Singing / Vocal Lessons - Does it help you improve your TL?
Posted: Wed Dec 05, 2018 6:12 pm
Hello folks!
About 6 weeks ago, I had my girlfriend, (she's a professional singer and vocal coach,) give me SINGING LESSONS (VOCAL LESSONS). We did about 3 lessons, we focused mainly on pitch - recognizing different pitches, and repeating them without "changing my voice." We also worked on me repeating meaningless syllables with the correct rhythm and pitch.
(skip to the part that says, MAIN QUESTION if you don't feel like reading the whole question!)
She's a native speaker of Polish, and she has a very light, albeit noticeable accent in English. I realized one day that her accent wasn't because of rhythm, or pitch etc. It was purely phonological insofar as she was either articulating certain phonemes incorrectly, or using the wrong phoneme.
This got me thinking about my Italian... I can "make all the sounds," meaning that if I say the 'ave maria,' if I mock one of my friends, or sing along to a song, I (according to my friends and family,) sound like a native speaker. So I did some 'phonetic self-analysis' (LOL).
I had one of my good friends, who speaks with the most neutral accent out of the group, record about 120 Italian Sentences on Anki.
I realized that my rhythm was slightly off, however the main issue was my PITCH. I was speaking much flatter than him. I shadowed for a while before I went to Italy, and paid really close attention to the PITCH when I went to Italy, as I was totally immersed, staying with one of my best friends and his family for a little over a week, talking to people, or hearing people talk to each other probably 95% of my time awake.
I learned the IPA in great detail at University, we learned all about articulation and what not, but we didn't go into much detail about supra-segmental features.
An American friend of mine who learned Spanish to a native-like level, (no one ever assumes he's not a native, even after a long conversation,) told me that my rhythm gives me away as a non-native in Spanish. He doesn't know much about phonology, but I recorded a spontaneous 30 second recording for him and had him write down all the things that were "definitely non-native." I hold some vowel sounds for too long, my pitch goes up, (or down,) at the wrong time, etc.
ONCE AGAIN... I COULDN'T REPRODUCE THE WORDS WITH THE SAME MUSICALITY AS A NATIVE.
SO... I am going to start having my girlfriend give me more vocal lessons in January, focusing on repeating different melodies. I don't have a problem reproducing phonemes, in fact I'm quite good at it. My main problem is speaking a language with the same "musicality" (let's say) as a native speaker. I can't remember the rhythm of a language unless I'm immersed in it for a few days.
Even when I try to speak without a New York accent now, I have to really focus, and I know it's not perfect anymore. (I use to be able to switch into a standard accent when I was going to University in the Midwest. I was there for 5 years! By year four I could do it pretty easily, (especially after a few drinks!) and supposedly you would never know I had a New York accent. Of course, even back then, it took some brain power, but now it takes like 5x the amount of focus, and you can still hear traces of a NYC accent.
MAIN QUESTION
Can you train your brain? Can we get better at "processing" the sound of a given language/dialect and reproducing it? If you can "without an accent" reproduce all the phonemes and sentences while shadowing, then couldn't we train our brains to master the musicality of a language?
Some people pick up on foreign ACCENTS very quickly, (even if they mess up the phonemes, they speak with a native-like rhythm and musicality.)
For the rest of us, those without this talent, what can we do?
I've never heard a polyglot who can speak multiple foreign languages with a native like accent. Some are incredible, like Luca Lampariello, but I've never heard anyone who can really fool me into thinking their American, with the exception of two of my Brazilian friends, who went to bilingual schools, and have been completely immersed in American culture for the last 4 or 5 years. Plus, they only speak English and Portuguese. If someone could pass as a native in 5 or 6 languages, that would be unbelievable. NOTE: when I say pass as a native, I mean that if your goal is "Parisian French" people from Paris think you're from Paris. I'm not talking about "native" in the way that many Scandinavians can pass as a "native" in English, because Americans assume that they're from some part of England, and people from England assume they're from a different part of England, etc.
Sorry for this post being long, and sort of confusing. I don't even know what I'm asking. ANY FEEDBACK regarding musical training, accents, and "training your brain" is very welcome.
