About accents

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Jder9720
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About accents

Postby Jder9720 » Thu Sep 09, 2021 10:49 am

Hello! Well, first for the sake of the discussion let me ask you something, how do you avoid sounding like a wannabe?

I've nothing against people who speaks in another accent that isn't his native accent. I just want to know your thoughts and maybe exercises you do to avoid it.
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Iversen
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Re: About accents

Postby Iversen » Thu Sep 09, 2021 2:43 pm

Are you referring to native speakers who try to emulate other accents than their own - and fail?

In a sense everyone here is a wannabee since we want to sound as much as native speakers as possible - but in at least one other language than our own one.
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Jder9720
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Re: About accents

Postby Jder9720 » Thu Sep 09, 2021 7:33 pm

Iversen wrote:Are you referring to native speakers who try to emulate other accents than their own - and fail?

In a sense everyone here is a wannabee since we want to sound as much as native speakers as possible - but in at least one other language than our own one.


I don't know how to properly formulate the question..i meant in the sense of acquiring a L2 lenguage and using it with your native accent. Kinda like "flattening"? the L2 accent that something one unconsciously acquire when learning a lenguage.
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Re: About accents

Postby Le Baron » Thu Sep 09, 2021 8:29 pm

The other side to this question (which you seem to be suggesting) is that not speaking an L2 with that language's standard accent is being a 'wannabe'.
I disagree. In English this idea is dead as lead. Almost every foreign speaker of English has an accent and it's become unimportant. Conversely, people are aiming for French, Spanish, Italian etc 'native like' accents and feeling like failures if they don't make it. It's nonsense.

Obviously there is some level of standard pronunciation you have to achieve to not be unintelligible, but aside from that accents are something not many people can disguise.
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Jder9720
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Re: About accents

Postby Jder9720 » Thu Sep 09, 2021 9:32 pm

Le Baron wrote:The other side to this question (which you seem to be suggesting) is that not speaking an L2 with that language's standard accent is being a 'wannabe'.


Oh no sorry my point is definitely not clear. So, I'll define what i meant by wannabe (by the way I'd have chosen a better word if i had known one).

My native language is Spanish and when i speak English i sound american because i have made tons and tons of listening input, so when i talk in English is almost as if i was "playing" a recorded audio in my mouth, this recorded version comes from all the input listening i've gathered through the years.

I think of accents as the melody in a song. There's a standard melody of x song (Hotel California for instance), just as there are standar accents for languages but you can change that melody and make it sound more sad or happy etc.. that's what i want to know, strategies to change the L2 accent for the L1 accent, kinda like assimilating the L2 into the L1.

Thanks for your answers.
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Re: About accents

Postby 白田龍 » Thu Sep 09, 2021 9:57 pm

Learning phonetics early on to learn how to properly articulate to sounds, because you can't trust your ears.
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Re: About accents

Postby Le Baron » Thu Sep 09, 2021 10:02 pm

Don't take this the wrong way (I'm sure your English is impeccable), but you might think you sound like an (U.S.) American, but an American might hear something else.

This happens with internet polyglot Luca Lampariello. His English is really very good and fluent, but he doesn't sound like an American; he sounds like someone doing a stereotyped American accent, saying 'a bunch of books...' when he could just say 'a pile of books'. It doesn't help that monoglots with bad ears go to the channel to say 'wow! you sound EXACTLY like an American!! Wow!! I'd never guess...' He's close, but really he's not everyone.

I don't fully understand the rest of the question. Sorry if I missed the point.
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Re: About accents

Postby Iversen » Thu Sep 09, 2021 10:16 pm

If you only listen to Anglophone program or films from one area then it's more than likely that your pronunciation will be coloured by that. But the majority of us who live in non-Anglophone countries will be listening to speech from many different areas, and here I'm not only speaking about 'American' versus 'British' pronunciation, but about speech from different parts of the States or Britain - plus the occasional Australian or South African speaker and a whole lot of learners at different levels. If you just let all that stuff into your brain then you'll end up thinking and speaking in a mixture of all those influences - and frankly, is that a problem? If you travel to a certain place and LISTEN to your surroundings then your pronciation should slide in the direction of the local dialect within days. Problem solved.

For instance my Portuguese 'voice' at home is mostly European, albeit with drawling Brazilian vowels because I like that sound. However I visited Natal and Recife a couple of years ago and came home thinking and speaking in the kind of Brazilian I had been listening to for two weeks (with errors of course, but fluently). However since then I have listened to some European Portuguese and now I'm again situated comfortably in the midst of the Atlantic Ocean, just as before my voyage. And I'm perfectly happy with that - that just means that there is a greater chance that both Brazilians and Portuguese would be able to understand me in the unlikely case that I met any kind of Lusophone speaker here where I live.

