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Authentic Regional Accent in Target Lang | ||
Tags: Accent | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| 1e4e6 Octoglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4289 days ago 1013 posts - 1588 votes  Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Norwegian, Dutch, Swedish, Italian Studies: German, Danish, Russian, Catalan | Message 9 of 44 14 April 2015 at 3:49am | IP Logged |
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I also meant the case of having a native-like accent but being below C level, so just
the pronunciation is excellent, but the syntax not native, and how this would affect natives of the target language for those with, for example, B levels, but with a native or near-native-like regional accent. I pretended to be an Australian from Melbourne and a South African from Pretoria speaking with their respective accents a few years ago mostly as an experiment, to see if putting on an accent would actually fool people, and to use the results to decide on whether to try it with target languages. It was very risky, because staying in character with people with whom are fooled needs to be maintainted at all times. I started it in English, my native tongue, first, before trying it with target languages. Also, for example, if one is from a certain class, like if someone is working class, but learns a few languages. Learner wants to fit in with the working class people and speak with accent of certain barrio, arrondisement, buurt, or even villa. I suppose that this is the grey area. If accent is good, the natives might like learner because they think alike. But then some might dislike the learner for sounding like she or he is taking the mickey, although this is definitely not the case. But this is one reason I try to do a Ramos Mejía/Morón/Haedo accent from Buenos Aires--"I try to sound like you because we are alike" type of thing. When there is no class "fit-in" involved, like when I try my best to do Bergen or Tromsø for Norwegian, it is just to try to fit in in genreal. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| basica Senior Member Australia Joined 3535 days ago 157 posts - 269 votes Studies: Serbian | Message 10 of 44 14 April 2015 at 3:53am | IP Logged |
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I think it's pretty hard to lose an accent, even if we're talking in the same
language. I have meet a few people who at first sound Australian/English/American but eventually they say a few things that betray their origins. I knew two guys in college whose fathers were both from the US and even from the same state (talk about coincidences eh?) and one had almost completely lost his accent, and the other sounded like he never left. It's fascinating how it works really. As for an adult speaker passing as a native, I've only ever met one. He was a German guy who came to Australia when he was young, but still an adult (20 or 21) and he had completely lost his accent - which is quite remarkable as my experience has been that in terms of accents - Germans tend to be among the worst for it (at least if we're talking about Europeans). At the point that I met him, he had already been living in Australia for about 15 years so I don't know how long the process took him (other than it was less than 15 years) but yeah, definitely there was no indication that he wasn't an Australian at all until he kinda mentioned in passing one day. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| 1e4e6 Octoglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4289 days ago 1013 posts - 1588 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Norwegian, Dutch, Swedish, Italian Studies: German, Danish, Russian, Catalan | Message 11 of 44 14 April 2015 at 4:41am | IP Logged |
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With regards to Australian accent, all I did was listen to stuff like this for a long
time (which I already had before): Shane Warne commentary I have heard this voice for more than 6 years, so I kind of picked it up already before I started the experiment. This is usually what I do when trying to pick up a pinpoint accent, find someone from the desired area and mimick their speech. Doing it in my native English obviously was a safety guard, before I tried it in a foreign language. But the Aus accent thing seemed to work. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4706 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 12 of 44 14 April 2015 at 6:00am | IP Logged |
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You can definitely lose the most definitive traces of your accent. I have lost most
traces of a very thick Dutch accent and 99% of the time, my accent tends to be fairly unplaceable. You can tell that I am definitely foreign, or simply that I am not local, but people stick to western countries just because of my appearance (tall, brown hair, fair skin, red-tinged beard). I don't have perfect accents in any of my languages except Dutch/English, where I sound extremely natural, but in the other ones, it would be a chore for people to place me. In Sweden, people didn't really think I was very foreign (most likely they assumed I spoke a weird dialect or arrived long ago in Stockholm where the accent mixed, given I speak very close to rikssvenska). In Gotland passers-by would assume I was Swedish and perk up noticeably when I was introduced to them as Dutch. The sentence melody sounds off, though, which is what gives me away as not 100% (and little grammar mistakes). In Russia I am definitely foreign, but I speak very clear Russian (with a few stress mistakes here and there), and it's quite hard to tell where I might be from. In the Netherlands people assume I have Russian family or that I am Russian myself by ancestry, but live abroad. This is not true, of course, but the immediate assumption that I must somehow be related to Russians indicates the accent is weak and doesn't hurt comprehension. My French accent is slightly Belgian-tinged because of the noticeable Dutch influence and the use of Belgianisms, but otherwise doesn't hurt the ear at all (unless people hate me for saying septante). It's neutral otherwise, but slightly foreign. In Romania they told me my accent was very clear (but foreign). Romania, like Russia, doesn't have that much regional variation, and unless you speak like a Moldovan or are from some minority I don't think the difference is that big (I think Transylvanians have some distinguishing markers too, but in my region it was very standard). The only thing I noticed is that outside of Bucharest the vocative is more common. (I use the vocative when speaking Romanian). In China every foreigner is an American even if the accent isn't American. So what my Chinese accent comes down to I don't know. In German I speak with a noticeable Dutch accent, but this is considered quaint and even liked, and my accent isn't super-strong. My Norwegian accent would simply lead to me being accused of being Swedish, which I find hilarious (the Norwegians couldn't tell which part of my accent are Swedish and which are Dutch). Everywhere else the accent would be noticeable, but unplaceable as directly Dutch. I don't think people have trouble with my Italian, Greek or Hebrew pronunciations for example, nor with my Spanish or Portuguese (noticeably European-influenced). This is pretty much the best you can hope for without really working with an accent coach or speech therapist to eliminate all the tiny differences. Edited by tarvos on 14 April 2015 at 6:02am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5206 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 13 of 44 14 April 2015 at 11:16am | IP Logged |
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I thought it was quite accepted that some people are better at accents than others, and that generally applies equally to accents in the first language and the second language. For example, an Englishman who can imitate Americans and Australians well is probably also going to be able to speak foreign languages with a good accent.
