Carpe Coffeam

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DaveAgain
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Re: Carpe Coffeam

Postby DaveAgain » Sun May 08, 2022 11:35 am

zenmonkey wrote:
DaveAgain wrote:I was watching one of the Liga Romanica videos earlier, the suggestion there was that France does not have regional accents to any great degree, so any variation from the norm must be especially novel to francophones.


Umm, that's just not true.

France has a lot of regional accents/dialects etc (add to that French spoken outside of France). There is a term "glottophobie" for discrimination within France for the different accents. It's pretty much of an unfortunate but accepted pastime to make fun of regional accents and I've had to put my foot down many times with my daughters to really make them aware that this is socio/economic discrimination.

https://youtu.be/06ZBsaEB0Y8

Sorry for the log hijack.
Sure, but you can only mock deviations from the norm if there's an established norm. The Liga Romanica lady's point (Elisa?) was that historic dialect/accent variations within France have largely disappeared.
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Re: Carpe Coffeam

Postby Le Baron » Sun May 08, 2022 12:22 pm

Cavesa wrote:But I also don't think that people with totally understandable accents and B2 or better level should keep giving those incessant apologetic little speeches, that we are socially expected to give every time we get asked.

I stopped doing it long ago. I'm now convinced that what is really behind this is unfamiliarity from the side of the natives and also a lack of awareness that they also have accents (in their own speech and when they use English or any other language). In English the concept of 'someone foreign with an accent' has rapidly faded away in importance as everyone has become more and more accustomed to certain sorts of spoken English. In other language cultures it remains strong.
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Re: Carpe Coffeam

Postby Cavesa » Sun May 08, 2022 3:35 pm

zenmonkey wrote:
DaveAgain wrote:I was watching one of the Liga Romanica videos earlier, the suggestion there was that France does not have regional accents to any great degree, so any variation from the norm must be especially novel to francophones.


Umm, that's just not true.

France has a lot of regional accents/dialects etc (add to that French spoken outside of France). There is a term "glottophobie" for discrimination within France for the different accents. It's pretty much of an unfortunate but accepted pastime to make fun of regional accents and I've had to put my foot down many times with my daughters to really make them aware that this is socio/economic discrimination.

https://youtu.be/06ZBsaEB0Y8

Sorry for the log hijack.


Yes, there are indeed regional dialects (which are really regional and socio-economically affected "flavours" of French) and patois (while the patois is more like a separate but related language usually. It is just a question of PR and money, that Luxembourgish gets cherished as a language, and Lorrain gets forgotten as just some bad habit and incompetence of the old people). Due the the long term official tendency to make French more uniform, and also the huge influence of radio and tv in the last century, it is definitely true that the contemporary French might be more uniform than for example Spanish and the dialects less obvious or less spoken. But that is far from inexistence.

I really think the covid has been another huge blow to all the "patois", as those are surviving mainly on in person contact between people, and especially on contact between the old and the young. When it comes to the "normal dialects", those are just rather small variations, but still pretty much perceptible to any local.

DaveAgain wrote:[Sure, but you can only mock deviations from the norm if there's an established norm. The Liga Romanica lady's point (Elisa?) was that historic dialect/accent variations within France have largely disappeared.


In this context and type of situations, the "established norm" is whatever the people happening to sit around the table at the given moment think it is. I would need a more stable internet to see the video, but if the idea is that many "patois" or more distant dialects/languages have disappeared, it might be very much true. But there are still differences between a speaker from Marseille, Bretagne, Moselle. Smaller (a bit of accent, some vocab, some grammar differences such as use of a different preposition for something), which are perceptible to the natives, even though hard to describe for people without much a formation in this.

Le Baron wrote:
Cavesa wrote:But I also don't think that people with totally understandable accents and B2 or better level should keep giving those incessant apologetic little speeches, that we are socially expected to give every time we get asked.

I stopped doing it long ago. I'm now convinced that what is really behind this is unfamiliarity from the side of the natives and also a lack of awareness that they also have accents (in their own speech and when they use English or any other language). In English the concept of 'someone foreign with an accent' has rapidly faded away in importance as everyone has become more and more accustomed to certain sorts of spoken English. In other language cultures it remains strong.


I think there are two halves of this social pressure. You are absolutely right about one of them. The expectations of the natives of your TL. The English natives have simply stopped caring, because the accents of people around them are no longer special or interesting, or perceived as an obstacle (for the most part. But of course they can still put you at a disadvantage in some situations). Native French/Spanish/Italian/German speakers are less used to this.

