Proven ways to get a native-like accent

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Atinkoriko
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Re: Proven ways to get a native-like accent

Postby Atinkoriko » Mon Apr 10, 2017 12:08 am

I once spoke to a German girl with an RP [received pronunciation] accent. It was very good, but the fact that it was that good gave her away as non native. :lol:

You see, she spoke an older and more conservative form of RP which is almost unheard of nowadays. Even the BBC has allowed traces of regional accents to creep in, creating a more 'modern' form of RP. In addition, even the Queen herself has changed her accent slightly and has allowed certain vowels to be modernised ie no longer using an [ɛ]-like vowel in words like land etc

Furthermore, RP [modern or not] is quite uncommon amongst young people . The very rich and posh ['native' RP speakers] tend to make up a very small percentage of the population by default, and their kids an even smaller percentage of the population. Thus one rarely hears 'pure' RP from young people, but rather a sort of hybrid accent which features aspects of RP but still contains other traces which is enough to give the speaker away as being from a particular region.

Her accent contained no such traces, at least to me, and gave me the feeling she was actually a news presenter from the 1950s who had been trapped in a time bubble for the last few decades.

For the Americans here, a good but not entirely accurate comparison would be between 'modern' American English and the now extinct transatlantic accent which was employed decades ago. Link here ====> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLT-SQUBRDw


In essence, I'd say it's not quite possible to be entirely indistinguishable from a native speaker. You may reach a level that's so good that native speakers may be confused as to whether you're native or not, but sometimes you may also reach a level that is so good that it almost immediately gives you away as non native.
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Re: Proven ways to get a native-like accent

Postby reineke » Mon Apr 10, 2017 12:34 am

How To Speak Like A Native

"Can an adult learn to speak a second language with the accent of a native? Not likely, but new research suggests that we would make better progress, and be understood more easily by our conversational partners, if we abandoned a perfect accent as our goal in the language learning process.

For decades, traditional language instruction held up native-like pronunciation as the ideal, enforced by doses of “fear, embarrassment and conformity,” in the words of Murray J. Munro, a professor of linguistics at Simon Fraser University in Canada. Munro and a co-author, University of Alberta linguist Tracy Derwing, argue that this ideal is “clearly unrealistic,” leading to disappointment and frustration on the part of most adult language learners. Indeed, a growing body of evidence points to a “critical period” in childhood for acquiring correctly accented fluency in a given language; even as research on neuroplasticity has pushed the limits of what adults can learn, this boundary has remained stubbornly in place. In light of these findings, a newer generation of adult foreign-language teachers has given up pronunciation instruction altogether, assuming it is a futile effort.

Both of these assumptions are wrongheaded, contend Munro and Derwing. Pronunciation can be learned—but it should be learned with the goal of communicating easily with others, not with achieving a textbook-perfect accent. Adult students of language should be guided by the “intelligibility principle,” not the old “nativeness principle.” As Derwing and Munro note, “even heavily accented speech can be highly comprehensible.” (In a 2009 article published in the journal Language Teaching, the two warn against the “charlatanism and quackery” of the “accent reduction industry.” Such books, tapes and classes claim to be able “to eliminate a foreign accent within specific periods of time; 28 days is a popular number,” the authors observe. “There is no empirical evidence that this ever actually happens.”)

Learners guided by the intelligibility principle focus less attention on individual vowels and consonants, and more attention to the “macro” aspects of language, such as general speaking habits, volume, stress, and rhythm. A study by Derwing and colleagues showed that this approach can work. The investigators divided subjects into three groups: the first received foreign language instruction with no particular focus on pronunciation; the second received instruction with a focus on pronouncing the individual segments of language; and the third received “global” pronunciation instruction on the general way the foreign tongue should sound. After 12 weeks of classes, the students were asked to tell a story in their new language, and their efforts were rated by native-speaking listeners. Only the global group, the listeners reported, showed significant improvement in comprehensibility and fluency.

