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Choosing a dialect from day 1 | ||
Tags: Dialect | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| I'm With Stupid Senior Member Vietnam Joined 3982 days ago 165 posts - 349 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: German, Vietnamese | Message 1 of 45 31 August 2013 at 6:11pm | IP Logged |
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I hear all the time that people want to learn American English rather than British English or South American Spanish rather than...erm...Spanish Spanish. Is there actually any sense in doing this, given that most people who learn a language as an adult will never get to the stage of having a native accent anyway? And if so, is it important to focus on this pronunciation from the start, or does it not really matter until you're more advanced? Is speaking a particular dialect important to you? For anyone who's mastered a particular accent or dialect, how did you go about it?
And just for fun, here's a link to a Norwegian Man City fan with a Manc accent: http://www.mcfc.co.uk/citytv/Features/2013/August/City-fans- around-the-world 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Medulin Tetraglot Senior Member Croatia Joined 4477 days ago 1199 posts - 2192 votes Speaks: Croatian*, English, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Norwegian, Hindi, Nepali | Message 2 of 45 31 August 2013 at 7:03pm | IP Logged |
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It's easier to focus on one accent/variant/dialect than on 10 :)
In my case: accidental ''preferences'' were Baiano Brazilian Portuguese (spent 2 years in Bahia), Buenos Aires Argentine Spanish (visited many times, have relatives there), St. John's Canadian English (my uncle lives there with his family). Mainly acoustic preferences: West Coast styled Nynorsk Norwegian (in my opinion it sound better than West Oslo Bokmaal; I like the french R in Norwegian better as well as the West Norwegian pitch accent; Southeastern Norwegian has rising pitch in unstressed syllables, this is impossible for me to imitate). Practical preferences: New Delhii Hindi, Peking-Chengde Mandarin, Hanoi Vietnamese (all courses feature these variants, at least the most neutral-sounding forms of it). Edited by Medulin on 31 August 2013 at 7:10pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4516 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 3 of 45 31 August 2013 at 7:09pm | IP Logged |
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Belgian French (learned French in Brussels). Other than that no particular preferences.
1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 4818 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 4 of 45 31 August 2013 at 7:21pm | IP Logged |
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I agree it is mostly nonsense.
With one exception. You know you are going to move to Mexico and find resources teaching Mexican Spanish. Awesome, go for it. The same for Venezuelan Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, American English and so on. Other than that, I don't think it is reasonable. I think learning any pronunciation well should be the priority, learning the vocabulary specific for the dialects mixed together won't hurt anything as well. And there are not that many grammar difference to make a chaos of it (and it is easier to keep learning one grammar than to keep learning one vocabulary). And after all, you will probably never be considered native anyways. The "pure dialect hunt" is only a torture instrument in the hands of some teachers (my former English teacher was an example). And a self-torture instrument in hands of many students. :-) 4 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 4818 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 5 of 45 31 August 2013 at 7:26pm | IP Logged |
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Ah, I write slowly.
Medulin, where do you get enough resources to keep learning just the one dialect all the way from zero up to the high level? I would love to know them. Most times, I have most resources in the standard (or "most standard") variant, with a few notes about others, and some resources in one dialect while others in a different one. I don't focus on ten dialects. I focus on learning a more or less mixed variant that I'll be able to use. How mixed depends on my sources. A textbook usually tells you "We are focusing on French used in France" but a tv series doesn't tell. I can willingly focus on European Spanish but I am very unlikely to ever discern dialects of German from each other, especially in the active skills. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| wber Groupie United States Joined 4110 days ago 45 posts - 77 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Vietnamese, French | Message 6 of 45 31 August 2013 at 11:59pm | IP Logged |
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I somewhat agree with Cavesa. It really doesn't matter what you choose unless you are sure that you're going to be living in a certain region.
I'd say choose the standard version whether it be Standard American, Standard British etc.. and then add in regional dialect, variants, vocabulary depending on where you live. It doesn't matter if native speakers are from LA, London, Sydney, Lisbon, Rio de Janeiro, Quebec, Paris, Buenos Aires, Mexico City, Colombia, or Barcelona, they'll most likely be able to understand and switch to the standard register. What you should focus on is word usage. I mean, it would be weird ( not necessarily bad), just weird to hear a Texan say lorry instead of truck or that your car has a bonnet and a trunk. Vietnamese is a partial exception in my experience. Historical standard is the northern version. Overseas Vietnamese over here will always use the southern dialect from 1975 and before. Those that do use the northern version will mostly used mixed north/south ( before 1975) or more poetic version (1920s,1930s). Official version in Vietnam is northern version (after 1975) 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Cabaire Senior Member Germany Joined 5408 days ago 725 posts - 1352 votes | Message 7 of 45 01 September 2013 at 12:31am | IP Logged |
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In Irish you have only dialects and an artificial standard (especially the pronunciation). Therefore I chose Munster Irish.
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| Chris Ford Groupie United States Joined 4552 days ago 65 posts - 101 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Portuguese | Message 8 of 45 01 September 2013 at 12:44am | IP Logged |
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It depends. As others have mentioned, if you know you're moving to a specific country, then why not specialize? It also depends on the language and your goals. If you want to learn Arabic to speak with people in Morocco, you're definitely going to need to learn that specific dialect, because the difference between 'dialects' in Arabic can be massive.
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