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How to speak in a different accent? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Hashimi Senior Member Oman Joined 6263 days ago 362 posts - 529 votes  Speaks: Arabic (Written)* Studies: English, Japanese | Message 1 of 2 22 March 2011 at 5:05pm | IP Logged |
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How to speak in a different accent in your native language? For example, I speak my own dialect of Arabic, mix between standard and non-standard dialects with a bit of idiosyncrasy. I can change my accent to a more standard dialect such as Egyptian of Gulf Arabic, but it is not always perfect. Sometimes it does not seem natural. I want to improve it. I have tens of conversations in different Arabic dialects (total: 50 hours, 10 hours each). How can I benefit from these mp3s to improve my attempts to speak in other accents? I will start with Egyptian because I have more exposure to it. Can you suggest me a good plan to try in 40 days using these conversations? 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5385 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 2 of 2 22 March 2011 at 5:30pm | IP Logged |
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The biggest difficulty lies in determining exactly how far a sound can be stretched while still remaining the same sound to native ears, and when a sound starts to sound like another.
This is where most accents appear, because even if we could say each sound perfectly in isolation, we assume that these boundaries are the same by default whereas they actually change from language to language and from dialect to dialect. Rules governing stress, pitch, intonation, etc. can also vary slightly. As far as I know, there are 2 possible scenarios: either you enlist the help of a native speaker of the accent you want to acquire, or you already have an excellent knowledge of phonology and you have strong insight and instincts that will allow you to reach your goal on your own. Over time, you could also keep imitating what you hear repeatedly and hope that you unconsciously develop a sense of where these fine boundaries lie. Psychologically, you need to want to pass off as a native speaker of those dialects. For some reason, most people are not ready to do that. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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