NOTE: I'll clean this post up later and try to make it more organized and easier to read.
About 6 weeks ago, I had my girlfriend, (she's a professional singer and vocal coach,) give me SINGING LESSONS (VOCAL LESSONS). We did about 3 lessons, we focused mainly on pitch - recognizing different pitches, and repeating them without "changing my voice." We also worked on me repeating meaningless syllables with the correct rhythm and pitch.
(skip to the part that says, MAIN QUESTION if you don't feel like reading the whole question!)
She's a native speaker of Polish, and she has a very light, albeit noticeable accent in English. I realized one day that her accent wasn't because of rhythm, or pitch etc. It was purely phonological insofar as she was either articulating certain phonemes incorrectly, or using the wrong phoneme.
This got me thinking about my Italian... I can "make all the sounds," meaning that if I say the 'ave maria,' if I mock one of my friends, or sing along to a song, I (according to my friends and family,) sound like a native speaker. So I did some 'phonetic self-analysis' (LOL).
I had one of my good friends, who speaks with the most neutral accent out of the group, record about 120 Italian Sentences on Anki.
I realized that my rhythm was slightly off, however the main issue was my PITCH. I was speaking much flatter than him. I shadowed for a while before I went to Italy, and paid really close attention to the PITCH when I went to Italy, as I was totally immersed, staying with one of my best friends and his family for a little over a week, talking to people, or hearing people talk to each other probably 95% of my time awake.
I learned the IPA in great detail at University, we learned all about articulation and what not, but we didn't go into much detail about supra-segmental features.
An American friend of mine who learned Spanish to a native-like level, (no one ever assumes he's not a native, even after a long conversation,) told me that my rhythm gives me away as a non-native in Spanish. He doesn't know much about phonology, but I recorded a spontaneous 30 second recording for him and had him write down all the things that were "definitely non-native." I hold some vowel sounds for too long, my pitch goes up, (or down,) at the wrong time, etc.
ONCE AGAIN... I COULDN'T REPRODUCE THE WORDS WITH THE SAME MUSICALITY AS A NATIVE.
SO... I am going to start having my girlfriend give me more vocal lessons in January, focusing on repeating different melodies. I don't have a problem reproducing phonemes, in fact I'm quite good at it. My main problem is speaking a language with the same "musicality" (let's say) as a native speaker. I can't remember the rhythm of a language unless I'm immersed in it for a few days.
Even when I try to speak without a New York accent now, I have to really focus, and I know it's not perfect anymore. (I use to be able to switch into a standard accent when I was going to University in the Midwest. I was there for 5 years! By year four I could do it pretty easily, (especially after a few drinks!) and supposedly you would never know I had a New York accent. Of course, even back then, it took some brain power, but now it takes like 5x the amount of focus, and you can still hear traces of a NYC accent.
MAIN QUESTION
Can you train your brain? Can we get better at "processing" the sound of a given language/dialect and reproducing it? If you can "without an accent" reproduce all the phonemes and sentences while shadowing, then couldn't we train our brains to master the musicality of a language?
Some people pick up on foreign ACCENTS very quickly, (even if they mess up the phonemes, they speak with a native-like rhythm and musicality.)
For the rest of us, those without this talent, what can we do?
I've never heard a polyglot who can speak multiple foreign languages with a native like accent. Some are incredible, like Luca Lampariello, but I've never heard anyone who can really fool me into thinking their American, with the exception of two of my Brazilian friends, who went to bilingual schools, and have been completely immersed in American culture for the last 4 or 5 years. Plus, they only speak English and Portuguese. If someone could pass as a native in 5 or 6 languages, that would be unbelievable. NOTE: when I say pass as a native, I mean that if your goal is "Parisian French" people from Paris think you're from Paris. I'm not talking about "native" in the way that many Scandinavians can pass as a "native" in English, because Americans assume that they're from some part of England, and people from England assume they're from a different part of England, etc.
Sorry for this post being long, and sort of confusing. I don't even know what I'm asking. ANY FEEDBACK regarding musical training, accents, and "training your brain" is very welcome.
NOTE: I'll clean this post up later and try to make it more organized and easier to read.