Having a good English accent is from the challenges that learners face when they are getting the language, and specially when they practice speaking..
Your accent can easily effect on your pronunciation, people can understand your English very well if it's correct, that's why you find many persons blame their native language for not speaking English in a good way!
I ever talked in English before with people, the most of them say that a native English speaker, although I'm not, and sometimes I need to swear about it to be believed finally.
So what do you think? Is having a good English accent innate or acquired?
Replies
hello
Aquired...because it's a question of pronunciation.
most of learners have their heart set on speaking like a native speaker.mutually, native speakers avoid especial tips in speaking and pronounciation so as not to sound like foreigners.i agree with our friends that the point is to be clear enough,and some times learners efforts fail because of systematic differences in their articulary system.thats why we see an indian or a pakistani with an especial accent.And there is an important point to be noticed,knowing the correct pronounciation is different from ability to for ex. talk in american accent.its important to pronounce words correctly to be underestood correctly otherwise you wont be clear enough,on the other hand,accent doesnt inflence comprehension that much!ive reached to this point: learn to be underestood...!
beside,when there's a will, there's a way....
As far as I am concerned, have a good English accent depends on a good pronunciation of words for what is the most important is the information you want to share. the rest is just superficial, and the bestest is to speak English whatever your accent is! for doing so, you need to practice, therefore it is acquired!!
It's both. Might be possible an English born person has problem in speaking like Info-tonic problem (not clear to voice). While a person born in Non-Speaking country, practised and acquired fluency.
At the end you will be judge by your clear way of speaking. :)
No way! you have to answer me first, this is the fair way! :D
No matter how much you work on it, how much you practise and how long you speak the language, you'll always have that peculiar accent of yours noticeable for native speakers.
How come American born Chinese do not have an English accent but a bilingual speaker like me does? Also, I speak Tai Shangese and Cantonese fluently.
Thank you,
TK
It is not necessary to speak "like a native". What is necessary is to speak clearly so people can understand you. Speaking clearly also helps you to understand other people, even natives speaking fast. Also, it may not be a good idea to lose your "accent". An accent gives a clue to the (intelligent) native speaker that English is not your mother tongue, and the intelligent native speaker will make appropriate allowances. Finally, and IMHO, the single greatest key to speaking English clearly is to understand and use word stress and sentence stress :)
And to answer your question more directly, I think it's 50/50. It is acquired and not innate, BUT speakers of SOME languages will find it easier to pronounce English than speakers of other languages. This may be because their own language is a stress-based language like English, or because they have a wider range of audible frequencies in their own language. Russians, for example, make excellent linguists, and therefore spies :) , because the Russian language has the widest range of frequencies.
Yes I agree.. and a good notice about the languages whom are stress-based language like English.. mine is like you described.. everyone listens to me talking my origin mother-language says it sounds like English.
Thank you for these precious informations Mr.Josef!
I agree with you. I was born in the mainland, but I do not speak mandarin because I barely attended school there.
However, I speak a dialect fluently, Taishanese, because I learned it through daily listening and speaking with native Taishanese speakers without reading and writing in a village.
Now, I am learning and improve Americanized English. It is such a challenge, but I enjoy it. =)
I wish I could have more survival advantages like the Taishanese. =)
Thank you for sharing the linguistic truth!
TK
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