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Acquiring near-native pronunciation | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5193 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes  Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 1 of 83 13 December 2010 at 10:37pm | IP Logged | ||
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How does one acquire near-native pronunciation?
Do people often tell you they thought your L2 (or +) was your native language? If so, how did you do it? 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| ellasevia Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2011 Senior Member Germany Joined 5954 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 2 of 83 13 December 2010 at 11:53pm | IP Logged | ||
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I've had those experiences in Greek, Spanish, French, and Brazilian Portuguese. I would venture to say that the key is to have lots of exposure and listen a lot, but I know that lots of people do that and still struggle with their accent, so... Also, I used relatively few audio materials while learning Portuguese, so I'm not even sure how I managed to achieve what is apparently a very good accent. However, I learned (or started learning) all of these languages while I was young, before I was six for the first two and before I was fourteen for the second two.
Greek - Family language, so I had exposure as a child, so it would be natural that I have native-like pronunciation. Spanish - School language when I was little, so I also had lots of exposure at a young age. French - Started learning when I was around 12-13... Some people from France were staying with us this summer and I tried to speak with them in French as much as possible. They said that if they had to say where I was from (besides France) based on my accent, they would have said Québec. Portuguese - Started shortly after French, at age 12-13. Every Brazilian I've ever spoken to or have had my pronunciation evaluated by said that its very close to a native pronunciation... 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6721 days ago 4250 posts - 5710 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 3 of 83 14 December 2010 at 12:34am | IP Logged | ||
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I wouldn't say that I have a native accent, but it definitely non-Swedish (and fairly "American"). In Germany they say I sound American, in Ireland I've been taken for a native (at least by people who aren't native English speakers), and a Canadian (by a native Irish). Sometimes I adapt to the surrounding accent, sometimes I speak with an entirely different accent... I don't know why. It just happens.
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| M. Medialis Diglot TAC 2010 Winner Senior Member Sweden Joined 6169 days ago 397 posts - 508 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: Russian, Japanese, French | Message 4 of 83 14 December 2010 at 12:51am | IP Logged | ||
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My experiences from playing the piano has taught me that listening to yourself is actually a hard-acquired skill.
A couple of years ago, it was always an unpleasant shock to listen to recordings of my own piano playing: what!? did I do that pause?, and that thing sounds horrible, I thought I played it perfectly.. etc. The remedy to this is quite simple: Listen a lot to natives' speech so you know how it should sound. Then, record yourself often so you get to hear how you actually sound! Never stop working on the small details. I'm quite sure this will do wonders with any accent. (I must admit that I have not acquired native-like pronunciation in any language yet. Have no reasons for doing it in English, and have not come far enough in my other languages - I am only speaking from my piano experiences). 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Alex_y Diglot Newbie Colombia Joined 4907 days ago 4 posts - 4 votes Speaks: Spanish*, English Studies: French, Japanese | Message 5 of 83 14 December 2010 at 1:26am | IP Logged | ||
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Lots of exposure, I think.
I started learning English when I was about four or five years old at school, and nearly all my teachers were native ( about two or three british teachers, one canadian, one welsh and about three or four americans). so, even If I don't sound like any particular place I could say I have a fairly native-like pronounciation. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| fielle Diglot Groupie Japan maliora.com Joined 5082 days ago 53 posts - 69 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: German | Message 6 of 83 14 December 2010 at 2:23am | IP Logged | ||
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Nobody thinks my L2 is my native language (the non-Japanese-ness of the rest of me gives it away), but they do comment that my accent sounds very good.
I think it involves lots of careful listening to others and yourself, and possibly careful music training as a youth, and possibly also learning the basics of the language by ear and not by text. For Japanese, some basis in Spanish from a very early age may also help. But these are all baseless theories. You definitely have to at least pay attention to the way you talk. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Darklight1216 Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4912 days ago 411 posts - 639 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: German | Message 7 of 83 14 December 2010 at 4:49am | IP Logged | ||
Listening to myself scares me because my voice recording sounds very similar to the recordings that I'm listening to on Mango. I don't trust my own assement, but unfortunately I don't know any native French speakers that I can ask. Edited by Darklight1216 on 14 December 2010 at 4:53am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| zerothinking Senior Member Australia Joined 6184 days ago 528 posts - 772 votes Speaks: English* | Message 8 of 83 14 December 2010 at 5:09am | IP Logged | ||
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I think study of the human mouth and the IPA is critical for most people who aren't
born with some amazingly natural gift or if you aren't already 20+. If you are in your early teens you have an advantage still to pick up near native accent by ear. For older people, you can pick up a great accent just by ear, but if you want to get to near- native level there is a high likely hood that there are phonemes and parts of articulation that you simply cannot hear and aren't aware of that stick out to a native speaker because you don't pronounce them right. For instance, Japanese learners almost all pronounce sh and ch in Japanese as they would in English because that's what they are almost all taught. It is not the same phoneme as the Japanese one. Japanese people can hear that. The list goes on for Japanese and for many other languages. Chinese, x, q, ch. French consonants aren't aspirated. And so on and so forth. Edited by zerothinking on 14 December 2010 at 5:12am 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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