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Timeline to developing an accent | ||
Tags: Accent | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6595 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes  4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 17 of 100 22 March 2014 at 8:13pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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| Fuenf_Katzen Diglot Senior Member United States notjustajd.wordpress Joined 4367 days ago 337 posts - 476 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Polish, Ukrainian, Afrikaans | Message 18 of 100 24 March 2014 at 2:37am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I wouldn't say I actively seek out a native-like accent, but I do always take it as a compliment when people wouldn't guess I'm an American. I'd really like my accent to not be distracting, but without any immediate plans to go abroad, I don't know that I really see the point in trying to get a perfect accent. Certainly nothing else about me would seem native!
What's interesting though is that even in English, there are certain words I pronounce with a rather noticeable Philadelphia accent--at least to people who live in Pittsburgh--but others where I will pronounce them differently. With the word "irrelevant" for example, I would ordinarily have pronounced it as "ih-rel-e-vant," but because I really started to use the word as an adult (and away from my home accent), I tend to pronounce it more as "ear-el-e-vant." I wouldn't say I have a Philadelphia/Pittsburgh mix, but there are obviously some influences. And generally I do try and tone down the Philly thing, except when I go back to visit. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5205 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 19 of 100 24 March 2014 at 11:53am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I aim for a native-like accent, in a "shoot for the stars to reach the moon" sort of way: I'm awful at accents, it's by far my weakest point as a language learner, and I know I'll never get there; yet by aiming high and putting in the work I hope to at least go from bad to OK. And I'm very convinced of the benefits of having a decent accent (not necessarily perfect of course!) in terms of being taken more seriously by native speakers, at least in the languages I study, so I consider it to be worth the effort. Your accent is often the first impression you make, regardless of the rest of your skills in the language, and it can be hard to undo first impressions.
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| shk00design Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4442 days ago 747 posts - 1123 votes Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin Studies: French | Message 20 of 100 24 March 2014 at 2:36pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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The other day met a man of Indian origin. Originally his parents were from India and emigrated to
Uganda in E. Africa before moving to Canada. He presumably lived in Africa but spoke flawless English. On the phone the only thing recognizable was his name that he was probably from India or Pakistan. There are people I met from E. Africa who tend to write in English very well but speak with a foreign accent. Normally, people who are into news broadcasting would speak a language flawlessly without a noticeable accent. There was a news anchor of Indian descent who lived in Vancouver, Canada: Satinder Bindra who later joined CNN in the US and eventually moved to CNN in India. Surprisingly S. Bindra has a distinctive Indian accent. In the US especially, they have distinctive northern and southern accents but tend to have trouble with listening to people from abroad. Even a news anchor who is Hispanic, the only thing foreign you'd hear is his Spanish-sounding name. In Canada practically all news journalists speak flawless English. The only exception is that occasionally you have someone from Quebec which is predominantly French speaking. There was a news journalist for the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corp) Michaëlle Jean from Quebec who spoke English with a French accent. She appeared in French on the French network of the CBC (Radio Canada) and the Passionate Eye on the English network. There is a local politician Olivia Chow of Chinese descent running against the infamous Mayor of Toronto Rob Ford in the next election. She speaks English with a slight but noticeable Chinese- Cantonese accent. The 1 thing Cantonese-speakers tend to do is to sound each English syllables including the silent sounds. For example: the word "basically" to an English-speaker would sound like "ba-si-cly" as if it has 3 syllables. A Cantonese-speaker would say "ba-si-cal-ly" with the "cal" more pronounced instead of as a silent sound. There are Chinese professors in local universities who speak in a similar way. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5332 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 21 of 100 24 March 2014 at 2:50pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Sometimes we tend to forget, that people we think of as having a heavy accent, are actually natives. A friend of mine who grew up in Singapore, in a Tamil speaking family from India, speaks English with what I would perceive as a heavy Tamil accent, and with grammar mistakes, yet English is one of her native languages, and the language in which she speaks with her daughter.
A lady from Somalia told us at a conference she gave some time back, that when she tried to pass an English exam in Northern Norway, she was given bad grades because of her heavy accent. She protested, and said that coming from Africa, she could not be expected to speak English with a Norwegian accent, and that the Northern Norwegian accent was not much better than hers. They gave her a better grade. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6580 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 22 of 100 24 March 2014 at 3:19pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I don't put much/any energy into developing a native accent simply because it's pretty easy to me to get a good approximation. I've been misidentified as a native speaker in English and Cantonese (when the person didn't see my face). In French, my accent is pretty good, but I have only had a handful of conversations in the language in my life. This has led to the problem of people believing my conversational level is higher than it is because my accent is pretty good.
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| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5379 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 23 of 100 24 March 2014 at 3:43pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Ari, I suspect that people who pick up other languages' accents with relative ease tend to have a good grasp of the their pronunciation in their first language (ie. could write it down in IPA, describe how the sounds are made, could explain how their accent differs from that of other speakers, can easily modulate their pronunciation given the context, etc.). Would you say this applies to you? Edited by Arekkusu on 24 March 2014 at 4:03pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5332 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 24 of 100 24 March 2014 at 4:39pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Ari will answer for himself, but I am used to picking up accents relatively easy, but in spite of once upon a time having done linguistics and phonetics at the university, I could not now write anything down in IPA or describe how the sounds are made to save my life. Nor has it ever had any impact whatsoever on my pronunciation skills. My abilities are practical, not theoretical. For me this is like getting a manual on how to milk a cow (which I know a couple who once actually tried, manual in one hand and cow in the other). They ended up having to ask for help from a local farmer... I have met highly intelligent people - also linguists - who had horrible pronunciations, so I am less than convinced of any correlation. I am sure there are many highly intelligent people with great theoretical knowledge and fantastic accents, but I am absolutely certain that one does not need the theory in order to get it right in practise. Edited by Solfrid Cristin on 24 March 2014 at 4:40pm 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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