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"Perfect Pronunciation" | ||
Tags: Greek | Pronunciation | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| LilleOSC Senior Member United States lille.theoffside.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6692 days ago 545 posts - 546 votes  4 sounds Speaks: English* Studies: French, Arabic (Written) | Message 73 of 131 06 December 2007 at 5:38pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
I agree with slucido. I really don't see how an average learner that spends a few hours daily on the language could get a near-native pronunciation if they didn't live in the foreign country that speaks the language. I think you would have to spend a lot of time listening to the language or you need to have a good "ear" for languages. I know numerous people that have lived in the U.S. for over 10 years and still have non-native prosodys. Although, they sound almost native, if you were to listen closely or to them more often you would notice their non-native accent. If immersion doesn't even guarantee a near-native accent then I can't see it working outside of the nation unless you spend most of your day with the language (around 8-10 hours) or are just gifted. You can get far with your language-learning with motivation, but I think many people on this forum understimate the gifts of certain people to acquire languages more easily than others. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| maxb Diglot Senior Member Sweden Joined 7184 days ago 536 posts - 589 votes 7 sounds Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: Mandarin | Message 74 of 131 07 December 2007 at 3:50am | IP Logged | ||||||||
I don't see why not. The important thing is that you surround yourself with the language and work hard on your pronunciation. With the internet it should be relatively easy to find audio material of sufficently good quality in your target language. I have a fairly good accent in mandarin chinese and I don't live in China. I do however have a chinese wife so that obviously helps. However I have spent a lot of time working quite hard on my accent. That is simply what it boils down to if you want to have good accent, hard work and believing that it is possible. When I first started studying chinese, people told me that it is impossible to speak chinese like a native (with regards to proununciation) if you weren't born and raised in china. I now know that it isn't. However it takes time, effort and good method to get there. I think the fundamental problem is that people reagard learning languages as an academic subject. Many tend to study it like they study history or mathematics. However learning pronunciation is a skill just like playing the piano or riding a bike, and it requires practice if you wan't to get good at it. Also as with other skills, believing that it is possible will get you a very long way towards getting good at it. I firmly believe that motivation and determination are the two most important factors when it comes to getting good at something. If you decide early on that "only children can learn perfect pronunciation, it is no use to even try" then you will have an accent for the rest of your life. If you decide than you can learn to pronounce just like a native then you will learn to do so more quickly than you might think, provided you use an efficient method. For instance why do small children aged 3 or 4 learn language to native levels while many older children do not? It is really not because they are more sensitive to sound. I have read that already at 6 months of age a childs ability to distinguish sounds not present in their native language(s) severly deteriorates. Younger children simply have more time to work on their pronunciation, also they may be teased by their peers if they "talk funny". Thus they have a strong desire to learn the language very well. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6440 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 75 of 131 07 December 2007 at 7:01am | IP Logged | ||||||||
The primary reason I started this thread is to find out about methods that people have used to achieve this. Would you please post about yours?
This is quite true. I learned to pronounce the 'th' of 'three' when I was 5 years old, when other kids teased me about not being able to tell the difference between 'free' and 'three'. As my profile states, English is my native language. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6704 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 76 of 131 07 December 2007 at 7:46am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Apart from the time spent there is one main difference between living in a country where a certain language is spoken and spending time at home: uniformity of input. If I choose to live a year or so abroad guess which dialect I'll learn:the local dialect of course, even if I watch television from other places. But in one day here in Denmark I,m going to hear English from USA, England, Australia and India, Spanish from Mexico and Spain, Portuguese from Portugal and Brazil and German from Germany and Austria, and every one of these in several versions based on geography and social status and all sorts of other factors. How can anybody expect that to result in any kind of native pronunciation? What I can hope for is a high degree of fluency and a high degree of proficiency, but on an international basis. And quite frankly, that's enough for me, - it is also a good background for picking up the local dialect if I do visit a place where a certain language is spoken.
Edited by Iversen on 07 December 2007 at 7:53am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
 Hencke Tetraglot Moderator Spain Joined 6895 days ago 2340 posts - 2444 votes Speaks: Swedish*, Finnish, EnglishC2, Spanish Studies: Mandarin Personal Language Map | Message 77 of 131 07 December 2007 at 8:17am | IP Logged | ||||||||
I don't pretend to speak for maxb but I can personally testify to the effectiveness of getting a native-speaking spouse, as he has done, as well as myself. Effective though it is, unfortunately applying this technique to more than one language is fraught with all sorts of logistical and other kinds of difficulties ;o).
Since you can choose what materials to use or not, it can be done if you are determined enough. I was immersed in Spanish myself while living in Sweden. I probably spoke more Spanish than Swedish during those seven years. Sure there was the odd encounter with Latin American speakers but as our circle of friends was predominantly Spanish, that was the variant I picked up. I am sure that being immersed on location in Spain would have been even more effective, but this was something like half of the way there, and it was in the olden primitive days too, before personal computers, the internet and handy portable mp3's and whatnot that you can use today to immerse yourself even more. But as you say yourself, if what you describe is enough for you, why should you bother. It's up to each one of us what level we want to aim for and how much effort we are willing to put in. Edited by Hencke on 07 December 2007 at 8:19am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6440 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 78 of 131 07 December 2007 at 8:19am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Where did I say that, in what context? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Hencke Tetraglot Moderator Spain Joined 6895 days ago 2340 posts - 2444 votes Speaks: Swedish*, Finnish, EnglishC2, Spanish Studies: Mandarin Personal Language Map | Message 79 of 131 07 December 2007 at 8:20am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Iversen did, not you. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| slucido Bilingual Diglot Senior Member Spain https://goo.gl/126Yv Joined 6676 days ago 1296 posts - 1781 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Spanish*, Catalan* Studies: English | Message 80 of 131 07 December 2007 at 8:58am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Technique for native pronunciation:
------------------------------------ Work with a native (it is cheaper if its your wife...or not?). Select the 2000 most frequent words. Repeat every word with the native until you have achieved native pronunciation. When your word pronunciation is native in all the words, start with two words phrases, then with three word phrases and so on...until you get native speech. Do this every day, 8 hours, for several years. It's easy. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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