24 messages over 3 pages: 1 2 3
Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5567 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 |
HMS wrote:
*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. |
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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.
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| rivere123 Senior Member United States Joined 4631 days ago 129 posts - 182 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French
| Message 18 of 24 02 December 2011 at 3:21am | IP Logged |
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 4671 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 |
rivere123 wrote:
When you learn a language, can you mimic the accents of those people in English (for example, an Indian accent after learning Hindi or a Norwegian accent after learning Norwegian)?
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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
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| tractor Tetraglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5254 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 |
Melisse wrote:
After learning Swedish, I can not imitate a Swedish accent when I speak English. |
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Could you do it before you learnt Swedish?
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| birthdaysuit Groupie United Kingdom Joined 4618 days ago 48 posts - 101 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Swedish
| Message 21 of 24 03 December 2011 at 1:45pm | IP Logged |
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...
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| Melisse Triglot Newbie Sweden Joined 4671 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 |
tractor wrote:
Melisse wrote:
After learning Swedish, I can not imitate a Swedish accent when I speak English. |
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Could you do it before you learnt Swedish? |
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No.
1 person has voted this message useful
| Tecktight Diglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member United States Joined 4777 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 |
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 5182 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 |
rivere123 wrote:
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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Few people learn another language with accurate pronunciation. If you pronounce
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.
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