But the second half of the pressure comes from the cultures of the learners. Not only some cultures are less confident and more apologetic than others (for example Czechs), but the whole mainstream language learning industry is pushing us into this bad habit. It's the schools shaming us for mistake, it's the public image in a lot of media, it's the overhyped focus on speaking and "accent" in various learning resources and online services, and so on.

We are conditioned to overfocus on accent and to be ashamed of it. We are often not told that the inability to form a proper sentence is more handicapping than an accent. We are not told the differences between learning the basics of pronunciation and mastering every nuance of "accent". We are not praised on a rich vocabulary or elegant use of grammar, just on the pronunciation.

So, my conversational autopilot making dumb jokes is one of the acceptable alternatives imho :-D
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Re: Carpe Coffeam

Postby zenmonkey » Sun May 08, 2022 4:00 pm

DaveAgain wrote:Sure, but you can only mock deviations from the norm if there's an established norm. The Liga Romanica lady's point (Elisa?) was that historic dialect/accent variations within France have largely disappeared.


Regionalism and denigration of language provincialisms are rooted in the economic tissue of France since at least the 17th century and are well documented in the works of Diderot and even at the center of a variety of plays and novels like the Rouge et le Noire. It's not 'deviations' from the norm - they are norms in and of themselves. And I'd agree that they are certainly fading due to education and media, much like many of the regional languages are suffering. But despite what you might have heard they still exist and are used on the daily if you spend any time in small towns and markets.

While there are fewer variations among the young, it's incorrect to say they've largely disappeared (unless you're discounting all of the local speakers that are 60 or older or farmers or blue-collar workers). I'm telling you this as I sit in the north of France having just had coffee in the local dive bar with not only a server but the majority of the clientele that had strong Ch'ti pronunciation. Your (young) Youtuber's experience doesn't reflect mine.

Did you watch the video I posted above?

Here's the accent I hear every day, just north of Lille.
https://youtu.be/B0UrqZ5I2Go
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Re: Carpe Coffeam

Postby garyb » Sun May 08, 2022 4:21 pm

Cavesa wrote:But the second half of the pressure comes from the cultures of the learners. Not only some cultures are less confident and more apologetic than others (for example Czechs), but the whole mainstream language learning industry is pushing us into this bad habit. It's the schools shaming us for mistake, it's the public image in a lot of media, it's the overhyped focus on speaking and "accent" in various learning resources and online services, and so on.

We are conditioned to overfocus on accent and to be ashamed of it. We are often not told that the inability to form a proper sentence is more handicapping than an accent. We are not told the differences between learning the basics of pronunciation and mastering every nuance of "accent". We are not praised on a rich vocabulary or elegant use of grammar, just on the pronunciation.

I agree with the rest of your post, but this is the opposite of all of my experience as a language learner. Most courses, apps, and teachers pay very little attention to pronunciation and don't even teach the basic sounds correctly, never mind any suprasegmental elements (prosody) or on how to sound like a native. A typical book like Assimil might have half a page dedicated to pronunciation, and it'll likely be approximations to the teaching language (like "a as in father" and worse, like comparing the Italian single phoneme /ʎ/ in "gli" to the consonant-plus-semivowel sound in the English "million" :roll:) rather than proper explanations of the phonemes and, importantly, differences from similar ones in the teaching language (think French /u/ and /y/, and the English /u/ which is somewhere between them and less open and rounded than either, or any French vowels for that matter; dental and alveolar T, light and dark L...).

I spent years looking for materials that could help me to improve my French and Italian pronunciation and I found very little that covered anything beyond the basics, and very few of the tutors I've worked with had any training in phonetics. I had better luck with resources aimed at actors, since learning accents is part of their work and so the teaching of it is much more developed.

Accent reduction for non-native English speakers is big business, but it seems unheard of in most other languages. I know that there is a bit of an industry around teaching "standard Italian" diction, but that's more aimed at actors with regional accents than at foreign speakers.

I will say that learners lucky enough to be able to imitate accents well do tend to considered better speakers (by natives, although not so much by teachers) than ones who speak more correctly but don't sound the part, because of the very positive first impression that a good accent gives, and that is quite unfair. But it's usually considered a natural talent rather than something that can be taught.

