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The importance of a good accent | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| clumsy Octoglot Senior Member Poland lang-8.com/6715Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5183 days ago 1116 posts - 1367 votes  Speaks: Polish*, English, Japanese, Korean, French, Mandarin, Italian, Vietnamese Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written), Swedish Studies: Danish, Dari, Kirundi | Message 9 of 255 09 December 2010 at 8:55pm | IP Logged | ||
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me, i don't care about my accents, I only just write in most of my languages.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Splog Diglot Senior Member Czech Republic anthonylauder.c Joined 5674 days ago 1062 posts - 3263 votes Speaks: English*, Czech Studies: Mandarin | Message 10 of 255 09 December 2010 at 9:08pm | IP Logged | ||
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I know a french woman who speaks czech quite well, but with a strong french accent. Every
time she speaks my heart melts at the beauty of her voice. I have heard several Czechs beg her not to lose her french accent. So, a native-like accent in your target language can, in some cases, be a demerit. 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| ratis Hexaglot Newbie Germany Joined 5108 days ago 28 posts - 43 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Italian, Spanish, Latin Studies: Czech, Japanese Studies: Hindi | Message 11 of 255 09 December 2010 at 9:42pm | IP Logged | ||
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When it comes to judging fluency of non-natives speaking my native language, I don't mind
an accent at all as long as it's comprehensible. I get used to it quickly. I tend to be much more impressed by a broad vocabulary and linguistic creativity, like puns or playful expressions. And anyway, I often find accents teddibly cute. :D When someone chats me up in German with an Italian or a UK accent for example, chances that I'll fall for him are significantly increased... 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5386 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 12 of 255 09 December 2010 at 9:53pm | IP Logged | ||
Sounds like a good plan, if being cute is your ultimate goal. You can fake a bad accent, but you can't fake a perfect one. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| SamD Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 6664 days ago 823 posts - 987 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French Studies: Portuguese, Norwegian | Message 13 of 255 09 December 2010 at 10:23pm | IP Logged | ||
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If I had to choose between a flawless native accent on one hand and perfect vocabulary and grammar on the other, I would always choose the latter.
Some people tell me I have a very distinctive regional accent in my native English that goes away in other languages, particularly German. It hasn't caused any problem with communication as far as I can tell. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6016 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 14 of 255 10 December 2010 at 7:10pm | IP Logged | ||
Same here, but it's not a straight choice. In fact, the two are mutually supportive, because a bad accent can get in the way or learning vocabulary and grammar. For example, English contractions and past endings often stump Spanish speakers because they are difficult to pronounce. As they can't pronounce "I'm doing", they learn it as "I doing". From a grammatical point of view, it should be easy (it's more of less the same as Spanish), but the sounds confuse them. But because they say it that way, they think of it that way. They learn it that way and they end up writing it that way. They often say "I have go" instead of "I've gone". You can dismiss this as being a problem with irregular forms, but I believe there's a more fundamental problem here. In English, most verbs form their past participles by adding a /t/ or /d/ phoneme without a vowel. Spanish speakers aren't good with this type of consonant cluster and often end up pronouncing the past participle identical to the root verb. In their internal grammar, therefore, they expect to use a bare infinitive* with perfective constructions, and that carries over to the irregular verbs as a matter of course. * Bare infinitive: traditionally, people have said that the infinitive is the "to" form, eg "to do", "to make", "to tell". They've decided that this is actually wrong, but can't stop calling it the infinitive, so they now talk about the "bare infinitive" and the "to-infinitive". 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| BobbyE Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5252 days ago 226 posts - 331 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin | Message 15 of 255 10 December 2010 at 7:37pm | IP Logged | ||
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For me, I don't plan on having a native accent in my target languages. However, I want to be at the level that my accent is very much in the background of my words. There are some non-native English speakers that I meet regularly, and it takes a few minutes of talking with them before I start to recognize that maybe English is their second language. That is the level I want to be at.
4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5386 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 16 of 255 10 December 2010 at 7:42pm | IP Logged | ||
Then the level you're aiming for IS near-native, from the sound of it. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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