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Imitating languages | ||
Tags: Fake Reviews | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| khadijj Newbie Mali Joined 4953 days ago 1 posts - 1 votes | Message 1 of 4 05 May 2011 at 6:03am | IP Logged |
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Hi, I was wondering about all these people who post "fake languages" videos on youtube, in which they pretend to speak languages by making up words that use the phonological inventories and intonations of the language they're imitating.
I'm very new to the whole language learning thing, and to anything related to linguistics (although I'm extremely willing to learn), and I was wondering if it takes any sort of talent to be able to imitate a language, or if training yourself by repeating or shadowing, or even just hearing the language is enough. I can't even begin to reproduce any foreign sounds, which is really frustrating. Here are a few examples: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRR_gKFT6ds http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWGBhdn5kBg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6C5EZmyJ9ik http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmF-LAJ7pw0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6B-g1yd23SQ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fnXce4peF8 What do you guys think of these? Can you speak "fake languages"? Edited by khadijj on 05 May 2011 at 6:07am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6704 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes  Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 2 of 4 05 May 2011 at 9:54am | IP Logged |
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If done well, being able to imitate the 'sound' of a language is a skill (or gift) that might be immensely useful for real language learners. But it is only noticed as a separate skill when performed by people who are too busy or too lazy to learn the languages they pretend to speak - and it becomes an embarassment when done by people who couldn't dream of learning a language, but only want to make fun of it.
Edited by Iversen on 05 May 2011 at 9:57am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| SamD Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 6660 days ago 823 posts - 987 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French Studies: Portuguese, Norwegian | Message 3 of 4 05 May 2011 at 4:12pm | IP Logged |
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I suppose it's a skill that could help actors who need to sound convincing as a native speaker of another language without necessarily learning that language.
1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Keilan Senior Member Canada Joined 5087 days ago 125 posts - 241 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German | Message 4 of 4 05 May 2011 at 5:17pm | IP Logged |
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It isn't something everyone can do, certainly. Around here people have the view of German as a very harsh guttural language. So people will imitate it by making very harsh sounds with many stops and excessive use of scratchy attempts at uvular fricatives.
It truth, it sounds very little like German. :P So if you are frustrated about foreign sounds, I did not properly get the "ch" sounds in German until I practiced for quite a while. Not being able to just do it easily is nothing to be worried about. :) 1 person has voted this message useful |
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