Hi ! =)))
Triple chin, what on earth is it? 
Seriously? A double chin is what someone has when they’re very fat. A triple chin is even more so.
So what is =))) ?
I can’t even find it with Google.
Hi ! =))
Has double or triple chin, or whatever, has it anything to do with phonology, or is it just an outright off-topic due to a total lack of any substantiated and justified counter-arguments?
yeah it is a task quite difficult ! but the only thing is I would say is, it’s not entirely impossible. If you get a chance ,listen to the youtube famous polyglot Luca Lampariello. His native language is Italian, but honestly if he didn’t say so I would never know. He speaks English perfectly, better than a lot of natives. If you only have a slight accent in a few words you pronounce, most natives would only think your from a different part of the U.S.A or something. There are a lot of native speakers in languages who don’t even speak their own language very good. If you get a chance to visit America, talk to some people from the country or the south. and there are other regions to where it’s hard for even native speakers to understand them. I guess even being a native speaker doesn’t always mean your actually good at speaking clearly your own language… Thanks for your Comments & Inputs!
Hey thanks, ! I think it’s possible to reverse non native speaking habits if one really spends a lot of time on it. And if your only learning one language, there’s a big incentive to try that. But for me, learning many languages, I prefer to spend my time elsewhere and embrace my non native accent.
Well Said !
I am not making snarky comments. I could not understand what =))) in your posts means, so I asked. Google results showed -)) as a double chin. I could not find yours.
Aren’t you going to tell us what it means??? I am getting roses for my question, which I guess means there are others who want to know, too.
Is trying to improve your pronunciation worth it? Yes. Is it necessary to be flawless as a native speaker? No.
With most people who learned ESL, I can tune my ear to understand them with just a bit of practice. I lean in to try to understand, and I never criticize someone for their accent.
The only exception to that was when I was working with a large group of Indian contract programmers in America who had seemingly complete understanding of English but spoke with such a thick accent that I could not understand them at all even though we worked closely together for 8 months. If your pronunciation is incomprehensible to someone working really hard to listen and understand, then it needs work.
Totally agree with you.
I’m a bit of a perfectionist, so I try to learn languages with one of their most widespread native accents, or at least get as close as possible. With English I had decided that from the very first class I had at the age of 15, and I’ve been told I could speak with American and British accents perfectly or almost perfectly. I often mix them though!
I record myself reading poetry sometimes, and you can check it here: Stream Spirits of the Dead by Antonios Theophagous | Listen online for free on SoundCloud
Now I’m actually more worried about pauler’s triple chin then the op, but here goes. I have to admit that it really annoys me to hear a fellow student of my target language settle for a really terrible accent, solely because they can be “understood”. Of course they don’t need to be perfect, but why don’t they even try to sound a little like the language they are learning?
Do you deliberately mix them? That is, can you stick with just one or the other? What did you do to get your accent(s) like that?
Well, my natural accent kinda depends on my mood, and to whom I’m speaking at a given moment. I can make a conscious decision to speak with one or the other, but even then I occasionally make a “false tone”, and pronounce a word or a syllable in British when I’m supposed to be speaking American, or vice versa. Maybe I just need more practice.
As to how I managed to do it, well, I’ve been paying close attention to how native speakers (in movies and series for example) move their mouths and facial muscles as they speak, as well as to the sounds themselves they uttered, and tried to emulate them. Also, I’ve been paying close attention to how I speak English, alone or in public, and correcting myself if I don’t produce a sound as it should be. One of my teachers, who was Australian, called that technique “the critical ear” (don’t know if he coined the term himself or knew it from somewhere), though I’ve been using it even before I met him.
What you need is:
1/ Carefully noticing the sounds and how they’re produced by the native speakers of your target language. I think one of the main problems in this department is that people get used to the way they pronounce the sounds in their native language, and they find it hard (or just don’t bother) to change these habits. So when they speak a foreign language, they speak it with the tonalities of their native language, which is why they maintain a foreign accent.