The intelligibility principle may be behind the acknowledged effectiveness of immersion-learning programs: when we immerse ourselves in a foreign language, particularly as spoken by natives, we’re picking up more than specific vocabulary words: we’re getting the gist of how the language is spoken, and our own attempts reflect this expansive awareness. Few of us have the time or money to engage in complete immersion, but a good tip is to limit your conversational practice with other native English speakers. The speech of second language learners, research shows, tends to “converge” toward a version of the foreign tongue that is more like the speakers’ native language. Instead, seek out someone who grew up talking the way you want to talk, and practice, practice, practice. You won’t sound perfectly like a native, but the natives will understand you perfectly well."

http://ideas.time.com/2012/04/04/how-to ... -a-native/
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Re: Proven ways to get a native-like accent

Postby Teango » Mon Apr 10, 2017 2:03 am

Atinkoriko wrote:I once spoke to a German girl with an RP [received pronunciation] accent. It was very good, but the fact that it was that good gave her away as non native. :lol:

Oh yes...this reminds me of a lively snippet from one of my favourite (and linguistically-minded) musicals - My Fair Lady:
"Her English is too good", he said, "That clearly indicates that she is foreign." (source song: "You did it!")

When I hear an L2 speaker with a more localized English accent (e.g., Yorkshire, Geordie; South Carolina, New Jersey), the features of that accent usually far outweigh the features of the speaker's L1 accent(s). As a strong promoter of linguistic diversity, I love listening to different accents, pidgins, creoles, dialects, and varieties of English. In particular, I could listen to Jamaican patois all day long! Even if the speaker gives his non-nativeness away at some point, so what?! The accent still reminds me of friends, community, and memories of a specific place and culture - a recognizable sociocultural group identity - and this already makes me feel closer to them in a conversation or at least intrigued to discover how they picked up their accent in the first place.

I have to admit, I'm quite interested in developing a local accent in some of the languages I study as well, rather than ingraining some form of non-localized bookish pronunciation (I hope I'm not too late in this respect...). With some languages (e.g., Russian), I find it a real challenge, not because I can't decide on one particular accent over another to adopt (although that's still a tough one), but because Russian doesn't seem to vary as much across the country in terms of pronunciation as, say, German would across Germany, or English across the UK, US, and other countries. I'm not saying that Russian is completely homogeneous across Russia however. For instance, there are subtle differences in the pronunciation of the letter /o/ between St Petersburg, Moscow, Kirov, and Novgorod, and perhaps differences in how /g/ is pronounced as you move closer to the Ukrainian border. What I'm wondering instead is if a few subtle changes in my attempted local Russian accent will have quite enough impact to distract a native speaker from my more buoyant underlying L1 accent?
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Re: Proven ways to get a native-like accent

Postby blaurebell » Mon Apr 10, 2017 8:32 am

Teango wrote:For instance, there are subtle differences in the pronunciation of the letter /o/ between St Petersburg, Moscow, Kirov, and Novgorod, and perhaps differences in how /g/ is pronounced as you move closer to the Ukrainian border. What I'm wondering instead is if a few subtle changes in my attempted local Russian accent will have quite enough impact to distract a native speaker from my more buoyant underlying L1 accent?


You can always try a proper Ukrainian Russian accent. That one is mainly about the o's and my mum complains about all the a's in a proper Moscow Russian. Finding source audio is rather difficult though, I've tried and failed, so you'd probably have to pay a tutor to record sentences for you.
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Re: Proven ways to get a native-like accent

Postby DaveBee » Mon Apr 10, 2017 9:33 am

Atinkoriko wrote:Furthermore, RP [modern or not] is quite uncommon amongst young people . The very rich and posh ['native' RP speakers] tend to make up a very small percentage of the population by default, and their kids an even smaller percentage of the population. Thus one rarely hears 'pure' RP from young people, but rather a sort of hybrid accent which features aspects of RP but still contains other traces which is enough to give the speaker away as being from a particular region.
There is a widespread middle-class southern english accent that I think could be perceived as today's RP.
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Re: Proven ways to get a native-like accent

Postby Random Review » Mon Apr 10, 2017 1:25 pm

Montmorency wrote:
Serpent wrote:Very true. I used to want to speak English like a native, but then I realized I'd have to imitate a specific accent.


To be honest (unless you were planning to move to a specific part of the Anglophone world) your only realistic choices are British RP or Standard General American. And I think one would naturally gravitate towards whichever one listened to the most.


I strongly disagree about RP (SGA I don't know how that comes across in The States, but it sounds nice enough in the UK).

