How important is regional accent when choosing a course?

Open Forum
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I was wondering how much importance people place on the regional accent of the speaker when choosing a course? e.g. if one was learning German at beginner level would you tend to steer away from courses spoken by someone with say an Austrian/Swiss accent (assuming you were not particularly aiming to gain knowledge of Swiss German etc)?

Do people think listening to another accent might affect/confuse later comprehension and pronunciation down the track of ‘standard’ high German? Or do you think it’s irrelevant and choose purely for content? I’m still at beginner level and at this point can’t even really distinguish between different accents but I’m wondering if it is more effective to try to stick to as ‘pure’ as possible German, at least at this early stage vs trying to get an ear for regional differences.

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Hochdeutsch,Standartdeutsch, Schriftsprache = German

German=Hochdeutsch mit verschiedenen Akzenten.

Hochdeutsch mit Schweizer Akzent (bitte nicht mit Schweizerdeutsch verwechseln!!)
Hochdeutsch mit Österreicher Akzent
Hochdeutsch mit einem Akzent aus einer bestimmten Gegend

Das Geschriebene bleibt sich gleich, aber die Melodie der Sprache ändert.

Achtung: Es gibt auch Hochdeutsch mit Englischem oder Russischem Akzent, diese Personen haben aber nicht Deutsch als Muttersprache und das kann unter Umständen sehr unnatürlich oder gar falsch sein.

Hochdeutsch vs. Schweizerdeutsch:

Sprachen in der Schweiz:

Swissgerman= Schweizerdeutsch

Schweizerdeutsch ist eine gesprochene Sprache und wird nur selten geschrieben!
Zum Beispiel alle Zeitungen im Deutschsprachigen Teil der Schweiz, werden Hochdeutsch (nicht Schweizerdeutsch) geschrieben.

j:-)

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We speak “standard high German” in every German speaking country, we just have different accents.I find it easy to understand people with a Swiss accent or an Austrian accent, but I don´t understand their dialects. I think you won´t have any problems as long as you stay away from them.^^

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Usually accent is no big deal. Listen, learn, adapt. If you can’t distinguish between different accents, maybe there are no differences at all or the differences aren’t big enough.

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@jolanda - thanks for clarifying and sorry for my ignorance! I was more referring to different accents of high German but was indeed confusing Swiss German with the Swiss accent - I never realised Swiss German was a different spoken language. Will have a look at those lessons :slight_smile:
@Paule - the dialects or the people? :wink:

Thanks for the responses. Good to know I can chill out about accent. I agree it’s good to adapt to the different ‘shades’ of a language as spoken natively, just wondered if it might muddy learning at an early stage - if not comprehension then perhaps pronunciation. But I guess it would be artificial to learn English and aim to listen only to British/Queen’s English…

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There are some differences between German/Austrian/Suisse German besides the accent. I have no difficulties to understand the different accents beside some words that can be different. If people speaks dialects I’m lost with some of them.

Robert aka lovelanguagesIII gave a very good explanation about the differences on this thread: http://www.lingq.com/forum/12/23201/

Here is the quote from his post:

"The major differences between Austrian German and the German spoken in Germany regard

a) usage of vocabulary (Sackerl as opposed to Tüte, Jänner as opposed to Januar etc.)

b) pronunciation (Germans stress the “i” in “Mathematik”, while Austrians stress the second “a” for example)

c) the fact that we practically NEVER use the “Imperfekt” or “Präteritum” when we speak (you will almost never hear an Austrian say “Ich ging gestern ins Kino” because it sounds extremely formal to us; we’d rather say “Ich bin gestern ins Kino gegangen”; we do use the “Präteritum” in formal writings though)

d) different usage of articles (Austrians usually say “das Joghurt”, while Germans say “der Joghurt”, we say “das Cola”, the Germans say “die Cola” etc.)

e) differences when it comes to using “sein” and “haben” (Austrians would normally say “Ich bin drei Stunden an der Haltestelle gestanden”, while - as far as I know - Germans would usually say “Ich habe drei Stunden an der Haltestelle gestanden”)

f) and usage of prepositions (Austrians only say “zu Weihnachten, zu Ostern”, while Germans also (or maybe even exclusively, I’m not sure about that) say “an Weihnachten, an Ostern”)."

Don’t forget that English has the same: British English, Scottish English, American English, Canadian English, Australian English, New Zealand English, Indian English etc. When I started to learn English I struggeled with lots of them. I focused on American and British English. Now, after 6 years with LingQ, I can understand most of the accents without difficulties.

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@VeraI - thanks for the useful post. I hadn’t seen it before. Yes, I know it’s certainly the case with English accents too - perhaps even more so. I have watched documentaries where I have struggled to understand certain Scots accents even as a native English speaker. Australia I think is a slightly unusual country in that there are no (that I know of) real regional accents (at least not like there are in U.S and the UK). If there are any regional differences it is more between country vs city in general i.e. you will find a ‘broader’ Australian accent in country/regional areas.

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I don’t place much importance on accent. I am more interested in the interest level of the content, and the words I will learn. In most cases the vocabulary is essentially the same.

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when i was at my school time of learning English, one of my teacher said: “don’t keep thinking you only wanna listen to STANDARD English accent”
tha’s true, there are so MANY people speak english all over the world. they all have different accents.
i try to pronounce it more correctly, and listen to different accents.
because…who knows in the future, whom i will talk to?

and now im learning German, my classmates have different accent as well, i quite enjoy it actually :smiley:
it’s not easy to understand sometime somehow, but having a gradually progress feels great though :slight_smile:

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Interesting question indeed.

When I was learning Spanish, what I tried to do was listening to material from different countries so I could at least develop an ‘ear’ for the different accents. I listened (and I still do occasionally) to a lot of material (mostly podcasts) from Spain, just because there is a lot of good material available. Then I also listen to material from different countries in Latin America.

I find the Spanish from Argentina and Uruguay the most difficult to understand. It is ironic because geographically those countries are the ones closer to where I live (south of Brazil). The differences are not just about accent - although the accent is particularly heavy - e.g. people use ‘vos’ instead of ‘tu’ or ‘usted’ etc.

What I did is I focused mostly on Central American and the European accents when I was learning the language. Then once I got to an upper intermediate / advanced level I started listening more and more to podcasts from Argentina (e.g. ‘Tango City Tour’). The LingQ Spanish podcast also helps, since most of the material there was recorded by people from Uruguay and Argentina, what is not so easy to find. I did this after I was already at a relatively advanced level of Spanish. I do not have the goal necessarily of speaking like an Argentinian, but I have now developed my listening skills so I can at least understand the people from that country when they speak. I’m looking forward to putting these skills to a test on my next trip to Buenos Aires.

I am now learning French, and most of the material I listen to is spoken with the metropolitan (i.e. Parisian) accent. I would like to be able to understand other varieties of French as well, like the Québécois. I have listened I little bit to material from Québéc that is available on LingQ. I find it difficult to understand, and at this stage on my language learning I’m still developing my listening skills on standard European French. Therefore, for now I’m not focusing much on other varieties, since they seem to somewhat get me distracted from my current goal.

My plan for now is to get to an advanced level of French working mostly with material from Europe. Once I get there, I intend to work on developing a good ear for other varieties such as the French from Québéc.

So, my view on this subject is it depends on how different the particular accent or regional dialect is. If the differences are small, then you should probably work with materials from the different regions right away. If the regional differences are somewhat bigger, like Spanish from Argentina, or French from Québéc, then maybe it would be a better idea to hold off at least for a while, and get back to working on the regional variety once you are already at a somewhat advanced level with the language.

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As far as it relates to comprehension or finding appropriate resources for input in a certain language, it really depends on the language and the marked difference from one region to the next, as far as deciding early on which regional variety to hone in on. For example, Arabic as I understand has some very stark differences from region to region, where some regions are not at all mutually intelligible, or at the very least hard enough to understand that speaking in English or French might be a better bridge between the various dialects. Or like what Julio just explained, some languages are pretty well understand for the most part irregardless of their distinct regions with exception of ‘that’ one variety. Another factor early on in your decision making, that has probably already been discussed, is whether or not you plan on living or staying for any period of time in a given place could make the accent decision for you.

For my part at least, I love hearing the various accents, and furthermore I love putting them on even early on in the process. I don’t know all the idioms of course of a given dialect or certain words that are used more often than others according to their respective dialect, but I like the sounds that different accents take on. I would agree with Steve or others that would say accent isn’t particularly important early on, exposure of any kind is probably the most important. However, there are some of us, like myself, that love the way different words sound, and I choose accents early on for how I want the words to sound as they come out of my mouth. Choosing a certain accent to listen to early on just reinforces how you choose to pronounce certain words, which can be helpful for not second guessing oneself obsessively on how to pronounce a reading exercise. I’m a musician, a singer song-writer, and I love developing a certain sound in certain songs and so choosing a certain accent for me is not a long-term emotional commitment, it just means right now I like this certain way of saying it. I have two Spanish friends who speak English, they are sisters, one chose British English and the other American, but they chose it not because they felt like it would help them understand the language any more or less. They chose the respective accents in part because they liked how they sounded coming out of them, and they had respective experiences living in those two environments where those accents were spoken.

