|
 |
Learning a language by watching TV? | ||
 Language Learning Forum : Music, Movies, TV & Radio |  | |
| cordelia0507 Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5829 days ago 1473 posts - 2176 votes  Speaks: Swedish* Studies: German, Russian | Message 81 of 134 14 January 2009 at 4:34pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
|
Interesting to learn what 'standard' American English is... Any particular part of California or the whole region?
And another thing I've always wondered: How can you tell from somebody's speech that they are Canadian as opposed to US? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| frenkeld Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6934 days ago 2042 posts - 2719 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: German | Message 82 of 134 14 January 2009 at 4:52pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
I am not sure, we lived in California for two years before I got interested in languages, so I wasn't paying attention. I don't know if the word "standard" is appropriate here as far as the accent is concerned - it's just that Californian speech sounds "neutral" to me, in a sense of not being Brooklyn, Southern, Texas, Boston, etc., which do not sound neutral. How that notion of what does and doesn't sound neutral got formed, I don't really know - it may be from correlating what one hears on the radio and on TV to what's spoken in daily life. I also don't know if other forum members see it the same way. Edited by frenkeld on 14 January 2009 at 4:56pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| anamsc Triglot Senior Member Andorra Joined 6194 days ago 296 posts - 382 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Catalan Studies: Arabic (Levantine), Arabic (Written), French | Message 83 of 134 14 January 2009 at 6:32pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Actually, I had always heard that the "standard" accent came from Ohio. I am from (Northern) California, and while we definitely don't have a very distinctive accent like the stereotypical Boston, South, etc., we have some features that deviate from the norm. When I have talked to people in other states (like the Midwest, where I thought the standard came from) they always know I'm not from there, for example. That's not to say, though, that I couldn't become a newscaster talking almost exactly as I do. And of course, there is alot of variation among speakers because of regional, social, ethnic, age, etc. differences. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| dmg Diglot Senior Member Canada dgryski.blogspot.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 7002 days ago 555 posts - 605 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Dutch, Esperanto | Message 84 of 134 14 January 2009 at 7:12pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Wikipedia Canadian English 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| frenkeld Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6934 days ago 2042 posts - 2719 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: German | Message 85 of 134 14 January 2009 at 7:55pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
I am not that familiar with the Midwest, despite having lived in Urbana-Champaign for two years, but a number of people from there that I'ave met over the years struck me as having fairly neutral accents, so what you are saying certainly passes a sanity test. I wasn't suggesting California as the State where the American "standard" resides, if there is such a place, but rather as one area where I lived for a while that struck me as pretty neutral. People were moving to California from all over the country for a number of decades, which may explain why the accent that evolved there is fairly neutral. This is just my speculation though - maybe most of them came from the Midwest. :) Edited by frenkeld on 14 January 2009 at 10:36pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| maya_star17 Bilingual Tetraglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5906 days ago 269 posts - 291 votes Speaks: English*, Russian*, French, Spanish Studies: Japanese | Message 86 of 134 15 January 2009 at 6:03pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
If I were to meet a native English speaker from Canada and they lied to me and said that they were American, I would probably not know they were lying just from hearing them speak. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| melitu Groupie United States Joined 6151 days ago 42 posts - 38 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin, Japanese | Message 87 of 134 16 January 2009 at 7:19am | IP Logged | ||||||||
I didn't realize I had an accent (apparently Northeastern) until I saw a quiz posted on this forum: http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?T ID=9133 My husband never noticed my accent either until he listened to how I said certain words mentioned in the quiz. His "accent" is "Midland", a.k.a. neutral. From the quiz: ""You have a Midland accent" is just another way of saying "you don't have an accent." You probably are from the Midland (Pennsylvania, southern Ohio, southern Indiana, southern Illinois, and Missouri)." In regards to types of input, I think to learn a language well, you have to be able to speak in both formal and colloquial forms (and everything in-between), and use the right register in the right situations. To that end, literature or TV, just make sure you get plenty of variety. There's everyday language in books (for English, NYTimes bestseller fiction? Junior fiction? Catcher in the Rye?) as well as formal language in TV (news, documentaries, etc). And learning solely from watching TV without any knowledge of the language to start with, unless it's a language that's very similar to something you already know, nope, I don't think you can. Even if you could, it seems highly inefficient. Sure, children 'figure it out' somehow from all the input they get over years and years, but as adult learners with access to all sorts of learning materials as well as a native language to spring off from, we don't need to try to learn the same way children do. If you already have a base, then the story's a bit different. Record audio, strip it down, get transcripts, listen to it over and over -- basically like L-R =) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6002 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 88 of 134 16 January 2009 at 7:39am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Then I apologise, but you were defending someone else's position, and that position was that learning a local accent was not a suitable goal....
Nope -- not snobbish at all. We are in agreement. 1 person has voted this message useful |
|  | 
Printable version
|
| Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization. |
