Pupil not picking up accent from native teacher

[Le Baron]

There is also the fact that French pronunciation is simply not all that easy. There's often this view that French is a relatively easy language, all FIGS and Indo European and hardly Arabic or Korean. So: 'I've mastered English, Spanish, German... I ought to be able to pronounce French'. Not so. All those other languages are pronounced much more in accordance with their orthography. As an English speaker you'll get German pronunciation much more quickly.

At the Alliance Française I met some 'advanced' students with substandard accents, many with really good ones. Why would that be? French is awkward, very particular-sounding, divorced from its orthography and its liaisons difficult to separate. Which of course doesn't mean it can't be taught or coached. The facts in this case are thus:

50 minute lessons. With how many students? Doing what?
Is the teacher good?
Is the student not doing all that well. Because there's no guarantee a pupil will ace all subjects.
Are the other pupils pretty much in the same boat? Or better, or worse?

Without knowing all this it's mostly conjecture and prone to wrong diagnoses.

[tungemål]

...
French is awkward, very particular-sounding, divorced from its orthography and its liaisons difficult to separate. Which of course doesn't mean it can't be taught or coached.
...

That can be said about English as well.

[Le Baron]

...
French is awkward, very particular-sounding, divorced from its orthography and its liaisons difficult to separate. Which of course doesn't mean it can't be taught or coached.
...

That can be said about English as well.

It could, but it's nowhere near that of French. Things like the unvoiced final consonants (or randomly, without explanation, not as in the case of e.g. but = goal) challenge a lot of students at the start and beyond. Liaison in French is entirely a different ball-game than in English where words are mostly separated, or meant to be! Germans don't puzzle quite as much over English like they do over French and its liaison which is pretty much alien to how German works. I've had Spaniards say the same to me.

[tractor]

There's nothing as crazy as English spelling and pronunciation.

[Le Baron]

If English had a spelling reform now the world would be even more confused (look at Dutch). Plus the poetry would be rubbish and wordplay comedy wouldn't be able to function. Do we really want that?!

[Dragon27]

How could poetry be affected by a spelling reform? Spelling reform doesn't change pronunciation, which is what poetry is based on.

I've mostly gotten used to it, but it still rubs me the wrong way, when people say "pronunciation is hard", when they mean "irregular spelling". I've always separated in my mind the questions of phonology and orthography. Most people studying a foreign language, unfortunately, have this idea of primacy of the written word (and that is getting in the way of understanding the spoken language) and always try to derive pronunciation from spelling. The default position is: you know the alphabet (and some orthographic rules), you should be able to pronounce now. Some languages having a shallow orthography only reinforces this delusion. People would have less cognitive dissonance, if they understood that writing is only a secondary expedient, with spelling of the words influenced by tradition/etymology of the words or some arbitrary othographical conventions.

I also would agree with the posts above about English orthography. French orthography is overall more straightforward in my experience, than the English one. It does function differently, so one shouldn't use the orthographical assumption from one language when walking into a different language.

[Cavesa]

...
French is awkward, very particular-sounding, divorced from its orthography and its liaisons difficult to separate. Which of course doesn't mean it can't be taught or coached.
...

That can be said about English as well.

It could, but it's nowhere near that of French. Things like the unvoiced final consonants (or randomly, without explanation, not as in the case of e.g. but = goal) challenge a lot of students at the start and beyond. Liaison in French is entirely a different ball-game than in English where words are mostly separated, or meant to be! Germans don't puzzle quite as much over English like they do over French and its liaison which is pretty much alien to how German works. I've had Spaniards say the same to me.

No. As someone with first hand experience with learning both English and French, I cannot agree with this. It is a myth that gets repeated so much it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy and an excuse for lazy teachers. The English pronunciation is probably one of the hardest ones of the European languages that get learnt often. We are just being a bit brainwashed about it not being hard, and the low quality of teaching of for example French strenghtens this myth too.

But it is not just about the crazy ortograph irregularities, and spoken and written English being like two separate languages for a beginner. The pronunciation is hard, irregular, especially the vowels can't be relied on, there are many of them, the differences are often rather slight to be observed and mimicked, but huge when someone listens to you. And there are also many kinds of pronunciation and accents.

So no, the widely spread belief "English pronunciation (or anything else) is much easier than French" is just the result of PR. And honestly, native English speakers are not qualified enough to comment, you simply have no clue. No offence meant.

The girl, that this thread is about, is not an English native learning French/Spanish/German, but a person, who most probably succeeds at the English pronunciation much better than at the French one thanks to different quality of teaching. It's that simple.

[Le Baron]

No. As someone with first hand experience with learning both English and French, I cannot agree with this. It is a myth that gets repeated so much it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy and an excuse for lazy teachers. The English pronunciation is probably one of the hardest ones of the European languages that get learnt often. We are just being a bit brainwashed about it not being hard, and the low quality of teaching of for example French strenghtens this myth too.

No. The question is really about learning French and it's as hard for an English person as it is for you. I think I'm roughly in agreement with you regarding PR around English, but this is not part of this thread. I'm sure lots of people have difficulties with English, but any claim putting the gulf between spoken/written language in French and English as roughly equal is wholly fictitious.

The girl, that this thread is about, is not an English native learning French/Spanish/German, but a person, who most probably succeeds at the English pronunciation much better than at the French one thanks to different quality of teaching. It's that simple.

This is perhaps why the comparison arose in the discussion, but the claim it is entirely down to teaching inadequacy is unproven and just guesswork. Since we know nothing about what is going on in the class and nothing about how the other students are doing. Hearing iffy French accents among people who aren't living in a French-speaking country is very VERY common. Hearing iffy English accents among similar groups is much less common. It's not teaching it's presence and greater use of the language.

[Nogon]

but any claim putting the gulf between spoken/written language in French and English as roughly equal is wholly fictitious

That's correct, the gulf between spoken/written language in French and English is not roughly equal. It's much deeper in English than in French.

[Le Baron]

but any claim putting the gulf between spoken/written language in French and English as roughly equal is wholly fictitious

That's correct, the gulf between spoken/written language in French and English is not roughly equal. It's much deeper in English than in French.

Funny, but completely erroneous.