Register  Login  Active Topics  Maps  

Foreigner with Regional Italian Accent

  Tags: Italian | Accent
 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages Post Reply
21 messages over 3 pages: 13  Next >>
eyðimörk
Triglot
Senior Member
France
goo.gl/aT4FY7
Joined 3894 days ago

490 posts - 1158 votes 
Speaks: Swedish*, English, French
Studies: Breton, Italian

 
 Message 9 of 21
15 April 2015 at 1:42pm | IP Logged 
No, obviously you didn't. If you had said it I wouldn't have had to ask.

My question still stands. If someone who speaks "perfect Italian" doesn't come off as native, because native Italians have distinct accents, does a native Italian without a distinct/with a jumbled accent come off as non-native? If not, what is it the native Italian whose accent is all over the place does differently from the foreigner with "perfect Italian" whose accent is equally not perfectly calibrated to a very specific location?
1 person has voted this message useful



nikolic993
Diglot
Senior Member
Yugoslavia
Joined 3575 days ago

106 posts - 205 votes 
Speaks: Serbian*, English
Studies: Italian, Mandarin, Romanian, Persian

 
 Message 10 of 21
15 April 2015 at 2:58pm | IP Logged 
eyðimörk wrote:
what is it the native Italian whose accent is all over the place does differently from the foreigner with "perfect Italian" whose accent is equally not perfectly calibrated to a very specific location?
Well, I think that prosody (stress, intonation, timing) is what distinguishes a native speaker from a non native one (in any language, not just Italian), no matter how good the non native's pronunciation is. It's obviously not just about pronouncing certain words (and phrases) in a specific way, you need the whole package.

Edited by nikolic993 on 15 April 2015 at 2:59pm

1 person has voted this message useful



eyðimörk
Triglot
Senior Member
France
goo.gl/aT4FY7
Joined 3894 days ago

490 posts - 1158 votes 
Speaks: Swedish*, English, French
Studies: Breton, Italian

 
 Message 11 of 21
15 April 2015 at 3:16pm | IP Logged 
nikolic993 wrote:
Well, I think that prosody (stress, intonation, timing) is what distinguishes a native speaker from a non native one (in any language, not just Italian), no matter how good the non native's pronunciation is.

Perhaps it is just me, but I don't understand someone whose prosody is off to speak "perfect" anything (which was the case in one of the examples), and I don't understand the problem to be general inability to grasp the prosody when the discussion is about regional accents and how Italy's myriad of accents make it impossible for foreigners to "pass". Hence my question. In my native Swedish, prosody and accent varies from region to region, but that does not make it impossible to "pass", though many choose not to make the effort. The accent is rarely the issue, because we have people with strange mixed prosody and mixed accents who tend to get the question "you have an odd accent, which part of Sweden are you from?" rather than "you have an odd accent, which country are you from?"

I should add that I'm asking out of curiosity and because I don't quite understand how the number of accents connect with failure to pass despite speaking "perfectly". I have no intent of personally becoming an advanced speaker of Italian, much less pass for a native.
2 persons have voted this message useful



OCCASVS
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Poland
Joined 6438 days ago

134 posts - 140 votes 
1 sounds
Speaks: Italian*, English, French, Polish

 
 Message 12 of 21
17 April 2015 at 1:48pm | IP Logged 
I think we are generally aware of the different accents in Italy.

Anyone would be able to label it as Northern/Central/Southern/Sicilian/Sardinian. Thus, anything that can't fall in these categories is by default "foreign".
2 persons have voted this message useful



eyðimörk
Triglot
Senior Member
France
goo.gl/aT4FY7
Joined 3894 days ago

490 posts - 1158 votes 
Speaks: Swedish*, English, French
Studies: Breton, Italian

 
 Message 13 of 21
17 April 2015 at 2:16pm | IP Logged 
OCCASVS wrote:
I think we are generally aware of the different accents in Italy.

Anyone would be able to label it as Northern/Central/Southern/Sicilian/Sardinian. Thus, anything that can't fall in these categories is by default "foreign".

In your opinion then: yes, a native Italian who moved around a lot within Italy might well be taken for a foreigner?

Edited by eyðimörk on 17 April 2015 at 2:17pm

2 persons have voted this message useful



OCCASVS
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Poland
Joined 6438 days ago

134 posts - 140 votes 
1 sounds
Speaks: Italian*, English, French, Polish

 
 Message 14 of 21
17 April 2015 at 2:33pm | IP Logged 
eyðimörk wrote:
OCCASVS wrote:
I think we are generally aware of the different accents in Italy.

Anyone would be able to label it as Northern/Central/Southern/Sicilian/Sardinian. Thus, anything that can't fall in these categories is by default "foreign".

In your opinion then: yes, a native Italian who moved around a lot within Italy might well be taken for a foreigner?

Not really. Possibly, it would be more difficult to identify their accent, but the prosody and the intonation would still sound "native".
3 persons have voted this message useful



michaelyus
Diglot
Groupie
United Kingdom
Joined 4360 days ago

53 posts - 87 votes 
Speaks: Mandarin, English*
Studies: Italian, French, Cantonese, Korean, Catalan, Vietnamese, Lingala, Spanish
Studies: Hokkien

 
 Message 15 of 21
17 April 2015 at 2:58pm | IP Logged 
Although my Italian is not quite up to the level where I can distinguish accents
with any precision (I can just about do north vs south, whereas I am yet to
successfully place central, unless they have the gorgia), accent and
dialect mixing for a person acquainted with the varieties is quite easy to
detect. I'd imagine native speakers with enough exposure to a range would be
able to pick apart e.g. someone whose family is from Campania but grew up in
Lombardy. This is certainly case for e.g. speakers of regionally accented but
"Standard" Mandarin, usually most pronounced when the transition happens before
or during 中学 (middle school = secondary school = junior high).

FWIW, I've only been to the settentrionale regions, and apart from the diction
of opera singers, almost all regular contact in Italian has been with Padovans.
Hence the Veneto slant to my accent is noticeable, and absorbed entirely
subconsciously from my interlocutori, despite the dominant hue being (southern)
British English prosody.



Edited by michaelyus on 17 April 2015 at 2:59pm

1 person has voted this message useful



Medulin
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Croatia
Joined 4463 days ago

1199 posts - 2192 votes 
Speaks: Croatian*, English, Spanish, Portuguese
Studies: Norwegian, Hindi, Nepali

 
 Message 16 of 21
18 April 2015 at 12:21am | IP Logged 
Donaldshimoda wrote:


I'm yet to hear a foreigner talking with credible "native" Italian accent whatever it
is.


It presented no problem at all to Nina Moric ;)
She often get complements on her Italian from her co-workers (famous Italians).
Of course, her Italian can never be perfect* because she pronounces all R's uvular [erre moscia]
nor her native Croatian can ever be perfect since this sound is totally alien to phonetics of Croatian.

---
*except in parts of Piedmont

Edited by Medulin on 18 April 2015 at 12:42am



1 person has voted this message useful



This discussion contains 21 messages over 3 pages: << Prev 13  Next >>


Post ReplyPost New Topic Printable version Printable version

You cannot post new topics in this forum - You cannot reply to topics in this forum - You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum - You cannot create polls in this forum - You cannot vote in polls in this forum


This page was generated in 0.4063 seconds.


DHTML Menu By Milonic JavaScript
Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved
No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization.