|
 |
What do you consider a bad accent? | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Matheus Senior Member Brazil Joined 5081 days ago 208 posts - 312 votes  Speaks: Portuguese* Studies: English, French | Message 1 of 17 04 September 2011 at 11:18am | IP Logged | ||
|
This question is for those who speak French natively, from any country.
I've read many times on this website that French speakers won't talk to people who make a lot of mistakes or have a bad accent. I don't think my accent is bad, I was told by a Belgium girl that I can pronounce the French "R" perfectly, but I am a bad listener so it's difficult to separate the similar vowel sounds. In Portuguese we have many vowels, being some of them nasal(which is helping me), like ã, á, a, etc. If I have someone who is a native speaker and can tell if I am doing it right, I can pronounce them, but as soon as I am by myself I forget how to pronounce, and whether it's correct or not. Is the accent a really big deal or it's just people from Paris who are that demanding? What would happen to someone speaking French with perfect grammar but not perfect vowel pronunciation, just saying the approximate vowel that they know? Edited by Matheus on 04 September 2011 at 11:20am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| prz_ Tetraglot Senior Member Poland last.fm/user/prz_rul Joined 4859 days ago 890 posts - 1190 votes Speaks: Polish*, English, Bulgarian, Croatian Studies: Slovenian, Macedonian, Persian, Russian, Turkish, Ukrainian, Dutch, Swedish, German, Italian, Armenian, Kurdish | Message 2 of 17 04 September 2011 at 11:36am | IP Logged | ||
I wonder if it's really true. Frenchmen, tell us something. 1 person has 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 3 of 17 04 September 2011 at 7:56pm | IP Logged | ||
|
If I go by reputation, it would appear that it's only Parisians. However, I think this only applies to strangers.
Once you have established a personal relationship with a person, regardless of country, culture or language, people are always willing to make an effort to understand. I think it's a universal human trait to respect those whose make an effort. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| William8 Diglot Groupie Poland Joined 5102 days ago 62 posts - 73 votes Speaks: Polish*, English Studies: French, Arabic (classical), German, Italian, Spanish | Message 4 of 17 06 September 2011 at 9:00pm | IP Logged | ||
|
Well, I'll give my own example - when I was in France, in Aix-en-Provence, I and a few friends of mine were looking for a post office. So, I tried to ask a French woman. People say that I pronounce french very well, but I don't believe it so much. But there maybe something in it :) So, I asked a French lady : "Excusez-moi, où est la poste, SVP?" She looked at me and started to think. She mumbled something and said : "Vous cherchez la poste?", I said "Oui, madame." but I made a mistake and said it like "Oui, madamme" - I made long "m". She said "Do you speak English?". But when my friend started to talk to her in french, she was OK with it. Maybe sometimes the French don't want you to make any effort or just don't want you to defile their language :) In some situations they hate speaking English :)
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| misslanguages Diglot Senior Member France fluent-language.blog Joined 4846 days ago 190 posts - 217 votes Speaks: French*, English Studies: German | Message 5 of 17 06 September 2011 at 9:10pm | IP Logged | ||
|
I never complain when I can't understand somebody. That being said, I once called an American girl who spoke French to me for 30 minutes and who was extremely hard to understand. She sounded cute, and it also seemed like she was trying really hard, but it was mostly a one-sided conversation since I couldn't understand what she was saying.
My "uhuh" and "oh, good" probably didn't do the trick, but I tried to keep the conversation going. No matter how bad you are at speaking the language, you need to make the effort to learn at least SOME of the basic pronunciation rules. There's nothing worse than having to put up with talking to someone who can barely speak the language. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| HenryMW Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 5174 days ago 125 posts - 179 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, French Studies: Modern Hebrew | Message 6 of 17 07 September 2011 at 2:37am | IP Logged | ||
|
I was in Lyon two summers ago, and they put up with my horrid French. I've recently put a lot of effort into improving my accent, and I'm embarrassed at how bad my accent was and impressed about how polite they were.
But that was Lyon. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Jo15 Triglot Newbie United Kingdom Joined 4828 days ago 13 posts - 16 votes Speaks: English*, German, French | Message 7 of 17 07 September 2011 at 11:01am | IP Logged | ||
|
I've definitely found that strangers are not interested in 'suffering' a non-native French
accent. I consider mine to be passable, but it seems that as soon as people hear a bit of foreigness in your accent, they give up trying to understand and just speak to you in English (this is my experience from time spent in Bordeaux and Paris). It can be frustrating, because the only way you can improve is through practice.But, as Arekkusu said, once you've made friends, they can be extremely helpful and patient with your accent and language in general. So persistance is the key - and maybe perfecting the pronunciation of 'you WILL be my friend'. ;) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Haldor Triglot Senior Member France Joined 5615 days ago 103 posts - 122 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Swedish Studies: French, Spanish | Message 8 of 17 07 September 2011 at 5:40pm | IP Logged | ||
|
I've had the opposite experience, I've found that French people are usually quite surprised and charmed by foreigners speaking French. Of course it will depend a little bit on your level, and they will probably correct all of your faults. From my own experience, I can state that French people (especially girls) are quite charmed when you speak French to them, proving that you've actually made an effort to learn their native language. All in all, you shouldn't be shy to speak, just hop to it!
1 person has voted this message useful |
|  | 
Printable version
|
| Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization. |
