|
 |
Lessons learned from fifty years of theory | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| querido Newbie United States Joined 6104 days ago 13 posts - 15 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin | Message 25 of 34 06 October 2013 at 1:48pm | IP Logged | |||||
|
I have no trouble trusting that document.
Thank you for the link. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| cpnlsn88 Triglot Groupie United Kingdom Joined 5035 days ago 63 posts - 112 votes  Speaks: English*, German, French Studies: Spanish, Esperanto, Latin | Message 26 of 34 06 October 2013 at 11:31pm | IP Logged | |||||
|
There are so many people living in Britain and the US (think Kissinger, Schwarzenegger) who are fluent and clearly near native to the point of holding the highest office in their adoptive country as well as difficult to erradicate accents by people with strong regional accents (not that one would want to do so) that point to accent being very durable.
Still it seems that there needs to be a goal that one's accent be as good as one can is not unreasonable and most learners should add to their list of things to work on. If your accent is poor it can be improved; if very good you might progress to near native level. I've met foreign taxi drivers with truly impeccable English, but a mild remnant of an accent that gives the game away (not in my eyes - I'm often amazed at how good their English is). I therefore think that for most learners passing off as a native is not a reasonable aim. As someone else noted, if you are near native in accent then people will be able to recognise how good you are (at this point I should say I often hear people speaking fuent German with - to my ears - no accent whatever; what gives the game away is not the accent but errors in gender of nouns). I think part of the answer is to accept diversity of language communities so that non-native speakers are accepted as fully fledged members alongside the linguistic diversity most communities already contain. When that is achieved then the goal of 'passing oneself off as a native' fades in importance, compared to the ability to fully participate in the language community's life. 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| I'm With Stupid Senior Member Vietnam Joined 4171 days ago 165 posts - 349 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Vietnamese | Message 27 of 34 07 October 2013 at 5:36am | IP Logged | |||||
It's also the case that even if you never reach the goal of speaking with a native accent, you'll likely be easier to understand for native speakers than if you never tried. I know someone who speaks Welsh in a Manchester accent though. Edited by I'm With Stupid on 07 October 2013 at 5:37am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| slucido Bilingual Diglot Senior Member Spain https://goo.gl/126Yv Joined 6673 days ago 1296 posts - 1781 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Spanish*, Catalan* Studies: English | Message 28 of 34 30 July 2015 at 11:33am | IP Logged | |||||
|
The original link doesn't work anymore. Here there is the new one:
Lessons learned from fifty years of theory and practice in government language teaching Frederick H. Jackson Foreign Service Institute, U.S. Department of State Marsha A. Kaplan Foreign Service Institute, U.S. Department of State http://www.geolanguage.o rg/archives/sla/gurt_1999_07.pdf 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| mrwarper Diglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member Spain forum_posts.asp?TID=Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5224 days ago 1493 posts - 2500 votes Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2 Studies: German, Russian, Japanese | Message 29 of 34 30 July 2015 at 2:23pm | IP Logged | |||||
|
The very same (new) link was already posted in message #24 of this thread (edit: in May 2013!) and it's of course still working. Is this an accidental re-post, or a forum artefact?
Edited by mrwarper on 30 July 2015 at 2:57pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6595 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 30 of 34 30 July 2015 at 2:48pm | IP Logged | |||||
|
The accompanying text is a tad different.
1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| slucido Bilingual Diglot Senior Member Spain https://goo.gl/126Yv Joined 6673 days ago 1296 posts - 1781 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Spanish*, Catalan* Studies: English | Message 31 of 34 31 July 2015 at 12:36pm | IP Logged | |||||
Sorry, I am not an artifact. I didn't remember I posted this link before. Anyway, I think this thread is interesting. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| mrwarper Diglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member Spain forum_posts.asp?TID=Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5224 days ago 1493 posts - 2500 votes Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2 Studies: German, Russian, Japanese | Message 32 of 34 31 July 2015 at 3:48pm | IP Logged | |||||
|
The subject at hand is not just interesting, but extremely so -- however, in the light of the recent yet unrelated events I was left wondering about the real cause of a re-post (it's the same exact text plus a couple of line breaks) that brought no new information or reflections to light. Sorry if I disturbed you...
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. |
