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How to Speak Like a Native | ||
Tags: Non-native Speakers | Accent | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| fiziwig Senior Member United States Joined 4865 days ago 297 posts - 618 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 9 of 63 15 June 2012 at 4:35pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Adult actors seem capable of learning dialects with the help of a good dialect coach. All the language learner needs to do is to learn to speak their TL with the correct dialect.
When I was in high school I took a couple years of German. I learned how to speak English with a thick German accent, and then I simply spoke my German with the same thick German accent. I had more than one native speaker ask me what part of Germany I was from. I didn't have native fluency, but I had the sound of the language down pat and I could pass for native as long as I only used well-rehearsed stock phrases. 7 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| atama warui Triglot Senior Member Japan Joined 4701 days ago 594 posts - 985 votes Speaks: German*, English, Japanese | Message 10 of 63 15 June 2012 at 4:54pm | IP Logged | |||||
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That's how Simcott does it, if I'm not mistaken. Learn how your TL's speaker speaks your native tongue, then imitate their accent and apply it to your TL.
I wish I knew how to approach that tho. I'm not a natural talent when it comes to imitating people. This technique must be learnable somehow. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| jazzboy.bebop Senior Member Norway norwegianthroughnove Joined 5418 days ago 439 posts - 800 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Norwegian | Message 11 of 63 15 June 2012 at 5:02pm | IP Logged | |||||
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It is certainly possible to learn a foreign language as an adult and gain a native-like accent.
My mother is an example of one such person. She moved to Scotland from Norway 25 years ago and after a couple of years acquired a neutral West Coast type accent. You would wonder where she was from but she didn't sound non-native at all. I've also met a guy in Oslo who learned to speak in a very good Liverpool accent and a girl who spoke English with an Australian accent after having spent a year down there. That said, it isn't something anyone should feel the need to really strive for. If you can come across clearly and not have the listener need to focus to understand you then your communication and relations should go smoothly and is that not the key point in learning a language? 7 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6597 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 12 of 63 15 June 2012 at 7:01pm | IP Logged | |||||
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| PillowRock Groupie United States Joined 4734 days ago 87 posts - 151 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 13 of 63 15 June 2012 at 7:30pm | IP Logged | |||||
I would modify that to say that some adult actors are capable of learning to speak naturally (so that it sounds right to people with that as their native dialect) in other dialects / accents of their native language. Others are hopeless at it, even with that essentially being their full time job and having a dedicated professional dialect coach. Also, some of those who can play roles in other dialects can only do so long as they maintain that dialect 24/7. From what I've read, Brad Dourif (the American actor who played Grima Wormtongue in the Lord of the Rings trilogy) kept his dialect in place so constantly that the entire rest of the cast and crew (possibly excepting a few who had known him before that project) heard his natural American accent for the very first time at the wrap party of shooting was completed. His past experience told that, for him, that was the only way that he could maintain his accent consistently enough. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5532 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 14 of 63 15 June 2012 at 7:48pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Paul Meier, who hosts some lovely interactive
IPA charts actually trains actors for a living. I've always wanted to buy several of his dialect books. It's definitely worth checking out the interactive previews. Meier makes heavy use of IPA transcripts and written notes for the more subtle details. As best I remember, Professor Arguelles is not hugely gifted with accents. But I've also heard German natives claim that his German accent is very good. IIRC, this apparently involved a lot of deliberate work with a professional over the course of several years. And the research supports this: With enough time and effort, quite a few people can do the same. (I'm actually a bit of a natural accent mimic. This is a decidedly mixed blessing. If I speak to someone from Montreal, my nasal vowels will actually start shifting in under an hour. And it's not because my French phonology is weak—I do much the same in English.) 5 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5381 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 15 of 63 15 June 2012 at 8:20pm | IP Logged | |||||
At the dentist's, in a waiting room, waiting for the bus... 5 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| fabriciocarraro Hexaglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member Brazil russoparabrasileirosRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4715 days ago 989 posts - 1454 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, EnglishB2, Italian, Spanish, Russian, French Studies: Dutch, German, Japanese | Message 16 of 63 15 June 2012 at 9:46pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Well, I once showed a Richard Simcott's video to a Dutch friend of mine and he said that he thought Richard was a Dutch native, so that should count for something...
4 persons have voted this message useful |
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