I'm bad at both, and it's even been a problem when I do language exchanges: people ask me for the standard (RP) pronunciation of a word rather than my Scottish one but I actually can't pronounce it the "English" way. Needless to say, I've never had to worry about the "first-world problem" of which regional accent to choose in a foreign language. I could probably get there with a huge amount of work and help from an accent coach or speech therapist, but it wouldn't be worth the effort. I've done quite a lot of specific work on pronunciation and accent in both my foreign languages. In French, I aim for the standard "metropolitan" accent, but at times I've been told that I sound a bit Belgian or Canadian. I interpret this as meaning that my French sounds OK but not quite, well, French. In Italian, some people have said I speak like someone from the North (which would make sense since most of my Italian friends are Northern), but for most it's clear that I'm foreign and they often guess German. For both, the reality appears to be that I have an accent that is obviously non-native but not obviously Anglophone. This seems like the best that I can hope for without undue effort, so I'm quite happy with it. Edited by garyb on 14 April 2015 at 11:19am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4706 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 14 of 44 14 April 2015 at 11:29am | IP Logged |
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I can imitate accents quite well yes, but that's also practice and listening to certain
sounds and practicing how to do the intonations properly. You can get better at accent, but you do have to train it very specifically, and whether this is always worth the tradeoff is a question worth asking. However, if you are Anglophone, learning to roll that damn r is certainly worth the effort. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5380 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 15 of 44 14 April 2015 at 4:29pm | IP Logged |
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It is seldom the case that switching from one regional accent to another is simply a matter of applying a series of shifts: very often, regional accents contain additional information that isn't encoded in the standard form.
If I look at my own Québécois dialect, there is no way for a person who knows standard French to know with any accuracy whether -oi- will be pronounced [wæ] or [wɑ]. Some examples: [wæ]: fois, bois (drinks), quoi, croix, doigt [wɑ]: mois, bois (wood), pois, noix, trois Worse yet, only a subset of [wæ] words can become [we]: bois, moi... The same applies to the è sound because the spelling doesn't indicate vowel length: Long: renne, confesse (n), caisse, mètre; Short: prenne, confesse (v), tresse, faite, mettre; Depends on region: baleine, ... In other words, going for a regional accent can require a fair bit of work and patience and will usually imply having a very frustrating time trying to figure out information that's not written anywhere. Edited by Arekkusu on 14 April 2015 at 5:47pm 5 persons have voted this message useful | |
| 1e4e6 Octoglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4289 days ago 1013 posts - 1588 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Norwegian, Dutch, Swedish, Italian Studies: German, Danish, Russian, Catalan | Message 16 of 44 15 April 2015 at 12:11am | IP Logged |
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True, it does require quite some patience. In regards specifically to French, I have a
lot of family in the Montréal area, but most of them do not live exactly in the city centre. I had some family from Beaconsfield, which is close to the aeroport, visit me couple years ago. Like many they are completely bilingual despite being immigrants to Canada, but I told them to use French on me. Their accent sounds much different from standard French and any continential television or radio obviously, but I had a glimpse of what that area sounds like. I also spent a day there last time I went to Montréal. I suppose the disadvantage is that they do not visit us often nor vice versa, nor do I do if that is exactly how the mean average of that area speaks, or if it is just them. If you are from Montréal area, I am sure that you know where Beaconsfield is (off Highway 20), and my only exposure to the accents is a few days with extended family, and some communication with people in restaurants and stores in the area. But I suppose that if I had to distinguish someone from Westmount, Laval, Anjou, or Dollard des Ormeaux, I would have a big problem, despite speaking with some people from those places, I have insufficient exposure to tell the difference. Also, unlike the many British and American video tutorials on YouTube, not many seem to document or teach their certain, arrondisement accents to learners as the Anglophones do. On YouTube you can find how to do Manc, Geordie, Brum, Glaswegian, Cornish, Aberdeen, etc. accents, as well as Boston, New York, San Franciscan, LA/Southern California, Texan, Georgian, Tennessee Applachian, Seattle, etc. accent tutorials for those who want to learn very specific Anglophone accents. But I always find it interesting to mimic people from a very particular area. With Spanish, I know many Argentinians from certain areas of Buenos Aires, most of them living in the, to put it mildly, opposite of posh areas, the posh areas being Palermo or Núñez or Recoleta. They usually live in the suburbian industrial areas, like close to Ezeiza International Aeroport, or near the La Boca stadium and the Puente Nicolás Avellaneda in the south. If I am not mistaken or not hearing wrong, they sound quite different from the city centre inhabitants. I admire their barrios because I come from a socioeconomic background similar to theirs, so this usually figures into why I pick their accents. Edited by 1e4e6 on 15 April 2015 at 12:34am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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