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Question @everyone in the US/UK/OZ/etc. | ||
Tags: Native Fluency | English | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| SamD Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 6659 days ago 823 posts - 987 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish, French Studies: Portuguese, Norwegian | Message 17 of 23 29 June 2009 at 6:06pm | IP Logged | ||
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It seems that people who immigrate at a younger age are more likely than other immigrants to develop a native accent and command of grammar. If you move to an area where there are many immigrants from your country or who speak your language or both, you are less likely to assimilate quickly and your English will reflect that.
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| irrationale Tetraglot Senior Member China Joined 6050 days ago 669 posts - 1023 votes 2 sounds Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Tagalog Studies: Ancient Greek, Japanese | Message 18 of 23 29 June 2009 at 10:39pm | IP Logged | ||
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Seeing an adult immigrant that speaks native like English (or any other language) must be extremely rare. I have worked and associated with many (hundreds of) immigrants, and only a handful speak fluent grammatically correct English, but they all have accents and most don't use idioms, rare words, etc. They usually are constantly around Americans and either work with or have married an American.
I have never seen an adult immigrant with native-like speech, but I'm sure they are out there somewhere. The last step from mastery to native like fluency must be an enormous one to traverse. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| FrenchLanguage Senior Member Germany Joined 5736 days ago 122 posts - 135 votes | Message 19 of 23 29 June 2009 at 11:54pm | IP Logged | ||
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[QUOTE]I have worked and associated with many (hundreds of) immigrants, and only a handful speak fluent grammatically correct English, but they all have accents and most don't use idioms, rare words, etc.QUOTE]
What countries were those immigrants from? From all over the world or was everyone from the same particular region? (just curious) So youd say that maybe 1 in say 100 (adult) immigrants seems to end up speaking English like a native speaker does (if their accent was not considered)? (just curious, again ;)) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| irrationale Tetraglot Senior Member China Joined 6050 days ago 669 posts - 1023 votes 2 sounds Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Tagalog Studies: Ancient Greek, Japanese | Message 20 of 23 30 June 2009 at 10:23am | IP Logged | ||
They are mostly from East Asia, Southeast Asia, Philippines and Indonesia, Mexico and east and west Africa. I have had relatively little to no dealings with Europeans. I have also seen many children immigrants, but we all know that is a different situation, and many of those speak native English. My "sample size" is restricted because most of these immigrants are in a workplace environment, which at least requires intermediate level English (at my work). Offhand and very roughly I would say that from the people I have seen, out of a 100, I would say 1 A1 5 are A2, 30 are B1, 50 B2, 15 C1 and 1 or 2 C2. The A1 and A2s are from Mexico and live in Mexican immigrant communities and have never received English schooling. The 1 C2 is from India, grew up in Malaysia and speaks (or used to speak) 4 languages. The other is from Africa and owns his own business. Both have been here for 20 years or more, and are nurses with professional educations. The majority of the people at C1 are Asians and Africans have received lots of English schooling at home. The intermediates are a smattering of people that just speak bad English with really bad accents. Still, the C2s both have slight accents and do not have true native like speech. You can tell that they are foreigners even though their English is perfect. The distinction lies not only in the accents, but the pause fillers, mannerisms, vocab choices, and unconscious things that natives just do (like saying "like" and "just" too much). It is testament to the great accomplishment of an adult reaching native-like speech in a foreign language. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| FrenchLanguage Senior Member Germany Joined 5736 days ago 122 posts - 135 votes | Message 21 of 23 30 June 2009 at 9:14pm | IP Logged | ||
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very interesting! thanks
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 Hencke Tetraglot Moderator Spain Joined 6894 days ago 2340 posts - 2444 votes Speaks: Swedish*, Finnish, EnglishC2, Spanish Studies: Mandarin Personal Language Map | Message 22 of 23 30 June 2009 at 11:22pm | IP Logged | ||
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When I was living in the UK I met someone who had immigrated from the US, I think he was originally from California. He was close, but didn't sound totally native despite having lived in the country for thirty odd years ;o).
Another member of the club, originally from Germany, who had come to the UK as a young adult sometime soon after the war, was completely indistinguishable from the locals, according to themselves - I wouldn't have known as my ear wasn't that finely tuned to the local country dialect in that corner of Sussex. Edited by Hencke on 30 June 2009 at 11:27pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Caveben Diglot Groupie United Kingdom Joined 5665 days ago 40 posts - 40 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Italian, Romanian, Slovenian | Message 23 of 23 11 July 2009 at 7:44am | IP Logged | ||
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I found another example of an immigrant almost completely losing their accent. Peter Schmeichel moved to Manchester when he was 28. He's Danish but his accent is almost indistinguishable from a strong Mancunian one. The only times when his origin is an anyway apparent (to me at least, Mancunians may think differently) is in his filler sounds.
Here is an interview: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVmt35152Qk 1 person has voted this message useful |
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