But understand with enough exposure to the various accents then you can always try on another accent, or at least meet that accent half-way by not being entirely taken off-guard by someone speaking in a different accent. For me, the accent question can be answered in two distinct aspects of the language learning process, output vs input. It is less important to the overall progress of learning a given language as it relates to input and exposure required to learn that language. However, it may be more important for output, like reading a language out loud or conversation with a native speaker.

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Thanks everyone for the responses. I think Pablo_Barrett you are spot on re highlighting the distinction between input and output being key. I had lumped them together. In retrospect, my gut feeling was that for input/comprehension, having the end goal of adapting to different accents is always good, but my concern was that it would distract from my personal goal of speaking with a more ‘standard’ accent. It’s not that I think regional accents are somehow lesser, but at this stage my hope is just to be able to speak with a reasonable/not-too English accent - and I’m a long way off - so I don’t want to make things harder than they need to be!

I’m not familiar with Spanish but maybe the country/regional differences are greater than with German? I’m not sure. I have listened to some of the LingQ podcasts by German speakers with Swiss (Jolanda’s), Austrian and German Swabian (Irene’s) accents and I don’t have any trouble understanding them and can detect that there is a different accent. But comparing a podcast between say, Vera and Paul, I cannot really tell the difference. Maybe they speak a more ‘standard’ German? Perhaps it doesn’t matter when I can hardly tell the difference anyway as jeff_lindqvist says.

I am not aspiring to be able to speak with any particular regional accent but it would be nice just to have as close to a good accent as possible! I think I’ll probably mix it up a little (depending on what content appeals) but also listen more to Deutsche Welle as a reference point, as I guess that is as close to ‘accentless’ as you could get? I already try to watch movies as much as possible which I assume would have regional differences (that I just can’t hear yet!).

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@debbielim: “…my personal goal of speaking with a more ‘standard’ accent.” I think up to intermediate 1 this is a helpful strategy. When I was learning English I had difficulties with strong accents. Later they were no longer so difficult for me. I guess sticking with a more ‘standard’ accent at the beginning is important to build up the way you speak the language, to develop your own ‘accent’.

“But comparing a podcast between say, Vera and Paul, I cannot really tell the difference.” We both speak quite close to Standard German. I try to use this accent for the LingQ recordings. When I speak with my family or my collegues I often use our regional accent. But I wouldn’t use it when I speak with foreigners (no matter if they are from another region in Germany or from other countries). In other regions they make less efforts to speak the Standard German accent for example in Bavaria.

“I am not aspiring to be able to speak with any particular regional accent but it would be nice just to have as close to a good accent as possible!” This sounds very reasonable to me. My goal in English is to understand most of the accents but to speak with a more neutral accent myself. At the moment I still sound German when I speak English :wink: Most important for me is to be understandable.

“… Deutsche Welle as a reference point …” This is not a bad descision :wink: As I mentioned above Paul and I speak Standard German too and you’ll find some more podcasts with the Standard German accent in the library. If you’re interested I can give you a list with some of them.

But don’t worry too much about the accent. The most important thing is that you are understandable and that you are able to understand different accents.

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@VeraI: Thanks very much for the advice! I didn’t realise that the Standard German accent was something that people could choose to use/not… I just assumed that certain regions had accents that were naturally closer to Standard/pure German.

Most of the time I have spent in Germany (just visits/holidays) has been in Bavaria and Swabia but I personally prefer a neutral accent. I guess it also feels odd to try to align myself with a particular region when I am undeniably an Auslanderin!

Good to know that you speak close to a Standard German accent. So far I have listened mostly to your podcasts. It would be nice to speak (foreign) accent-free but at the same time I am not convinced either putting in all that extra effort is worth it for ‘perfection’!

A list of some of the podcasts with a Standard accent would be great. Thank you :slight_smile: Or even just a list of the speaker/tutor names would be helpful if easier… and I can look out for them when going through the library?

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ad Vera: (…) … We both speak quite close to Standard German. (…)

No offence, Vera, but you guys speak standard Bundesdeutsch :wink:

There are different versions of standard German. There is an Austrian and a Swiss version too :slight_smile:

I know most people associate the German accent with what is considered to be standard, but it merely is the version that is spoken by the largest number of people.