If you actually want to stick to one dialect then there are homepages and books that specify some of the differences, and then you have to learn some of those things and check them out in real life. But you can also choose one single native speaker and try to mimick that person. For instance the Scots voice in my head actually was modelled on Billy Connally because he was just about the only Scotsman I could find on Youtube, and I still have kept some of his inflections when I think in Scots (and yes, I know that he spoke English with a Scots accent, not hardcore Scots - but we are speaking about pronunciation here). Those who have a mentor or teacher may also be influenced by the dialect of that person - for good or for worse. However in general terms I prefer sounding like myself to sounding like any other specific person, even if that means that I'm the only one in the world that speaks and thinks in that particular combination of influences.

The advice concerning vocabulary is in principle the same, but in practice it's more difficult - for the simple reason that there is an unsurmountable heap of local idioms and institutions and god knows what to learn from each area plus regular 'false friends' (including words you shouldn't use at all in some countries). So if you really want to stick to one dialect then find a list of false friends and some articles about institutions and birds and tools and local VIPs and stuff and learn as many of the words used there as possible. And then listen profusely to stuff from your chosen area and only that, then you may acquire the local touch. But in any other area with the 'same' language that knowledge will be wasted.

So my advice is simply to accept that you will end up with a mixed idiolect ... and stay flexible in case you end up in a place where your target language is spoken in some other way.
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Jder9720
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Re: About accents

Postby Jder9720 » Thu Sep 09, 2021 11:47 pm

Iversen wrote:If you only listen to Anglophone program or films from one area then it's more than likely that your pronunciation will be coloured by that. But the majority of us who live in non-Anglophone countries will be listening to speech from many different areas, and here I'm not only speaking about 'American' versus 'British' pronunciation, but about speech from different parts of the States or Britain - plus the occasional Australian or South African speaker and a whole lot of learners at different levels. If you just let all that stuff into your brain then you'll end up thinking and speaking in a mixture of all those influences - and frankly, is that a problem? If you travel to a certain place and LISTEN to your surroundings then your pronciation should slide in the direction of the local dialect within days. Problem solved.

For instance my Portuguese 'voice' at home is mostly European, albeit with drawling Brazilian vowels because I like that sound. However I visited Natal and Recife a couple of years ago and came home thinking and speaking in the kind of Brazilian I had been listening to for two weeks (with errors of course, but fluently). However since then I have listened to some European Portuguese and now I'm again situated comfortably in the midst of the Atlantic Ocean, just as before my voyage. And I'm perfectly happy with that - that just means that there is a greater chance that both Brazilians and Portuguese would be able to understand me in the unlikely case that I met any kind of Lusophone speaker here where I live.

If you actually want to stick to one dialect then there are homepages and books that specify some of the differences, and then you have to learn some of those things and check them out in real life. But you can also choose one single native speaker and try to mimick that person. For instance the Scots voice in my head actually was modelled on Billy Connally because he was just about the only Scotsman I could find on Youtube, and I still have kept some of his inflections when I think in Scots (and yes, I know that he spoke English with a Scots accent, not hardcore Scots - but we are speaking about pronunciation here). Those who have a mentor or teacher may also be influenced by the dialect of that person - for good or for worse. However in general terms I prefer sounding like myself to sounding like any other specific person, even if that means that I'm the only one in the world that speaks and thinks in that particular combination of influences.

The advice concerning vocabulary is in principle the same, but in practice it's more difficult - for the simple reason that there is an unsurmountable heap of local idioms and institutions and god knows what to learn from each area plus regular 'false friends' (including words you shouldn't use at all in some countries). So if you really want to stick to one dialect then find a list of false friends and some articles about institutions and birds and tools and local VIPs and stuff and learn as many of the words used there as possible. And then listen profusely to stuff from your chosen area and only that, then you may acquire the local touch. But in any other area with the 'same' language that knowledge will be wasted.

So my advice is simply to accept that you will end up with a mixed idiolect ... and stay flexible in case you end up in a place where your target language is spoken in some other way.



Thank you so much for your answer. I'll have your advice in mind.
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Jder9720
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Re: About accents

Postby Jder9720 » Thu Sep 09, 2021 11:55 pm

Le Baron wrote:Don't take this the wrong way (I'm sure your English is impeccable), but you might think you sound like an (U.S.) American, but an American might hear something else.

This happens with internet polyglot Luca Lampariello. His English is really very good and fluent, but he doesn't sound like an American; he sounds like someone doing a stereotyped American accent, saying 'a bunch of books...' when he could just say 'a pile of books'. It doesn't help that monoglots with bad ears go to the channel to say 'wow! you sound EXACTLY like an American!! Wow!! I'd never guess...' He's close, but really he's not everyone.

I don't fully understand the rest of the question. Sorry if I missed the point.


I totally get what you mean, it's hard to be objective when you hear your own voice every day and use your L2 mostly in your mind. It can be easy to judge incorrectly one's own accent.

Thanks again, you got the point as good as i could explain it.
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