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How to get a native accent | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6707 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 41 of 47 14 April 2010 at 6:02pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Yes, I do in fact listen to the variations in consonants that are caused by the surrounding sounds, though I would have to know the language fairly well to succeed in cases like the ones you mention - but there are more obvious cases. For instance I have spent several hours listening to words with slender and thick consonants in Irish, where this is a very important distinction. I also try to grasp which way the sounds in one language have 'moved' in comparison with similar sounds in other languages, - for instance the general movement towards a dark 'a' in Catalan, which is a very distinct feature in the 'sound' of this language. And when I recently visited Scotland I walked around listening to snippets of conversations in order to ascertain whether the orthography of my rants in Scots were totally off the mark. To my surprise I found that it was fairly indicative of the pronunciations in the Glasgow - Stirling -Edinburgh area, though I didnae hear many of the true dialect words I have used. So I do listen for sounds, but I can't write those observations down - I have never bothered to learn IPA, and even IPA might not be enough to describe the results - certainly not concerning intonational patterns. When I do write pronunciations down I just use crude homemade systems. If you have grasped the sound system of a language (or rather a variant of it) then you don't have to be 100% precise as long as you make notes for yourself, - you just have to make indications that make it possible for you to guess what the original sound was. IPA is relevant for people wo make a scientific desxcription of a language, but even there it would be foolish not to combine it with soundrecordings I noticed that IrishPolyglot advocated lessons "from a singing instructor or voice trainer". Presumably because these people are focussed on the actual sounds, where linguists have a tendency to turn sounds into phonemes. Let me just add that the remark "(=genius)" is a sign that I'm impressed with people who can (successfully) absorb the pronunciation of a language without analyzing it. Edited by Iversen on 14 April 2010 at 6:22pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| irishpolyglot Nonaglot Senior Member Ireland fluentin3months Joined 5637 days ago 285 posts - 892 votes Speaks: Irish, English*, French, Esperanto, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Sign Language Studies: Mandarin | Message 42 of 47 14 April 2010 at 6:22pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Thanks a million for the compliment Judith! :D However, I'm not a fan of the word talent! In my opinion language acquisition is a skill that can be learned by anyone. I will learn German quicker than most people with my current level would, but this is because of methods and mentalities I've learned over recent years. If you had been present at my oral exam 11 years ago that would ultimately give me a 'C' in German you would not have been impressed at all with my accent no matter how hard I would have tried to mimic you speaking ;) Despite my ridiculously huge amount of spoken mistakes currently in German, you won't guess that I'm an English speaker simply because I've done all that work elsewhere. I worked for years to get rid of my English 'r' and am temporarily using a quasi-French 'r' in German. I think the 'r' is by far English-speakers' greatest weakness in a lot of languages, in terms of giving away their accents. One other skill that I personally think helps a lot is musicality. That helped heaps with my Portuguese accent reduction, and I'm eternally grateful for 10 years of piano lessons for picking up on imitating sounds and tones. Once again, a learned skill, not natural talent :P (In my opinion of course) 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6015 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 43 of 47 14 April 2010 at 9:50pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
The point I was trying to argue is that the subtleties reveal themselves easier from "close up" -- ie that once you've got the basic core sound, the ear will be better able to detect the differences between how you're currently saying it and how other people say it. But if you start with just the sounds of your native language, the differences can be so big, and in so many variables, that you end up approximating the core sound quite well but in a physically different way from the native sound. Does the mouth shape matter? Isn't the sound the most important thing? Yes to both. The subtleties we're talking about, the little non-phonemic differences, are the result of natural interactions between the sounds. If your core sound is physically different from the native one, these natural interactions cannot occur. The same concept is in play in handwriting. If you write the word "seasons", each S will be different. If you write the nonsense word "seabasobins", the Ss will be very similar to the Ss in seasons. The brain anticipates the next movement of the hand and adjusts the current movement to account for it, resulting in natural and consistent variation. It does the same with the tongue. So quite often all you need to do once you have the base sounds is relax and the variations will come naturally. Well, that's what I feel, anyway. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Sprachprofi Nonaglot Senior Member Germany learnlangs.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6474 days ago 2608 posts - 4866 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Esperanto, Greek, Mandarin, Latin, Dutch, Italian Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written), Swahili, Indonesian, Japanese, Modern Hebrew, Portuguese | Message 44 of 47 14 April 2010 at 10:22pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Interesting theory. This would support the "tickling" method that was mentioned some time ago, where students who were otherwise unable to produce a good imitation of a sound were suddenly able to do so when tickled or when imagining themselves tickled. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
 jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6913 days ago 4250 posts - 5711 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 45 of 47 15 April 2010 at 2:13am | IP Logged | ||||||||
In my opinion, the 3 months:30 seconds ratio (if successful) is actually a lot better than all the German/French/Spanish/etc. tourists I've met, who reveal their origin after just saying "Good morning", despite having studied the language for several years. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Sennin Senior Member Bulgaria Joined 6038 days ago 1457 posts - 1759 votes 5 sounds | Message 46 of 47 15 April 2010 at 2:51am | IP Logged | ||||||||
They sell'em on eBay, you can get one very cheaply. If that doesn't work try hard work and prayer.
I can manage a completely British "Hello" :). From there on it's usually a matter of seconds before someone spots the foreigner in me. Edited by Sennin on 15 April 2010 at 3:01am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| sunny Groupie United States Joined 6252 days ago 98 posts - 128 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Russian, Welsh, French | Message 47 of 47 15 April 2010 at 3:01am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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As a native American English speaker...
I was always able to repeat songs that I had heard, and in school I did well in choir. I have never listened to myself on tape. However, for some unknown reason, I have to watch someone speak in order to fully grasp what they are saying even in English. So in teaching myself German (before entering university) I studied the mouths, lower faces and throats of native speakers as they were speaking. Now I have been told that I speak almost completely without accent, and the small differences heard by the native German speakers isn't an American or British accent. The same has been said about my ability to mimic Russian. It isn't an indicator of aptitude for the language itself however, as I am having great difficulty with Russian. I think it is more than ability to mimic sounds, but also to mimic the mechanics of making those sounds, and learning to make the mechanical changes necessary unconsciously. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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