As I said, I agree with the rest though. In the past I put a lot of effort into improving my accent (and for relatively underwhelming results) just because I wanted native speakers to take me more seriously and consider me a better speaker, and I felt annoyed that most language teaching ignored this "essential" aspect. It is quite a double-standard when English speakers mostly don't judge so harshly (although I know that there are still some issues, for example many non-native English speakers get quite sick of people asking where they're from as soon as they pick up on the foreign accent, even if it is just genuine curiosity). I should've taken on Le Baron's approach of not being ashamed or apologetic about my pronunciation earlier, and of course doing so doesn't exclude making reasonable attempts at improving it.
Last edited by garyb on Sun May 08, 2022 4:25 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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Re: Carpe Coffeam

Postby DaveAgain » Sun May 08, 2022 4:24 pm

zenmonkey wrote:Did you watch the video I posted above?

Here's the accent I hear every day, just north of Lille.
https://youtu.be/B0UrqZ5I2Go
Yes, but that does not refute her position. She said there were 3 regional accents in her view, North, South, South-West, and then everywhere else. Your video, and another video on French accents I watched do seem to highlight those areas.

She was contrasting that with Italy which apparently has a greater variety of regional differences.

But you've spent far more time in France than me, so if you think she's mistaken, I'm not going to argue. :-)
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Re: Carpe Coffeam

Postby zenmonkey » Sun May 08, 2022 5:20 pm

DaveAgain wrote:
zenmonkey wrote:Did you watch the video I posted above?

Here's the accent I hear every day, just north of Lille.
https://youtu.be/B0UrqZ5I2Go
Yes, but that does not refute her position. She said there were 3 regional accents in her view, North, South, South-West, and then everywhere else. Your video, and another video on French accents I watched do seem to highlight those areas.

She was contrasting that with Italy which apparently has a greater variety of regional differences.

But you've spent far more time in France than me, so if you think she's mistaken, I'm not going to argue. :-)


I think it's often reduced to 3-4 major regions, especially if the speaker is from Paris/Ile de France region and may not have been really exposed to regional accents.

But most certainly there are at least 4-5, easily distinguishable when pressed that everyone here will recognize more or less. Add to the 3 she's listed and include the accent of the banlieue and Auvergne (which is certainly not the South or South-West accent). But coming to the original point, if you consider the various Belgian, Swiss, Canadian, Cote d'Ivoire, Senegalaise, Cameroonais, etc... French accents ... - variation from the so-called 'norm' should not be especially novel to francophones unless they are living in cultural isolation. It's like saying Canada only has one accent...

My father speaks French (L2) with a Swiss accent because he learned French in the Isere (where he was a graduate student when I was born there). It's certainly not an accent that stands out significantly except that he speaks with what is called here "proéminance pénultième" which means he tends to bang out the second to last syllable. It's a thing.

https://youtu.be/qO1QNSOm07c

But certainly, the dialectical distance of French in France is probably smaller than that present in the varieties and dialects of Spanish or Italian in these countries. But then let's not dismiss Alsatian, Occitan, etc...
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Re: Carpe Coffeam

Postby MorkTheFiddle » Sun May 08, 2022 5:49 pm

Cavesa wrote:Fortunately, I am by far not the only foreigner and not the only doctor with a persisting foreign accent) But I am more than functional. :-)
My doctor here in the States is from Central America, and his English comes with a thick Spanish accent, even though he has been in the country for many years. But I don't care, because he is a very good doctor. Although in his 60s, he is brisk and energetic, and he inspires a lot of confidence in his skills.
As for you in Switzerland, there is now a smile back in your voice, and it's delightful to hear. :)
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Re: Carpe Coffeam

Postby Suzie » Mon May 09, 2022 6:52 pm

MorkTheFiddle wrote:As for you in Switzerland, there is now a smile back in your voice, and it's delightful to hear. :)


I heard the smile, too :D , and am really happy for you, Cavesa! After all those road blocks and speed bumps in the past years, this outcome is well-deserved, and it sounds as if the move to Switzerland and the new job is giving you back some much-needed peace. All the best for the upcoming exciting (and stressful) weeks!

