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Pronunciation: foreign accents? | ||
Tags: Pronunciation | Accent | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| ALS Senior Member United States Joined 5796 days ago 104 posts - 131 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Norwegian, Finnish, Russian | Message 1 of 4 26 November 2010 at 12:01pm | IP Logged | ||
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I was talking to a friend about the difficulties of developing an accent in your target language such that you sound like a native instead of having a foreign accent. After a while I mentioned how, after watching an hour or so of YouTube videos recorded by a woman with a pretty heavy Russian accent speaking English, I was practically able to think in her accent and even imitate it do a degree. The few people I've asked about it said they had this reaction too, so I don't think it's uncommon or special. And lots of times, people who move to different parts of the world that speak their language 'drop' their accent from where they group up and pick up the one in their new home, usually without even noticing or doing so consciously.
It got me to thinking, what if you helped perfect your accent in your target language by listening to a native speaker of that language speak your native tongue? Such as what happened to me, listening to a Russian woman with a thick accent speak English for some time, and then afterward being able to mimick her accent quite closely. Could this, perhaps, invoke small 'lightbulb moments' of how words in your target language are pronounced by native speakers? By examining the way they pronounce certain words or letters, could you gain insight into the nearly inaudible intricacies of pronunciation in their native language? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5758 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 2 of 4 26 November 2010 at 3:46pm | IP Logged | ||
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Why reverse engeneering when you can have the blue prints.
Or: Even though a thick accent often betrays the native language of a speaker it doesn't mean that any two speakers actually make the same mistakes, which means that you would have to work with a larger body of second language speakers with thick accents, nor does it mean that the difficulties somebody has with your native language do in any way reflect the difficulties you will have with theirs. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5373 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 3 of 4 26 November 2010 at 4:48pm | IP Logged | ||
Why would you want to use English to learn a Russian accent? That Russian speaker may or may not pronounce certain sounds correctly and you are then at the mercy of coincidence as to whether or not you are actually learning Russian pronunciation. Sounds like a complete waste of time to me. I'm not saying that listening to Russian people speak English can't help you get a sense of how they view sounds, but if this is going to be helpful in any kind of way, it will be because you have also become accustomed to actual Russian pronunciation... in Russian. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| doviende Diglot Senior Member Canada languagefixatio Joined 5978 days ago 533 posts - 1245 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Spanish, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Hindi, Swedish, Portuguese | Message 4 of 4 01 December 2010 at 1:36pm | IP Logged | ||
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Actually, I agree with the original post. If you listen to beginners in English, you'll hear which sounds they consistently have trouble with, and you'll be able to hear how that sort of sound differs from a familiar English sound. You can also look for hints about the rhythm and intonation that they use in their sentences.
When listening in the L2, you may not always hear how it is different from what you're attempting to say, because you're not yet familiar with how it sounds. That said, you really need to become familiar with those sounds, and the way to do this is to do a lot of careful listening, even to things that you understand absolutely nothing of. It might even be better if you understand nothing, because then you have no choice but to pay precise attention to the sounds. I still think that there can be great benefits from finding a very fast but precisely spoken newscast, and listening to it carefully for as many hours as you can. Try to hear every little sound, and let it put you into a sort of trance. Just keep listening, and eventually you'll get random phrases bubbling into your head when you're *not* listening, even if you understand nothing of what they mean. This is what I think really helps you learn the sounds...when you can compare your own productions with those precisely "recorded" sounds that bubble into your mind. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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