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Timeline to developing an accent | ||
Tags: Accent | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5175 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes  Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 25 of 100 24 March 2014 at 4:52pm | IP Logged | ||
Actually, I wasn't insinuating that having theoretical knowledge would suffice; the correlation was simply that those who do well with accents probably have great control over the production of their L1 to begin with (whether or not that control is supplemented with theoretical knowledge). Edited by Arekkusu on 24 March 2014 at 4:54pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| NewLanguageGuy Groupie France youtube.com/NewLangu Joined 4401 days ago 74 posts - 134 votes Speaks: English* | Message 26 of 100 24 March 2014 at 5:04pm | IP Logged | ||
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I agree with Stujay about having to hit the right notes. Doing so just takes endless practice.
If you want to just converse, focus on your grammar and syntax before anything else. Once your grammar is good, then work on the accent. No good sounding like a native but making tons of mistakes. A lot of people will force the accent to hide gaps in their knowledge of the mechanics of the language. After that, the question has to br: Why try to sound like a native? For English speakers particularly, it helps to stop natives in their TL replying to them in English. One piece of advice I always give is not to try and speak fast. Speak slowly and deliberately. You are never speaking as slowly as you think you are. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5175 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 27 of 100 24 March 2014 at 5:14pm | IP Logged | ||
Really? Accent is the hardest thing to fix, so working on that to hide grammatical mistakes seems counterproductive. Edited by Arekkusu on 24 March 2014 at 5:15pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| NewLanguageGuy Groupie France youtube.com/NewLangu Joined 4401 days ago 74 posts - 134 votes Speaks: English* | Message 28 of 100 24 March 2014 at 6:04pm | IP Logged | ||
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Perhaps not in all languages, but I find in Latin languages people tend to focus on accent at the expense of syntax.
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| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6376 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 29 of 100 24 March 2014 at 6:45pm | IP Logged | ||
Sure, probably. I don't really know IPA, but I find I can make distinctions and pick up on them in places where most people can't. For example, when I discuss how the difference between "nakenbadare" and "naken badare" is not one of pausing between words (nobody does that in their native language) but rather one of tone, I find a lot of people have a hard time grasping this, despite having no trouble producing both phrases flawlessly. But even though they don't actually do pause between words, they think they do, because of the spaces in texts. A similar example in English might be how lots of Americans believe they pronounce "writer" and "rider" differently when they actually don't. EDIT: The Swedish example is evident in how lots of Swedes have trouble knowing when to space words apart and when to write them together, even though they have no problem with the differing pronunciations. I have never had a problem with that. I'd love to see a study trying to correlate difficulty with "särskrivning" (as the issue is called when people separate words that should be written as a compound) and accent in foreign languages (English would be easiest, as almost all Swedes can speak it). Edited by Ari on 24 March 2014 at 6:49pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5001 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 30 of 100 25 March 2014 at 10:50am | IP Logged | ||
Yes, I have met quite a few people who speak French, for example, with a great accent but about five mistakes per sentence. And they tend to get a lot of praise from native speakers, which would suggest that the good accent "hides" the mistakes. I suppose they're just playing to their strengths; while I find grammar much easier than accent, everyone is different and I don't doubt that those people are the opposite and find grammar hard and boring while accent comes naturally to them. From their point of view, why struggle with grammar work when accent has much the same effect? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5128 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 31 of 100 25 March 2014 at 12:50pm | IP Logged | ||
I am happy to see that I do not disagree with @arekkusu then, but unless I misunderstand you totally, I do disagree with you :-) - If you ignore your accent in the beginning, you are almost certain to have problems later on. - And if you have poor grammar, at least show mercy to the people you talk with by having a pleasent accent. - Forcing the accent to hide gaps in knowledge - of course! It is called survival strategy! - I think very few have the ambition to sound like an actual native - it is more a question of reaching for the stars, in order to get as high as possible. - And as soon as I can say anything at all in a language, I will always speak fast. I am genetically incapable of talking slowly, unless forced to by lack of skills. That is by the way also quite a good strategy. Many years ago I asked a Canadian English teacher to correct my English mistakes. "I can't do that" she said. "You speak so fast that my brain does not have the time to register them". I only wish that worked in writing as well. My fingers can't follow my brain, so when I write fast, there are more mistakes than correct words. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| beano Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4416 days ago 1049 posts - 2152 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Russian, Serbian, Hungarian | Message 32 of 100 25 March 2014 at 2:33pm | IP Logged | ||
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An accent which seriously hinders communication is never a desirable thing. But an accent doesn't have to be anywhere near native-like in order for your speech to be readily understood by natives.
And there lies the rub. A fair approximation of a native accent will allow you to fully participate so I reckon many people leave it there. Why spend a large amounts of time filing away the rough edges when you can already communicate and there are other things to learn. Of course, there's nothing wrong with pursuing the perfect accent if that's your goal, but it isn't a necessary survival skill. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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