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How do polyglots do it? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4496 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 113 of 159 10 January 2014 at 10:01am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Yes. That is the meaning of the term advanced, and thus a tautology. I'm not sure what your point is in that case.
Nobody made this statement. Only you took everything out of context. So I don't get where you pulled this from. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4996 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 114 of 159 10 January 2014 at 11:12am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Wow, this topic actually evolved into something that I find interesting! I really didn't see that one coming.
I think here we're falling into the trap of assuming the situation for English is the same as the situation for other languages and cultures. English speakers tend to be very used to foreign accents and very accepting of them, even finding many of them charming. This isn't necessarily the case for speakers of other languages, where a decent accent is practically a prerequisite to being taken seriously by many people and a bad one gives a poor first impression of your general proficiency which you then have to work hard to change. Accent is obvious as soon as you open your mouth, while things like good grammar and vocabulary take more time to become obvious, and in many everyday situations you don't have that time. Obviously that's a generalisation, not all people in a culture have the same attitude, and there's a balance between working on accent and working on other aspects; I shouldn't even need to say all this, but hey, this is HTLAL! I'm not saying we should all be trying to develop a native-like accent, but I think that some time spent working on acquiring a half-decent one that doesn't make you sound like an obvious Anglophone is worthwhile (unless of course you're one of the lucky souls who manages to pick up a decent pronunciation just from listening), and it's what I've been doing myself recently. 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6386 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 115 of 159 10 January 2014 at 11:35am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Exactly, like an obvious Anglophone. If your noticeable accent isn't English, in most cases it's much less of a problem.
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| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4698 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 116 of 159 10 January 2014 at 12:11pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Your point is very true Gary. But that is why Beano specifically stated, "...as long as it is not interfering with other peoples' comprehension." I have experienced this problem in India. My Hindi could be understood in town where they were used to foreigners with poor accents, but when I would visit villages, I often had to speak more carefully in order to be understood. But at the end of the day, I would rather be well-spoken and articulate in expressing myself, than try to work at passing for a native. For me, it is because I know a lot of people who speak English with an accent, but who can discuss interesting subjects at the highest levels. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5219 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 117 of 159 10 January 2014 at 2:05pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Really, I don't understand what this fuss about having a native-like accent is about. Obviously we want to be intelligible in our target language, and that entails a decent accent. Does that mean one should aim for a certain threshold and then stop trying to get better? I don't think anybody believes that.
What happens, I think, is that it is a case of diminishing returns. We all know that acquiring a truly local native accent or even a kind of neutral "accent-less" accent is very difficult at an adult age, and that there is so much else to acquire, in terms of vocabulary and syntax for content, that it becomes a question of priorities. If you have particular reasons for wanting to pass for native - maybe you're a spy or you need to blend into the population for political reasons -, then perfect pronunciation is a priority. Otherwise, for most of us, there is so much else to learn that perfect pronunciation is not necessary. That said, I know of a specific example where pronunciation is paramount. Where I live many French-speaking Canadian actors want to work in the United States in English. They take courses given by American dialect coaches on how to sound American for auditions and demo tapes. In this case, studying vocabulary and syntax has little importance because the words are given to the actors. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6994 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 118 of 159 10 January 2014 at 3:32pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Polyglots do it all over the world.
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| josepablo Tetraglot Senior Member Portugal Joined 3779 days ago 123 posts - 141 votes Speaks: German, Spanish, Dutch, Portuguese Studies: Russian, Mandarin, Turkish | Message 119 of 159 10 January 2014 at 5:13pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
What do you mean? Do what all over the world? Speak foreign languages with native accents? 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Hungringo Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 3777 days ago 168 posts - 329 votes Speaks: Hungarian*, English, Spanish Studies: French | Message 120 of 159 10 January 2014 at 5:59pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
I think there is a difference between having native-like proficiency and having a native-like (by which I mean not recognisably foreign) accent. Achieving native like proficiency as an adult is really difficult and means loads of hard work. On the other hand, I not only believe, but can tell by experience that although depending on many factors (e.g. your native tongue, exposure, time, age, individual abilities, determination etc.) you can acquire a native-like accent meaning that you won't be easily caught out as a foreigner. I've personally met several people who spoke Hungarian so well having learnt it as adults, that I wasn't able to spot that they were not natives. Among these people there was a Romanian waiter who at that time had been in Hungary for about 3 years. There was an Irish artist who had lived in the country for 5-6 years and had a Hungarian wife. It's very likely that neither the Romanian waiter, nor the Irish artist would win a Hungarian scrabble game, but they speak the language well enough to be considered natives in normal social situations. I went to that restaurant on a daily basis for several months and it never occured to me that the waiter might not be native Hungarian, until one day I had a longer chat with him and he mentioned his origins. With the Irish artist I chatted about paintings and food for about 20-30 minutes at a party, and I was told only days later by a common friend that the guy wasn't Hungarian. Very often a good - native-like if you want - accent comes naturally and is not the result of a very conscious strategy, let alone accent training or speech therapy. I have a very good accent in Spanish and French and a terrible one in English. I never worked - apart from my normal learning process - on my Spanish and French accent, while I live in England and spent a fortune on English accent-reduction courses, to no avail. Edited by Hungringo on 10 January 2014 at 6:15pm 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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