The Linguist On Language - Having Fun Learning Languages

Accent and empathy

A recent study in Israel seems to indicate that how we feel about the speakers of a language, or the culture, will influence our accent. The article talks about our language ego as a factor that limits our ability to imitate another accent.

I have always felt this to be the case. To learn a language is to imitate some of the behaviour of another group. You have to act as if you are one of them. I know that I do. As I said in my book, when I speak Chinese I see myself as Chinese, when I speak French I am French etc.

Now, if I did not  like the Chinese or the French or whomever, I would resist imitating their behaviour. I do not like them all, nor do I have to like everything about them but I have to find something to like. I have to want to join their group and be one of them. I have to see that as a desirable and worthwhile thing to do.

If I felt that my own linguistic or cultural identity was important to me, so important that I could not leave it, even temporarily, I would subconsciously assume that I could not imitate another accent, and would not really try.

It is not enough to practice making certain sounds. You have to dive into the role of being someone else. You have to feel comfortable doing it. That means not translating comfortable sayings, and turns of phrase from your own language. It means forgetting who you are, linguistically and culturally. No one is interested. 

Every time I hear someone say, "we (nationality) have trouble speaking English", I know that person is just talking about  him or herself.

Pronouncing Th. Throughly thrifty Theodore

Here is a little sound file for the "th" sound. This sound is not so unique. It exists in Spanish, Galician, Arabic, and Greek to name just a few languages that I am aware of. Listen repeatedly to this jingle for a week or more and see if your control of "th" improves. After listening for a few days, you may try to imitate it, but not before you have listened a lot.

Remember to place the tip of the tongue between the teeth and try to pronounce "f". The key is the tongue between the upper and lower teeth.

Download Theo

Thoroughly thrifty Theo was a thoughtful soul. Theo thought about other people. He also thought deep thoughts. That is because Theo was a student of theology, a rather thin one at that.  He was always thinking. Most of all Theo thought about his money, because Theo was thrifty.

Whether he liked it or not,Theo needed a new coat. His coat was threadbare. There were holes in the elbows. Anything he put in the pockets just fell through the pocket and onto the ground. And the weather was bad. Therefore, something had to be done. He could not go to the theater with that coat. And that night Theo was supposed to go to the theater with his girl friend, the thoroughly scintillating Cynthia.

'Let me think this through" he thought. " I do not mind my threadbare coat, but what will Cynthia think if she sees me in a threadbare coat?"

Finally, thoroughly thrifty Theo thought the unthinkable, " I will have to spend the money", he decided without enthusiasm, and off he went to the clothing store. 

Pronouncing V and W - Vivacious Vivian

I have a friend who is a native speaker of Cantonese. He has trouble pronouncing "V". Download Vivacious Vivan

This sound file is for him and anyone else who has a similar problem. I read it once slowly and once quickly. I am asking him to listen to both, over and over. We'll see if he improves. I am also putting this into the Pronunciation section of the English Library at LingQ.

Remember to pronounce the "v" with the lower lip pressed against the upper teeth. With "w"  there is no contact with the lips or the teeth.

Vivian, a very vivacious woman, is a waitress at a very well-known Vietnamese restaurant in Vienna. The well known one with the violet window shades.

Vivian usually wears a tight fitting Vietnamese dress which reveals her very voluptuous figure. The dress shows her figure to full advantage. Obviously I am very much attracted to vivacious Vivian.

Whenever I visit Vienna I visit the restaurant to see Vivian. I wish I could visit Vienna more often.

When I phone to reserve a table, I invariably have to leave a voice mail message requesting a reservation. When I call  back to verify my reservation, it is invariably vivacious Vivian who answers . Then I get shy.  "I wish to make a reservation" I usually say, although I really want to tell her how beautiful she is. This has been going on for a very long time.

Will I ever get the will power to tell her how I feel? I very much doubt it.

What about pronunciation

I had a question on pronunciation in a comment to the previous post. Here is what I said with a few more comments.

