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crossmr

Myth of the native speaker

Posted 2007-10-26 16:40:44 | Comments (7)

One thing I've noticed is that some people who want to learn English become obsessed with sounding like a native speaker. Not only is their main goal the sound of their voice rather than their comprehension and communication ability, its often unrealistic.

Some people believe they can sound just like a native speaker in a very short amount of time. I know foreigners who have lived in Canada for years who do not sound like a "native speaker". You can immediately tell when they speak that they are from another country. However I can also completely understand them and have no problems speaking to them.

You can try for a very long time to sound like you were born in North America but unless you were born here or moved here at a very early age (many studies suggest that anyone moving here over 15 years old will always have some accent) it will be extremely difficult, expensive and time consuming. I suppose that it would be possible through some advanced speech therapy to completely remove your accent, but unless you are having serious communication issues because of it, why bother?

Ask your self these questions:
1)Do people often ask me to repeat myself?
2)Do I get improper answers to questions I ask?

If you answer yes to those, your pronunciation may need some work. If you answer no, chances are your pronunciation is just fine and focus on vocabulary and idiom building, don't worry about sounding like the average Joe in North America.

This is a really interesting point of view and I agree with you on some points. I'm learning Brazilian Portuguese, and I'm very concerned with my pronunciation and I want it to be as close as possible to a native speaker's. I don't know whether or not anyone can even really ever attain 100% accuracy (even native speakers, they make mistakes all the time) but years of practice and just immersing yourself in the language can help you improve significantly. It all depends on how dedicated you really are to learning the language I guess.

I also want to work professionally using this language, so I suppose it would just help me to sort of try and remove some of my English/Spanish accent when I speak. That's just me though.

Posted by materva88 Oct 28th 2007

It is one thing to focus on pronunciation improvement after you are fluent, but the people I've met still have a lot of trouble reading/speaking and yet become very focused on making sure they're reading with the proper tone and pitch and if the sounds they are making are accented. If you become fluent, natural sounds will come if you want to work on it, but it does take a very long time even with full immersion to remove even the majority of the accent. It is why most people who move to north america over the age of 15 will never really lose their accent entirely.

Posted by crossmr Oct 28th 2007

Agreed! I think it's ridiculous to be so worried about pronunciation if you're not fluent or close to it. Those technicalities come much later. People usually have a lot of trouble with these things, as you've been saying, and overall I agree that it's better to just pick up as much vocabulary and idiomatic expressions as possible, and then move on to "mastering" your pronunciation. I have a good foundation in Portuguese so I guess that's why I'm looking to make sure I'm saying the words correctly.

Either way, language learning is an ongoing process, and you have to practice constantly! =)
Could you possibly point me to the sources that drew these conclusions? (After 15 years of age, etc.) I find these types of studies very interesting and would love to have a look at them!

Posted by materva88 Oct 28th 2007

Sure it was a few months ago that I'd heard the bit about accents, I'll see if I can dig it up and pass it on to you.

The rest just comes from personal experience and the people I've taught english to thus far and some conversations I've had with other english teachers.

Posted by crossmr Oct 28th 2007

I agree with you. I'm from Japan and I'm sure I have Japanese accents, but I think that while the native speakers have accents based on where they live, it's so natural for non-native speakers to have accents that immediately tell they are from another country. So, what do you think is the most important thing for English learners to be understood in English conversation? vocabulary? word order? stress or...?

Posted by Suzu Oct 28th 2007

Grammar and Vocabulary should be first above all. You need to understand the words you're using and how to use them. Stress, tone, etc are really secondary in terms of being able to be understood. If you use improper words or completely mess up the order people will have a great difficulty in understanding you. No amount of perfect stress, tone, pitch, etc is going to save that.

On the other hand if you have an accent that sounds unnatural, people might pick up on that, but they're still going to understand what you're saying. The concern of accent really only comes in to play when someone has an accent so thick the words they're saying can't be understood.

native speakers do have accents depending on the region they grew up on. Some of these are subtle differences, or some are quite apparent, say a Scot vs a West Coast American. There are people who study these and can tell where you're from based on some of the words you use or intonation.

It's okay for people to be able to tell you're from another country. This might be incredibly useful. If you make a social mistake, they might let it slide because you're a foreigner. As much as I'm going to try to become fluent in Korean, I don't think anyone will ever mistake me for a native ;)

Posted by crossmr Oct 28th 2007

I am in accordance with the point. We have proverb in India, One can not change the molded pot, if you try you will break it. So our accent is molded into us when we were child, it will remain. Though if one try hard one can change it. But I think its ones identity. I am an Indian, I speak English with some Indian accent, but I am never worried about it. I think unless the accent is causing problem in transferring ideas to the hearer, its not a big deal.

Posted by munna Oct 28th 2007

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