2/ You need to hear the language spoken a lot, by native speakers, so you can construct a mental repertoire of the sounds of that language that you can carry with you anywhere; and the reason you need that is:
3/ to pay attention to yourself as you speak that language, and compare your pronunciation to the sounds you have in your mental repertoire. The next step would be to correct yourself, whether loudly or mentally (if you’re surrounded by people).
4/ Obsession. You need to be really obsessed with the idea of speaking the language correctly from a phonetic point. Otherwise there’s a good chance you’ll give up midway, because it’s a strenuous and slow process, though if you start it early in your language learning, it would be much easier.
So far this worked for me with English and Japanese, where access to a large amount of interesting audiovisual content is easy. My German pronunciation is still not very good, and my Dutch pronunciation totally sucks, but I definitely didn’t have enough exposure to audio recordings and videos in either language yet.
A recording where I read a Japanese text (natives can tell me how good it is): Stream Japanese23 by Antonios Theophagous | Listen online for free on SoundCloud
Reading a passage from Nietzsche’s Also Sprach Zarathustra: Stream Also Sprach Zarathustra by Antonios Theophagous | Listen online for free on SoundCloud
Reading a text with my awful Dutch: Stream Dutch43 by Antonios Theophagous | Listen online for free on SoundCloud
I’d like to know how to gain a native like accent. I looked online on YouTube if I could find any advice other than what Steve posted. I want a different perspective. No disrespect to Steve, but I want something more precise than “just listen and read more” because going towards a native accent is MY goal, but Steve’s goal is to just be understood clearly.
But yes, it seems a native accent is the ultimate goal and if we go off of that, then we should at least fall short of somewhere near “native accent” spectrum.
Firstly, thanks for that great response.
This bit here: “pay attention to yourself as you speak that language, and compare your pronunciation to the sounds you have in your mental repertoire” , what does this really mean?
Also, you obviously use recordings, but how often do you record yourself? Do you see this as important ?
What it means is, just like in some meditation techniques, you should try to be conscious of the words you utter as you utter them, and paying attention especially to their pronunciation (as well as the grammatical structure and choice of vocabulary, but this is not our subject). In a way, your mind splits into two processes: one that produces speech, and another that observes it silently. It doesn’t have to be simultaneous, but you should observe and assess your pronunciation before you forget the sequence of words and sounds and their properties. But contrary to meditation, the point here is not just to observe, but to judge and correct, whether instantaneously or in future attempts at speaking the language.
This works better when you’re alone, because you won’t be interrupted, or expected to follow a conversation or respond or such, which could distract you from observing your own speech. But even when you’re in a conversation with other people, you can observe and notice your mistakes as you speak and make a mental note to try to correct them later.
Recording yourself would also help, and you could do it daily and then listen to yourself if the above doesn’t work for you, or if you want the opinion of a native speaker. I personally don’t record myself all too often, but that’s mainly because I have a bad mic, though I’m intending to buy recording material of better quality in the future.
Once you notice a problem with a particular sound, tone, or word, you could try to rehearse it as often as possible until you get it right.
Hi! Please check my responses to iaing. I hope it’s helpful.
“Is acquiring a native like accent worth the trouble, or should we embrace the different types of accents we all can bring to a foreign language we are learning ???”
Both.
Even people who make an effort to sound native have an accent. It’s just that their accents are easy to understand and (imho) sound mysterious/charming/whatever while people who are not even trying are hard to understand and sound…uhm…unpleasant.
Here’s an interesting interview on the issue of melody in a language and the listener’s perceptions of the speaker’s attitude:
Monotonous Czechs and insincere Americans: does the way we talk influence our prejudices?
Quote:
“I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve heard native English speakers complain that Czechs sound monotonous, disengaged or even bored when they’re speaking English. This has nothing to do with some kind of Czech national malaise and everything to do with the way that Czech works as a language. And it works both ways. When spoken with the more pronounced melodies of English, Czech tends to sound rather artificial, even insincere. All this can and does lead to misunderstandings. A team at Charles University led by Professor Jan Volín has decided to study the phenomenon systematically.”
It certainly is possible. Here is an in-depth analysis: