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Acquiring near-native pronunciation | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| slucido Bilingual Diglot Senior Member Spain https://goo.gl/126Yv Joined 6487 days ago 1296 posts - 1781 votes  4 sounds Speaks: Spanish*, Catalan* Studies: English | Message 41 of 83 19 December 2010 at 12:51pm | IP Logged | |||||
I disagree in one thing: "without strenuous effort." For me this is mortal boring, but it is as boring as effective. My adaptation: 1-Choose short audio sentences (between 1 or 4 seconds) 2-Listen the audio a lot of times, thousand of times (maybe while you are doing something else) 3-Chorus with the audio 2,100 times. No more than 100 or 200 repetitions in a row. You don't want to become mental. 5-Use a timeboxer: 4 second sentences + 5 minutes = 100 repetitions. 6-Use some sort of distributed practice. I have the feeling that it would be better if you chorus the audio while looking the native MOUTH repeating the sentence. I am looking if I can find videos or something. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6515 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 42 of 83 19 December 2010 at 3:34pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I was somewhat surprised reading about Aineko's problems with 'won't' or 'want'. I'm well aware that my own pronunciation in several languages is somewhat idiosyncratic, but once I have discovered that there is a problem I have rarely had problems correcting it. And I'm fairly sure that I not only can hear the difference between 'won't' and 'want', but also define the difference and pronounce them correctly (as "wöunt" vs. "wåårnt", using some homemade renderings because I haven't bothered to learn IPA yet). I would say that separating aspirated and non-aspirated variants of some consonants has been more difficult for me. But even here the important step is to be able not only to hear the difference, but also to define it - maybe with the help of a phonological textbook or a trained language teacher. Ordinary native speakers have a tendency to believe that just repeating the sounds in question is enough, but it isn't - you have to discover what the trick is.
Actually getting a totally native pronunciation in every single language I know is not at the top of my agenda, although I have been mistaken for a native speaker of a few languages a few times (but probably never a speaker representing the local variant of those languages). But when I set my mind to it I can normally find out why two pronunciations are different and act accordingly, maybe because I spent time learning about phonology at the university long ago, but also because I deliberately try to listen to the sounds instead of organizing the whole thing into phonemes or - even worse - meanings right away. And more often than not the things I hear with my own ears aren't the things I can read in my books. Maybe I'm relying too much on that technique for comfort, because it means that I expect to pick up the sound of the local languages/dialects fast when I travel instead of learning those properly before leaving my home, but so far this strategy works reasonably well for me. Edited by Iversen on 19 December 2010 at 3:39pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Sandy Newbie United Kingdom Joined 5440 days ago 37 posts - 61 votes | Message 44 of 83 19 December 2010 at 4:15pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Jan Molby is fairly well known in the UK. He would pass as a native English speaker although he is Danish. I don't know if he spoke much English when he arrived here as a 21 year old. Before he come to the UK he played for Ajax in Holland and his coach there said that Molby "was speaking perfect Dutch within 2 or 3 months."
You can hear Jan Molby being interviewed here : Molby speaking English and here : Molby speaking Danish It would be interesting to know if his Danish accent has been influenced by all the time he spent in the UK. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5242 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 45 of 83 19 December 2010 at 4:16pm | IP Logged | |||||
This quote made want to revisit a misunderstanding (on my part) of this issue of native-like pronunciation. Misunderstanding that was the cause of some acrimony here. Consider the following statements: I speak Spanish like a native. When I speak with Spanish-speakers, I go unnoticed. Spanish-speakers mistake me for a fellow Spanish-speaker. I'm using Spanish here, but it could be any language of course. These statements are variations on the same theme. How should we understand them? My mistake--and I'm sure many people made this mistake--was to assume that "speaking" referred to overall speaking competence or proficiency in Spanish. For example, the CEFR rating system does not use the concept of native-like proficiency, preferring the terms mastery and advanced for the highest level. I think we can safely assume that the CEFR C2 level is the baseline for native-like proficiency. With reference particularly to speaking and listening, the Association for Language Testing of Europe, proposes the following can-do statement: "CAN advise on or talk about complex or sensitive issues, understanding colloquial references and dealing confidently with hostile questions." After reviewing the posts here, I have realized that my mistake was to assume that acquiring near-native pronunciation coincided with near-native speaking/listening proficiency. In fact, in this thread the two issues are completely divorced. Here we are focusing on learning to accurately reproduce the sounds of the language. In other words, the above statements could be replaced by: I can imitate the sounds of a native Spanish-speaker. Obviously, the real issue hear is the ambiguity in the usage of the verb "to speak". Conceivably, one could read or recite from memory a text with perfect diction and not understand a single word. Singers and choirs do this all the time. Actors often have to learn dialects for certain roles. I would suggest that the term "speak" be reserved for overall proficiency (e.g. I speak Spanish at the C2 level). And I would suggest using "imitate" or "mimic" to refer to the ability to reproduce the sounds of the target language. Now that we've separated sound reproduction from general speaking proficiency, we can focus on the mechanics of accent improvement whether it is for someone at the beginner A1 level or the advanced C2 level. All this has made me revise my positions. I now think that is is possible, albeit with considerable effort, for an adult learner to learn to imitate near-native pronunciation. I still maintain, however, that it is extremely rare for an adult learner to acquire equivalent native-like overall proficiency in a second language. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| slucido Bilingual Diglot Senior Member Spain https://goo.gl/126Yv Joined 6487 days ago 1296 posts - 1781 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Spanish*, Catalan* Studies: English | Message 46 of 83 19 December 2010 at 4:28pm | IP Logged | |||||
Why don't you try the "chorusing technique" with this sentence I recorded? http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/sounds/index.asp?sound= 235 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 5823 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 47 of 83 19 December 2010 at 4:57pm | IP Logged | |||||
But you're still placing two extreme categories. There are massive gaps in my Spanish knowledge, but when I speak Spanish, I am speaking spontaneously. I am not following a script, I produce complete and correct sentences on the spot. I am not "imitating" or "mimicking", I am "speaking" with an appropriate accent. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5242 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 48 of 83 19 December 2010 at 5:43pm | IP Logged | |||||
I don't see what the problem is. What two extreme categories are we talking about? All I'm saying is that accent and overall proficiency are two different issues here. One can produce complete and correct sentences at A1,A2,B1,B2,C1 and C2 levels. And one can have native-like pronunciation at all those levels. I have excellent pronunciation in German, a product of attending a German church as a child, but I am at less than A1 proficiency in German. Now, if you are telling us that you can produce complete and correct sentences at the C2 level in Spanish, then that is a being more precise. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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