. Lack of correspondence between English spelling and sounds makes for all kinds of trip-ups during the learning, let alone any analysis performed on it by adults who are not sure how they did do it either. There's no hesitation among Spanish or Russian children here, nor debate on 'how to teach them', nor do they have to be comparatively older to take into account all those 'you write this, but you say that' nuisances. Russian children growing here just begin putting letters and sounds together again (or at the same time), and as soon as they ask some logical questions regarding the few Spanish spelling irregularities they quickly pick them up with no effort. I don't know how crazy Norwegian spelling is, but with any luck it will be way better than English, so no wonder our dear Solfridcristin learned how to read quicker than how to tie the damned shoelaces (another latecomer here - wasn't that hard once I bothered to ask and pay attention ;) BTW I nearly drowned at my grandparent's pool at the tender age of 3, so I quickly lost any fear of water and diving -- however I didn't learn to actually swim until I was 8... 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| NewLanguageGuy Groupie France youtube.com/NewLangu Joined 4608 days ago 74 posts - 134 votes Speaks: English* | Message 240 of 255 28 April 2013 at 4:01pm | IP Logged | ||
Unless in Paris or another tourist area, this is very unlikely to happen. The average French person "on the street" will only attempt English if it is clear you really cannot understand anything. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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