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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 137 of 255 15 December 2010 at 5:07pm | IP Logged | ||
One thing I take away from the debate is that, generally, better production yields better comprehension. If you want to learn to distinguish sounds that are difficult to discern, you need to learn to pronounce them. This may sound circular, but it's certainly possible to produce sounds from copying what you hear, and still have a difficult time understanding what you're hearing. But when you hear a sound you can't distinguish, pronouncing yourself the various possibilities will lead you to understand which you are hearing. The same applies to tones, stress and pitch: once you've understood what the few possible patterns are, if you go through them yourself, you will inevitably identify the one you just heard. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5431 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 138 of 255 15 December 2010 at 7:06pm | IP Logged | ||
My own conclusion is actually somewhat the opposite. Better perception yields better production. I use the word perception rather than comprehension because I feel that when we are dealing with sound systems in order to reproduce a sound you have to first hear it or perceive it. Just as in music when we do solfège or ear training we learn to reproduce given notes and intervals. Not all people succeed in reproducing sounds that they can hear but the problem isn't perception, it's production. For example, learners can readily distinguish the French vowels in pur, pour and peur when they hear them. The problem is reproducing them. The same thing applies to grammar and vocabulary. Most people have much better comprehension than production. That said, I certainly believe that better production leads to a heightened awareness and appreciation. I'm not sure if these two states qualify as comprehension, but I won't argue it. This actually, in my mind, leads to the idea of noticing which is the subject of a different thread. There's certainly nothing like working on a particular point in a language in order to develop a more acute perception when one hears it. Right now I'm working on the imperfect subjunctive in Spanish; so my ears are attuned for it. I pay special attention to it whereas the future tense just goes by. In the same way that an amateur pianist hearing a professional play a piece that they have been working on has a higher level of appreciation than a non-musician person. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Aineko Triglot Senior Member New Zealand Joined 5449 days ago 238 posts - 442 votes Speaks: Serbian*, EnglishC2, Spanish Studies: Russian, Arabic (Written), Mandarin | Message 139 of 255 15 December 2010 at 7:22pm | IP Logged | ||
Then how comes that my situation is opposite :). I hear distinctions clearly, after some listening and little reading about phonology of that language (with more exposure I hear difference not only in sounds but in intonation, too, like between Kiwi English and my English), but still can't produce the exact imitation (without lots and lots of practice). edit: I think s_allard answered it. As I said earlier, from all I see, what Arekkusu is saying is true for some people but not necessarily for all language learners. Maybe that's one of the reasons why I'm lazy with accents - I hear before I can produce. Edited by Aineko on 15 December 2010 at 7:46pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| LanguageSponge Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5767 days ago 1197 posts - 1487 votes Speaks: English*, German, French Studies: Welsh, Russian, Japanese, Slovenian, Greek, Italian | Message 140 of 255 15 December 2010 at 8:45pm | IP Logged | ||
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A good accent is important in terms of my own perception of someone else's skills in a language, however I know quite a few people who, despite having pretty bad accents their language knowledge is otherwise pretty good. One particular example of this, if I do say so myself, is my French - my knowledge of the language is good, I can read and understand a lot and can write fairly well, but my speaking ability is bad and this is largely due to my accent hurting my own ears, let alone anyone else's :D
Jack 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5431 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 141 of 255 15 December 2010 at 8:50pm | IP Logged | ||
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I don't remember if I mentioned the fact that there is a small industry here in Norh America that specializes in accent reduction. My understanding is that certain people feel that their accent, be it a foreign accent or a local regional accent, is a social or professional impediment. The very existence of this industry tells us how difficult it is to change accents at an adult age.
Let me point out that there are also dialect coaches who work with actors who temporarily must convey the linguistic features of their characters. Typically, we see Australian or British actors playing American roles. But it also works the other way. In the film Invictus the American actors Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon had to work on two different South African dialects. Since I'm not in this field, I don't know all the details, but I think we can safely say that the challenge is how to reprogram the whole sound production apparatus to spontaneously produce the desired sounds. I imagine that considerable time is spent listening to and imitating samples, doing all kinds of exercises and comparing one's recordings with models. Given the language background of the client, the coach or specialist knows what to focus on. This makes me think that if language-learners like us really want to develop a native accent in the target language, some form of professional assistance is probably necessary. It's extremely difficult to do something like this all alone. 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 142 of 255 15 December 2010 at 9:49pm | IP Logged | ||
After last night I think I might need something like that. I was talking to a Brit, when the topic of accents came up. He goes: "You have an American accent" (Big bright smile from me) when he continued: "Or perhaps not quite an American accent, but you sound like you learned English in America" (fading smile from me :-( . I do however remember doing phonetics in the language laboratory when I was at the university, where we had to say sentences like: "THEY don't seem to coMUNicate very well, DO they," in a very exagerated manner. Not so sure I could stomach doing that again... Edited by Solfrid Cristin on 15 December 2010 at 9:50pm 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 143 of 255 15 December 2010 at 10:11pm | IP Logged | ||
Imagine a person who can't sing on key. If that person was determined to sing on key, if they practiced by playing single notes, spending considerable time altering their voice until they matched the pitch of the notes, would they not acquire a better sense of how to control their voice? IMHO, people who can't sing on key cannot feel how to alter their vocal cords in order to match the notes they aim for, because they lack that initial experimentation phase. Similarly, a person who aimed at imitating sounds and who experimented with sound production would acquire a sense of how to appropriately pronounce foreign sounds. A person who felt they couldn't do it right away would most likely give up rather than experiment. 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 144 of 255 15 December 2010 at 10:20pm | IP Logged | ||
Actually, I used to teach English pronunciation at McGill university (well, I was a TA). Although we did all kinds of work with minimal pairs, I also spent quite a bit of time addressing the difference between the sounds of English and those of their native languages (most students were TA's too and had been referred by their professor -- they needed the help). In the end, I think what helped them the most was simply the realization that they had to listen to native speakers, imitate them and experiment with sounds. On the other hand, many were not open to the idea of sounding like a native English speaker in the first place. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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