I speak standard German in formal settings, albeit with an Austrian accent and intonation, of course, but it is still standard German.

I know you were not trying to put down other variants of German, I’m providing this information just for non-native speakers. Long live linguistic diversity:-))!

P.S. An interesting dictionary for all those who’d like to familarize themselves with “standard German” as it is spoken in different countries:

“Variantenwörterbuch des Deutschen” - Die Standardsprache in Österreich, der Schweiz und Deutschland sowie in Liechtenstein, Luxemburg, Ostbelgien und Südtirol

ISBN 3-11-016574-0

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@lovelanguagesIII Da krieg ich doch gleich das Schaudern, wenn ich mich als Bundesdeutschsprecherin bezeichnen müsste, lieber bleib ich bei meinem norddeutschen Schlag!

Ich weiss, welche Arbeit hinter den jeweiligen Lektionen steckt um sie so ansprechend wie möglich zu machen, mit oder ohne Lokalfarbe. Natürlich ist Standard-woher-auch-immer-Deutsch für Anfänger zu empfehlen.

Das Variantenwörterbuch hört sich gut an!

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Dem Schaudern kann ich mich nur anschließen. Bundesdeutsch?

I’ve always agreed that there is an Austrian and Swiss version too, and I’ve re-posted your post about the differences because I found it very helpful. I’ve learned a lot about the differences in the past years even I’m not a linguist. Every version has its charme. As a student I still would focus on one accent as a beginner like I said above.

To make it clear: Paul and I speak close to a Standard German accent of Germany. I hope this satisfies Robert :wink:

The differences and the Variantenwörterbuch are interesting, but I guess they would confuse beginners.

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ad Vera: (…) I hope this satisfies Robert :wink: (…)

Of course, it does :-). Btw, we really use the term “Bundesdeutsch”.

Wikipedia:

(…) Bundesdeutsches Hochdeutsch (auch kurz Bundesdeutsch), Binnendeutsch, BRD-Deutsch, deutsch(ländisch)es Deutsch, Deutschländisch oder bisweilen Deutschlanddeutsch und in Bezug auf die Zeit vor 1945 auch Reichsdeutsch genannt,[UA 1] ist die in Deutschland gesprochene und geschriebene Standardvarietät der plurizentrischen deutschen Sprache. Das Bundesdeutsche unterscheidet sich deutlich von den nationalen Varietäten Österreichs (Österreichisches Deutsch) und der Schweiz (Schweizer Hochdeutsch). Die Spezifika des Bundesdeutschen sind auf allen sprachlichen Ebenen (Phonetik, Phonologie, Orthographie, Morphologie, Syntax, Semantik und Pragmatik) anzutreffen, am deutlichsten aber im Wortschatz. (…)

The Variantenwörterbuch certainly will be most useful to advanced learners of German and/or native speakers. It is not so much a tool for learning the language but rather a great way to catch a glimpse of the impressive diversity of our language.

ad Sanne: (…) … Ich weiss, welche Arbeit hinter den jeweiligen Lektionen steckt um sie so ansprechend wie möglich zu machen, mit oder ohne Lokalfarbe. Natürlich ist Standard-woher-auch-immer-Deutsch für Anfänger zu empfehlen. (…)

Ich habe größte Hochachtung vor der Leistung all jener, die in mühseliger Arbeit hervorragende Lektionen erstellen. Die deutsche Bibliothek ist sicher nicht umsonst eine ganz wesentliche Stütze von lingq.

Ich wollte ohnehin nur darauf hinweisen, dass es eben nicht nur eine “korrekte” oder “standardmäßige” Variante gibt. Ich erlebe immer wieder, dass mich Leute fragen, ob man denn in Österreich überhaupt “korrektes” Deutsch lernen könne. Wahrscheinlich ist ein Gutteil der Unkenntnis über die Gleichwertigkeit von Sprachvarianten darauf zurückzuführen, dass Deutschland auf dem Markt für Deutschlernende bei der Erstellung von Lehrmaterial zweifelsohne eine führende Rolle einnimmt und daher manche Leute meinen, dass die in Deutschland gesprochenen Varianten die einzig korrekten sind.

Grundsätzlich würde ich Lernenden auch empfehlen, sich zunächst auf eine Variante zu konzentrieren. Im Alltag scheinen viele Deutsche eine Variante zu sprechen, die einer Standardversion wesentlich näher kommt als das, was in vielen Teilen Österreichs im Alltag gesprochen wird.

