360swiftly Newbie United States Joined 6990 days ago 10 posts - 11 votes
| Message 1 of 6 17 January 2006 at 6:35pm | IP Logged |
I have been doing some research on speech/language therapy & pathology over the past couple of weeks, and I've come across some websites (though I can't think of the exact http addresses now) that assert that speech pathologists can cure all sorts of speech impediment issues - including accents! Of course a person learning Spanish cannot simply walk into the office of an English speech pathologist and expect to get cured of an accent, but it still is an interesting idea. I was wondering if anybody here might have any experience with speech/language therapy and perhaps like to contribute to this thread. This is a topic that certainly interests me as I strive for native-like pronunciation and intonation, two areas that speech therapists are known to improve!
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luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7205 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French
| Message 2 of 6 17 January 2006 at 7:01pm | IP Logged |
What causes foreign accents? telltale accents and some of the causes of accents. From your posting and profile, I take it you're learning Spanish. If you're looking to improve your accent, the first unit of Platiquemos is available for free. The second unit also covers pronunciation. A more focused program, if you already speak well, but with an accent is Barrons "Pronounce it Perfectly" series.
Edited by luke on 17 January 2006 at 7:02pm
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administrator Hexaglot Forum Admin Switzerland FXcuisine.com Joined 7376 days ago 3094 posts - 2987 votes 12 sounds Speaks: French*, EnglishC2, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian Personal Language Map
| Message 3 of 6 17 January 2006 at 11:47pm | IP Logged |
I have to accent-reduction programs for American English and they are really good. I think one could use them to considerably reduce one's accent in English. I am not aware of similar programs in other languages nor of an industry of professionals to teach you how to do it in Spanish, French, etc... although this should be possible.
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360swiftly Newbie United States Joined 6990 days ago 10 posts - 11 votes
| Message 4 of 6 18 January 2006 at 12:46am | IP Logged |
I'm not sure if you're already familiar with some of these websites, but I find them to be very entertaining and interesting. One is: http://accent.gmu.edu/ and contains hundreds of speech accent files from speakers all over the globe who are given the exact same paragraph to pronounce. The other is: http://www.americanaccent.com/ and is geared more toward helping people attain an American accent.
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Julien71 Tetraglot Groupie United States Joined 5372 days ago 42 posts - 52 votes Speaks: French*, English, German, Spanish Studies: Portuguese, Hungarian
| Message 5 of 6 14 March 2010 at 7:31am | IP Logged |
administrator wrote:
I have to accent-reduction programs for American English and they are really good. I think one could use them to considerably reduce one's accent in English. I am not aware of similar programs in other languages nor of an industry of professionals to teach you how to do it in Spanish, French, etc... although this should be possible. |
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Could you please tell me which accent-reduction programs for American English you used?
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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 6 of 6 14 March 2010 at 5:17pm | IP Logged |
I've met a few speech pathologists and in general, I'd say they know nothing about
accents or native-language interference. There could be exceptions, though. They might be
able to help in the case of aweful accents or the inability to pronounce a specific sound
like sh or th, but little beyond that.
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