I do not think it is important to focus on pronunciation until you have done a lot of listening. I mean hundred of hours, often listening repeatedly. If you start pronouncing after your brain is really used to the language, you will do better. You cannot pronounce what you cannot hear.

Much of the effort to get early level learners to learn pronunciation is a waste of time in my view, and possible harmful. Listen to American, Canadian, British or whatever English you want. When you are ready to work on pronunciation choose one form of the language, and one voice that you like and listen over and over, imitating. Till then don't worry about it.

People worry too much about pronunciation. It is far more important to speak well, using natural phrasing and using words correctly. I do not mean getting the odd article or preposition wrong in English, or getting the odd gender, or agreement, or case wrong in some languages. I mean having words and phrases to use. That is what matters.

To work on pronunciation, first listen a lot. Listen to someone you like listening to. Listen over and over to imitate the rhythm of the person you want to sound like. Or  listen to many people, and start pronouncing to yourself, imitating. You will get as close to that model as you are meant to. After that don't worry about it.

I have found that detailed instructions on where to put your tongue and how to open your mouth are usually not that helpful. Equally unhelpful is the international phonetic alphabet (IPA), which I have never learned. Either the sound exists in my language, in which case I pick it up fairly quickly, or the sound does not  exist in my language, in which case it will take longer. In either case the strange symbols of the IPA are, to me at least, unnecessary.

Pronunciation and sports

I just came back from cross-country skiing. I was trying to improve the rhythm of my stride. No amount of thinking of the various bits of instruction or advice I have received really helped. In fact I was getting more awkward just by trying to deliberately move in a certain way.

Along came a group of 4 excellent skiers. I just followed in their wake, imitating their rhythm. Of course, I could not keep up with them for too long, but I got the rhythm. I skied better the rest of the day.

Pronunciation is like that. Emulate something you want to emulate. Just try to get the flow. Do not worry too much about the technical details.

Exchanging lists in LingQ - Dimitriy's list

In a previous post Dimitriy provided a list of English words that he had saved which I have recorded here. I am happy to do so since he recorded my Russian word list in Russian.

As we do more of this we may find that it is better if the list contains edited phrases, and if the phrases have been selected from the examples, to be as good as they can be. Just doing this preparatory work is useful in remembering the words and phrases. As we go forward in this ,we could also name these lists. They could be from a particular content item, or from a Tag list.

I think these recorded lists are most useful for pronunciation, and may not be so practical for learning vocabulary since they can be a little labour intensive. I await comments.

An operation on your tongue to fix your pronunciation

In China, according to this article,from the BBC, people in China are having an operation to improve their English pronunciation. This only shows the gullibility of people and their desire to look for short cuts.

Accent reduction again

Here is the podcast

I posted earlier on the issue of accent reduction. I was quoting an ESL teacher who felt that accents represented someone's "cultural identity" and should not concern us. Only clarity should concern us. That same teacher also felt that it was OK to write "wanna" instead of "want to." What amazes me is the most ESL teachers on this Forum agreed with him.

Well I must say I do not agree. When I hear a non-native speaker speak English with only a slight accent, I am impressed favourably. Not everyone can do this, of course. And those who cannot, should not worry about it. However, it is dishonest to say that it does not create a favourable impression.

A Mexican or Chinese or Italian person hearing an English speaker speak their language with little accent will probably be favourably impressed. This impression may not last long if the the person has a disagreeable personality. By the same token a person with a heavy accent can easily overcome this initial impression if he or she has other very good qualities. But the fact remains that it can make a difference, and students are best advised to work on pronunciation.

If you are native speaker with a regional accent that is different. However, Indian accents, for example, (from India and Pakistan),  are not native and can be difficult to understand. These people are not native speakers. They are native speakers of Hindi or Urdu or Panjabi, and for them to pronounce in a way that is closer to one or another native English accent does not take away from their cultural identity.

That is different from an Australian, West Indian or even regional English accent which may be difficult to understand but is truly part of the speakers culture.