Will you still have to bring your German to C1 formally? Just asking because I always felt the Swiss French avoid German even more than the Wallonians avoid Dutch.
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Re: Carpe Coffeam

Postby Cavesa » Thu May 12, 2022 11:38 am

garyb wrote:I agree with the rest of your post, but this is the opposite of all of my experience as a language learner. Most courses, apps, and teachers pay very little attention to pronunciation and don't even teach the basic sounds correctly, never mind any suprasegmental elements (prosody) or on how to sound like a native. A typical book like Assimil might have half a page dedicated to pronunciation, and it'll likely be approximations to the teaching language (like "a as in father" and worse, like comparing the Italian single phoneme /ʎ/ in "gli" to the consonant-plus-semivowel sound in the English "million" :roll:) rather than proper explanations of the phonemes and, importantly, differences from similar ones in the teaching language (think French /u/ and /y/, and the English /u/ which is somewhere between them and less open and rounded than either, or any French vowels for that matter; dental and alveolar T, light and dark L...).


Yes, our experience differs, and I think the first part of it: language learning culture in each of our countries, is also shaping our perception of the more global online language learning world.

In the Czech resources, pronunciation and accent (self)shaming and focus is extremely strong. I still remember very strongly one of the most popular (and very good) coursebooks for French learners, that really says something like this in the introduction "you should strive to achive pronunciation that will be tolerable for the French natives, even if it is near impossible for you to succeed". And the same thing in various words is retold by lots and lots of teachers. I think they use this to hide their incompetence at teaching. In German, I heard about a teacher strongly suggesting that you cannot get a solid pronunciation unless you start learning younger than 16. The criticism of "Czenglish" pronunciation is everywhere, including ads of language schools.

I agree that many coursebooks are horribly failing at adressing the issues properly, often with the alibistic idea that you should get a teacher anyways. But the teachers are failing too. And the current widely spread idea, that the teacher shouldn't be too strict, to not discourage the learner, that's not helpful either (imho, it's mostly just self interest of the teachers. They don't want to lose customers, and they are too lazy to teach properly).


I spent years looking for materials that could help me to improve my French and Italian pronunciation and I found very little that covered anything beyond the basics, and very few of the tutors I've worked with had any training in phonetics. I had better luck with resources aimed at actors, since learning accents is part of their work and so the teaching of it is much more developed.


Phonétique Progressive is very good and goes up to the higher levels, Fonética by anaya seems to try to do the same thing and goes up to B2. Some youtube resources are awesome, but usually for just some features, nothing too organised. I would be interested in your resources for actors, any tips? One of my best resources for German and Italian pronunciation were actually classical singing classes. The most creative work with pronunciation, some "overdoing" for practice, etc.

Yes, tutors are mostly horrible at this. A part of the problem is the lack of training, as you say. But a much bigger one is in my opinion the totally wrong attitude. They don't believe the learners could actually sound too well (so why bother), they don't want to discourage them by honest corrections out of fear of losing income, and they might also prefer less difficult types of work in the lesson.

Accent reduction for non-native English speakers is big business, but it seems unheard of in most other languages. I know that there is a bit of an industry around teaching "standard Italian" diction, but that's more aimed at actors with regional accents than at foreign speakers.


Oh, it is heard of. But mostly at the low levels. You can find resources and tutors trying to get you from totally horrible beginner (mainly anglophone) pronunciation to a bit passable one. But it is extremely hard to find someone to help you from passable and totally understendable pronunciation and accent to a very good really near native one. Speechling is one of the exceptions, but even there are some limits.


I will say that learners lucky enough to be able to imitate accents well do tend to considered better speakers (by natives, although not so much by teachers) than ones who speak more correctly but don't sound the part, because of the very positive first impression that a good accent gives, and that is quite unfair. But it's usually considered a natural talent rather than something that can be taught.

100% agreed!!!

As I said, I agree with the rest though. In the past I put a lot of effort into improving my accent (and for relatively underwhelming results) just because I wanted native speakers to take me more seriously and consider me a better speaker, and I felt annoyed that most language teaching ignored this "essential" aspect. It is quite a double-standard when English speakers mostly don't judge so harshly (although I know that there are still some issues, for example many non-native English speakers get quite sick of people asking where they're from as soon as they pick up on the foreign accent, even if it is just genuine curiosity). I should've taken on Le Baron's approach of not being ashamed or apologetic about my pronunciation earlier, and of course doing so doesn't exclude making reasonable attempts at improving it.


You're absolutely right. We are judged by pronunciation. I want to be primarily seen as an educated and competent person, not primarily as a foreigner, I don't want to be perceived as if my IQ was lower by 30 points. The most common problem is like "but you alrady have a good enough pronunciation, what would you want?".

I try not to be apologetic, I make fun of it. But overall, I'd really prefer the topic to never be adressed, because I'd simply have a neutral native like accent at all times.
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