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L2 accent in L3? | ||
Tags: Accent | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Ester Groupie Joined 5476 days ago 64 posts - 114 votes  Speaks: Modern Hebrew | Message 1 of 18 06 October 2010 at 4:11pm | IP Logged |
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Has anyone here ever been told, by a L3 native speaker, that they have a L2 accent in L3, rather than their native accent?
I was told a couple of times that in one of my languages I sound a bit like a speaker of a language I had learned previously, but which is not my native one. To make the whole thing even better, in that particular language I don't sound even native-like when I speak it - I'm good, but not that awesome that you'd automatically mistake me for a native speaker. So how is it possible that my speech in L3 is so characterized by certain phonological qualities of L2, to the point of giving it a sort of a nuance that's very L2-ish? Supposedly I sound more L2-ish in L3 than in L2 itself. L2 and L3 aren't related languages and don't have very similar phonological systems. Has this ever happened to anyone else? How do you explain it? 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| numerodix Trilingual Hexaglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 6592 days ago 856 posts - 1226 votes Speaks: EnglishC2*, Norwegian*, Polish*, Italian, Dutch, French Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin | Message 2 of 18 06 October 2010 at 4:19pm | IP Logged |
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I'm actually not surprised. It hasn't happened to me (yet), but I've been thinking about
it. The thing about L2 is that you've (probably) put a lot of time into listening to it and focusing on it, practicing the pronunciation. So it's logical (imo) that it would spill into your L3. Because if you think about it, what is the reason people have an L1 accent in the first place? It's because they're unable to shed certain conventions in speech, idiom and sentence structure from their L1, unconsciously, when they're speaking L2. And so if you put L2 in place of L1, it's the same thing. Edited by numerodix on 06 October 2010 at 4:19pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5190 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 3 of 18 06 October 2010 at 5:08pm | IP Logged |
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My Spanish teacher once told me I had an Italian accent. Mind you, I was taking an Italian class at the same time, so I wasn't surprised.
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| ellasevia Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2011 Senior Member Germany Joined 5951 days ago 2150 posts - 3229 votes Speaks: English*, German, Croatian, Greek, French, Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian Studies: Catalan, Persian, Mandarin, Japanese, Romanian, Ukrainian | Message 4 of 18 06 October 2010 at 5:10pm | IP Logged |
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I wouldn't be surprised if someone told me that I had a bit of a Spanish or Greek accent in another language. I even have a trace of a Greek accent in English, apparently.
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| Andy E Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6912 days ago 1651 posts - 1939 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French | Message 5 of 18 06 October 2010 at 10:13pm | IP Logged |
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Many moons ago I was told in a language lab at University that I spoke French with a German accent (I studied German at school at well) - French was L2 and German L3. Most recently in August several hotel staff in France were convinced initially that I was Spanish so I now seem to have acquired a Spanish accent in my French - I guess chronologically Spanish is L5 but ability-wise L2.
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| alang Diglot Senior Member Canada Joined 7030 days ago 563 posts - 757 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish | Message 6 of 18 06 October 2010 at 11:08pm | IP Logged |
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Similarly when I speak Esperanto some think I have a Spanish accent. When I have spoken Spanish the Brazilian accent has been said as well. I think it depends on the person, as it cannot really be pinpointed, but only guessing what is heard. I did study Spanish way before Esperanto for a limited time, but Esperanto was noticeably easier due to word recognition. Eventually I went back to Spanish again for improvement. Multiple languages a person has will have multiple accents. Similar to someone using a word accidentally defaulting from language to another. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| tommus Senior Member CanadaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5675 days ago 979 posts - 1688 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Dutch, French, Esperanto, German, Spanish | Message 7 of 18 06 October 2010 at 11:20pm | IP Logged |
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I wouldn't exactly call it an accent, but when I started to learn Dutch, my rusty German pronunciation got in the way, especially for the word for "I", ik. So I had to quickly try to suppress my German pronunciation.
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| BartoG Diglot Senior Member United States confession Joined 5256 days ago 292 posts - 818 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Italian, Spanish, Latin, Uzbek | Message 8 of 18 06 October 2010 at 11:31pm | IP Logged |
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When I took German at university, the professor always remarked on my French accent, noting that I needed to enunciate every sound and pronounce the ends of words. I didn't run into the same problem in my Spanish classes. But it makes sense to me that this would just be a second scale reversion - if people uncomfortable speaking foreign languages revert to their native accent to sound natural, then people comfortable with foreign languages might revert to their L2 accent so that their speech isn't tinged with their L1 accent.
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