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Do you pick up accents? | ||
Tags: Accent | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| HMS Senior Member England Joined 4907 days ago 143 posts - 256 votes  Speaks: English* | Message 9 of 24 30 November 2011 at 9:48pm | IP Logged | ||
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I don't think an accent is something that can actively be acquired, or even aspired to
having. It's something that happens. I know all the nuances and idiosyncrasies of people who live in various Scottish cities. Due to my immersion with people from those areas I have no difficulty understanding them. I could also mimic their accent if I wanted to. Does that mean I can stick 'Lowland Scots' on my language profile? I could even extend it and stick 'Lancashire' and also 'Yorkshire' - the main distinction between both being how to correctly refer to a bread bun...is it a bap, barm cake or bun! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5181 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 10 of 24 30 November 2011 at 9:58pm | IP Logged | ||
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An accent -- be it from a different city, country or language -- CAN be acquired. A perfect accent certainly doesn't just happen. Edited by Arekkusu on 30 November 2011 at 9:58pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| HMS Senior Member England Joined 4907 days ago 143 posts - 256 votes Speaks: English* | Message 11 of 24 30 November 2011 at 10:22pm | IP Logged | ||
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*Actively* was the operative word there. You cannot train to achieve an accent, an accent
is something that develops itself. Anyone training an accent is pretentious to say the least in my opinion. I accept I may be wrong but I speak as an English speaker and how I would personally feel if a non-English speaker spoke in English and attempted to do so with an accent. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| HMS Senior Member England Joined 4907 days ago 143 posts - 256 votes Speaks: English* | Message 12 of 24 30 November 2011 at 10:26pm | IP Logged | ||
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If a Japanese person spoke to me and said : "By'eck it's bloody cold today
innit...Eyy...gis a drag on yer fag marrerr...Gor blimey fackin redders innit" I would have a serious crisis of conscience deciding whether to laugh at them or punch them. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6503 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 13 of 24 30 November 2011 at 10:49pm | IP Logged | ||
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Maybe you can train an accent, maybe not. But you need to listen a lot, and in my opinion you also need to know which significants sounds characterize a certain dialect. Some people may pick those up without having them pointed out, but I suspect that actors who have to pick up (or avoid) a certain accent won´t let those things to chance. They would let a teacher tell them which exactly sounds they have to change. And after that step it is important to listen, listen and listen.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5062 days ago 2237 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 14 of 24 30 November 2011 at 11:14pm | IP Logged | ||
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In the acting field, there are people who teach accents to actors called "dialect coaches". If you've seen Hugh Laurie in "House", Gwyneth Paltrow in "Sliding Doors" or David Tennant in "Doctor Who" you can see that it works well.
I knew Hugh Laurie from "Blackadder" and was shocked to hear him in "House" with an American accent. Many Americans have no idea that Hugh Laurie is actually English. When I lived in England, I won many a bet with people who did not believe that Gwyneth Paltrow is American. Until I saw him appear on the "Graham Norton Show", I had no idea that David Tennant is Scottish. Now what dialect coaches do is more of a general accent than a more specific accent like say Scouse or Yorkshire, but it does prove that an accent can be taught and learned. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5181 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 15 of 24 01 December 2011 at 4:09pm | IP Logged | ||
? Why? You don't own an accent. If the person intended to make fun of you, that's different, but if the person is trying to fit it by having the local accent, I don't see that why that should lead to violence... Actually, I couldn't find it just now, but I remember seeing a video on Youtube of a Japanese girl doing an interview with a North English accent. She did a really good job. I highly doubt you'd punch her for it. Edited by Arekkusu on 01 December 2011 at 4:23pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Kwai-Chang Tetraglot Newbie Switzerland Joined 4545 days ago 8 posts - 27 votes Speaks: English*, French, German, Spanish Studies: Mandarin | Message 16 of 24 01 December 2011 at 4:23pm | IP Logged | ||
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Certainly in the north of England there are 2nd / 3rd generation Asians with English accents thick enough to float rocks on.
I learned my Spanish in S. America, my French in W. Africa and my German in Switzerland, all three involved a lot of immersion, and as an added bonus, the accents came with the languages. My sister in law from Schleswig-holstein cannot stop laughing when she hears my German. Technically I'm at a good level, but she says I sound like a Bayerisch farmer... 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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