As for writing "wanna" instead of "want to", I do not like it. If we combine both
permissive"ideas, that a, let's say, Mexican accent should not be changed, and that we should write the way we speak, we will soon write,

"Hey, este, my freng, don joo guan to spik Engliss wis me suntyne."

I doubt if that would be welcome in English or any other language.

A non-native accent is good!

Recently on a forum for teachers of English as a foreign or second language, one person had this to say about accents.


Why would you want to reduce accent? Accent is good. It reflects differences in culture, background etc. Why would anyone want all English speakers to sound like people of Mexican ancestry?  I understand that pretty soon, the majority of Americans will be of Hispanic origin. However, we should still preserve the Midwest accent, the New York/New Jersey accent, the Bostonian accent, the Southern accent and all other accents. As long as people can understand each other, it is good. If some cannot understand accents beyond a very restricted region, we should work on training them to understand a multitude of accents as well as other languages.

and this

 

Proper enunciation and accent reduction are different things. The former relates to intelligibility, the later refers to elimination of cultural traits.  Talking about accent reduction gives students the idea that their cultural group doesn't' speak properly.

I do not agree and had the following to say.

Very few language learners do not want to emulate the pronunciation of some native speaker group. That is the model, whether it is achieved or not. Very few native speakers of a language do not react more positively, at least initially, to a person speaking in a familiar or native accent, even though in time this initial impression can be overcome.

So it is not necessarily helpful to pretend that learners do not want to reduce their accent nor that it is unimportant. It is useful to tell learners that they should not be unduly preoccupied about their accent, but to suggest that it does not matter is not, in my view, a good idea.

One of the best ways to reduce an accent is to listen repeatedly to a limited amount of content. Repeating along, with an emphasis on rhythm and intonation is particularly helpful. It can also be helpful to memorize short paragraphs and repeat them often.And of course it is important to relax and not worry about one's accent even as we try to improve.

I am not American, but If and when people with Hispanic ancestry become the majority in the US, most of them will likely speak English with the same accent as their neighbours and fellow citizens of other different ancestries.

I find that this politically correct attitude "your accent is part of your culture" is patronizing towards new citizens of the United States who are trying to speak like everyone else. I know that I make mistakes of grammar and of pronunciation when I speak another language. I does not bother me. However, I do not pretend that my incorrect way of speaking is just " a cultural trait". To speak like a native is still the ideal, even though I cannot achieve it. Speaking the way I do is not a "cultural trait".  I do not believe that those people who speak another language well are less able to represent their own culture. I believe this is just another example of politically correct "feel good" nonsense.

Interestingly the vast majority of English teachers responded to this original post by strongly agreeing. No wonder the immigrants do so poorly.

Pronunciation-the example of Stephane Dion

Here is the podcast.

I am always intrigued by the question of pronunciation. Why do some people pronounce a second language better than others. I notice for example that foreign athletes playing in North America often do really well whereas more intellectual types like professors often do poorly.

One example of the latter is Stephane Dion, the leader of the opposition Liberal Party in Canada. He was recently interviewed on television on the subject of recent cabinet shuffle by the ruling Conservative Party. This was the third change in the line up of ministers that the Conservatives had done. He began his interview by saying that "dis is de tird time the government has changed.."

Well "turd" is not a nice word in English. "Th" is not a difficult sound to make, just stick your tongue between your teeth and blow air. I know that Dion would like to be Prime Minister one day. He has been in Canadian politics for 15 years. He has private language coaches. How can he say "tird?"

I am sure he can make the "th" sound. But when he goes to speak he says "tird". Pretty damaging for him. I am sure the majority of English Canadians who saw him on television immediately laughed. Not good for a politician. Why can't he change?  Or, better still, how can he change?

I believe he needs to create some new neural networks in his brain so that when he goes to say certain words he will get them right. I think that something like daily listening to and repeating from memory certain paragraphs, either  with a lot of "th" in them, or more general, like our own "Pronunciation -read slowly and read at normal speed" would help. I am talking about hundreds of repetitions.

What do others think?