British RP, while it may or may not sound "charming" in the States, is actually not a good choice in the UK unless you plan to work as an academic or a high level professional in the the South of England and socialise with that kind of person outside work. As a foreigner, you'll not come to any grief for using RP (because most people aren't idiots and will make allowances for you, although if your RP accent is really good, you'll probably get a bit of good-natured teasing); but still, it's not exactly going to help you make friends with people outside of the South of England or working class people even there.

IMHO what happens is that people will initially understand why an immigrant has learned that accent and will accept it, but they will expect them to gradually lose it over time. After living in the country a few years, they will be expected to understand the social realities of the class system and regional prejudice and stop talking to their friends like that. In contrast I have never seen any social pressure put on the many foreigners I have worked with in the UK to lose their foreign accent.

I definitely prefer to listen to a strong foreign accent than to RP and most people I know feel the same way.
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Re: Proven ways to get a native-like accent

Postby Atinkoriko » Mon Apr 10, 2017 1:49 pm

I find it deeply ironic that the same people who point at RP as being a symbol of linguistic prejudice also do their very best to discriminate against RP speakers.

A very good example of this is the fiasco that George Osbourne found himself in when he tried to sound less RP in an effort to build rapport with the workers at a Morrison's store to whom he was giving a speech. Of course, he was soundly mocked for his efforts. I have no doubts at all that if he had stood there and given the speech in his characteristic RP accent, he'd still have been mocked for alienating them with his accent.
Damned if you do and damned if you don't.
Article here http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politic ... -work.html


On the other hand, the same people come together to vote the Birmingham (Brummie) accent as the least intelligent sounding in the UK, an accent 'worse than staying silent'. I can't help but imagine what these people want the ESL crowd to do, risk learning a regional accent that still carries a lot of baggage or risk learning a more neutral non regional based accent in the form of RP which still guarantees some form of negativity.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstop ... shows.html
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Re: Proven ways to get a native-like accent

Postby blaurebell » Mon Apr 10, 2017 1:55 pm

Random Review wrote:As a foreigner, you'll not come to any grief for using RP (because most people aren't idiots and will make allowances for you, although if your RP accent is really good, you'll probably get a bit of good-natured teasing); but still, it's not exactly going to help you make friends with people outside of the South of England or working class people even there.


Yep, getting teased for RP is rather common. My flatmate always mocked me for pronouncing the word bath "like the queen herself" :D She was from up north. That said, my accent is actually really messed up - probably closest to South of England where I lived for 4 years, but with plenty of American vocabulary and the occasional words that somehow come out with an American r if I don't pay attention. My husband mocks me for my American "water". Watching an awful lot of American TV really does have an effect after a while. I have to concentrate to speak with a coherent accent, otherwise I'm all over the place and this was already the case when I still lived in England. Since I'm always somewhere in between I've actually been tempted to work on a Mid-Atlantic English pronunciation heard in old American movies. It avoids all the class none-sense since nobody really speaks like that anymore, not even the posh Americans who originally spoke with that kind of pronunciation. It's probably weird enough to make everyone roll their eyes at me though :lol:
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Re: Proven ways to get a native-like accent

Postby whatiftheblog » Mon Apr 10, 2017 3:52 pm

I've been told I have a pretty good accent in French. Some people, especially after very short exchanges, are surprised to hear I'm not French or from a francophone family. One baker told me this in St Martin last year and I was so pleased that I bought pretty much his entire display. Full and complete credit for this goes to Lara Fabian, Céline Dion, and Emmanuel Macron. Curiously, only one of them is French :mrgreen:
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Re: Proven ways to get a native-like accent

Postby Ingaræð » Mon Apr 10, 2017 4:11 pm

Atinkoriko wrote:A very good example of this is the fiasco that George Osbourne found himself in when he tried to sound less RP in an effort to build rapport with the workers at a Morrison's store to whom he was giving a speech. Of course, he was soundly mocked for his efforts. I have no doubts at all that if he had stood there and given the speech in his characteristic RP accent, he'd still have been mocked for alienating them with his accent.
Damned if you do and damned if you don't.
Article here http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politic ... -work.html

Actually, I don't think that is good example. Osborne's change of accent suddenly appeared out of nowhere, and everyone knew he was faking it. He was mocked because it was clearly some sort of PR exercise, and about as genuine as politicians kissing babies when seeking election. Had he spoken with his natural accent, he wouldn't have been mocked for it (more likely for his socio-economic background). If he moved to that area and began to acquire the local accent over a period of time, the public probably wouldn't bat an eyelid.
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