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Do you pick up accents? | ||
Tags: Accent | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5566 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes  Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 17 of 24 01 December 2011 at 7:12pm | IP Logged | |||||
Actually, I'd like to argue for the opposite, as an important factor in communicaton is the skill to match the listener's pace and express the things you want to communicate in a way that makes them easily accessible to the other person. Being able to choose which parts of your conversation partner's body language, accent, speech style and facial expression you want to copy, which ones you want to match with a different expression of your own, and which ones you want to ignore for the time being in order to establish the level of rapport you want at a given time doesn't make you pretentious, it shows your people skills. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| rivere123 Senior Member United States Joined 4630 days ago 129 posts - 182 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 18 of 24 02 December 2011 at 3:21am | IP Logged | |||||
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The intended purpose of the thread was to see if you could pick up with an accent in English by learning the language used by people having the accent. Nonetheless, the replies were interesting.
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| Melisse Triglot Newbie Sweden Joined 4670 days ago 19 posts - 36 votes Speaks: English*, SwedishC1, French Studies: Dutch, Russian, Modern Hebrew | Message 19 of 24 02 December 2011 at 10:55pm | IP Logged | |||||
After learning Swedish, I can not imitate a Swedish accent when I speak English. After studying Russian for a few semesters in college and having Russian friends and family members, I can do a wonderful Russian accent in English even though I don't speak Russian. I think it has more to do with how much exposure you get to the target accent in English rather than just knowing the language to which the accent belongs. So, if you want to develop a good Russian accent when you speak English for instance, I think your best bet is to expose yourself to Russian speakers who have heavy Russian accents when they speak English and imitate them. Someone your own age and gender is best. Edited by Melisse on 02 December 2011 at 10:56pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| tractor Tetraglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5253 days ago 1349 posts - 2292 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, Catalan Studies: French, German, Latin | Message 20 of 24 03 December 2011 at 4:06am | IP Logged | |||||
Could you do it before you learnt Swedish? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| birthdaysuit Groupie United Kingdom Joined 4617 days ago 48 posts - 101 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Swedish | Message 21 of 24 03 December 2011 at 1:45pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I would definitely say that being able to pick up a foreigner's accent when they're
speaking English helps you to speak their language with a decent/good accent. If you hear what they put their stresses on in English, you can better understand how that works in their language, I guess. But I agree, you do need to do a lot of listening before it takes effect. The good thing is you can almost always do this by watching stuff - you don't always need actual exposure to native speakers to pick up their accents. But be cautious when mimicking folks, lest you want them thinking you're taking the micky. There have been a number of occasions when I've started using an accent absent- mindedly only to realise the person from whom I got the accent is in the room! Loool, that can be pretty uncomfortable... 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Melisse Triglot Newbie Sweden Joined 4670 days ago 19 posts - 36 votes Speaks: English*, SwedishC1, French Studies: Dutch, Russian, Modern Hebrew | Message 22 of 24 03 December 2011 at 9:39pm | IP Logged | |||||
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| Tecktight Diglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member United States Joined 4776 days ago 227 posts - 327 votes Speaks: English*, Serbian Studies: German, Russian, Estonian | Message 23 of 24 04 December 2011 at 6:05am | IP Logged | |||||
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One of my favorite party tricks is making various jokes in multiple accents, so I've spent quite a bit of time
"studying" accents. I picked up a few English accents, a Zimbabwe accent, and an Indian accent by listening to native speakers and then recording myself imitating them. I then listen to my recording, compare it to the original script, and attempt to fix any imperfections. Through this process, which I find rather fun, I can, like actors do, "train" myself into speaking with an accent. In regards to picking up an accent through learning a language, yes, I believe this is possible as well. Before learning German, I was unable to imitate a German accent, but, now, I am able to. I believe this is because German is so close to English in terms of a nearly identical alphabet (and more), and I needed to learn the differences in pronunciation of sounds like "z," "ei", etc. just to be able to speak. 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 24 of 24 04 December 2011 at 7:14am | IP Logged | |||||
Italian with an English accent, will that really help you speak English with an Italian accent? I think you'd be much better off working on listening to their accent in English first. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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