Meine ausländischen Schwägerinnen finden es heute noch einfacher, Deutsche zu verstehen als manche Österreicher. Das liegt sicher daran, dass wir in einem informellen Umfeld fast immer im Dialekt sprechen.

Ich mag die Vielfalt in unserer Sprache. Ich finde es schön, wenn sich Leute auf Deutsch in unterschiedlichen Standardvarianten oder Dialekten miteinander unterhalten. Für Deutschlernende, vor allem für Beginner, würde ich aber auch auf jeden Fall zunächst das Schriftdeutsch empfehlen, so wie es ohnehin auch in den Lektionen in der deutschen Bibliothek hier bei lingq gelehrt wird.

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@LL3

Deutschland hat ungefähr 80 Millionen Einwohner, die Schweiz 8 Millionen (von denen 1-2 Millionen kein Deutsch können) und Österreich 8 Millionen. Wenn man Luxemburg, Tirol, Belgien und alle Anderen dazurechnet kommt man vermutlich auf 100 Millionen Leute, die Deutsch können. Mit anderen Worten, Deutschland hat einen “Marktanteil” von ungefähr 80%. ^^

Wenn nur 8% der hergestellten iPaid 2M eine 64GB SD-Karte haben, dann ist diese SD-Karte nach meinem Verständnis kein “Standard” und auch keine “Standardvariante”, es ist eine Abwandlung des Standardmodelles. Wenn Partei XY 80% der Stimmen hat, Partei Z aber nur 8% der Stimmen, dann ist Partei Z zwar nicht “schlechter”, aber definitiv unbedeutender. Wichtig für die Demokratie sind trotzdem alle Beide. Verstehst du, worauf ich hinaus will?

“Wahrscheinlich ist ein Gutteil der Unkenntnis über die Gleichwertigkeit von Sprachvarianten…”

Ich finde, dass die Wertigkeit situationsbedingt ist. Wenn man in der Schweiz leben will, dann ist Schweizerdeutsch das beste Deutsch.^^

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@Paule

Scheinbar ist es immer noch nicht klar!

Im Deutschsprachigen Teil der Schweiz wird von den Einheimischen Schweizerdeutsch in verschiedensten Varianten gesprochen! Ein Appenzeller spricht nicht den selben Dialekt wie der Walliser!

Mit Ausländern und zugewanderten Schweizern wird aber in der Regel Hochdeutsch gesprochen.Wir haben einen sehr hohen Anteil an nicht Deutschsprechenden Einwohnern!!

Die geschriebene Sprache ist immer Hochdeutsch.

Es wäre also sinnlos nur die gesprochene Sprache zu lernen!! Ausser Du möchtest nie etwas lesen!

Hier nochmals mein Forumbeitrag vom 19.März:

*Hochdeutsch,Standartdeutsch, Schriftsprache = German

German=Hochdeutsch mit verschiedenen Akzenten.

Hochdeutsch mit Schweizer Akzent (bitte nicht mit Schweizerdeutsch verwechseln!!)
Hochdeutsch mit Österreicher Akzent
Hochdeutsch mit einem Akzent aus einer bestimmten Gegend

Das Geschriebene bleibt sich gleich, aber die Melodie der Sprache ändert.

Achtung: Es gibt auch Hochdeutsch mit Englischem oder Russischem Akzent, diese Personen haben aber nicht Deutsch als Muttersprache und das kann unter Umständen sehr unnatürlich oder gar falsch sein.

Hochdeutsch vs. Schweizerdeutsch:
Login - LingQ…
Sprachen in der Schweiz:

http://www.lingq.com/learn/de/workdesk/item/642…

Swissgerman= Schweizerdeutsch

Login - LingQ…

Schweizerdeutsch ist eine gesprochene Sprache und wird nur selten geschrieben!
Zum Beispiel alle Zeitungen im Deutschsprachigen Teil der Schweiz, werden Hochdeutsch (nicht Schweizerdeutsch) geschrieben.*

Wenn Euch meine "Hochdeutschen Lektionen "nicht passen, werde ich sie wieder auf privat setzen.
Auf die 50 Punkte welche ich pro Monat für all meine 128 veröffentlichten Lektionen bekomme,kann ich alleweil gut verzichten!

Für die Lektionen “Vera und Jolanda” müsst Ihr Euch hingegen direkt mit LingQ in Verbindung setzen.Da gehen die Punkte sowieso direkt an LingQ.

Nun wünsch ich Euch allen viel Erfolg und Befriedigung beim Lektionen produzieren oder konsumieren!