French accent

On Wed, 25 May 2005 09:31:59 +0100, Padraig Breathnach
wrote:

"Jordi" wrote:



Deep Foiled Malls ha escrito:
On 24 May 2005 07:55:21 -0700, "kyrha" wrote:

Hi everybody
I'm french and I'd like to know your opinion about french accent
Thank you for your answers

It is a permanent fixture that you can do nothing about. There is not
a frog on earth that has successfully removed their distinct accent.


That is something both French & English people share. When speaking
Spanish, at least.

It works the other way, too. I find French spoken in a Spanish accent
generally quite comprehensible, but strange to my ear.

Most people master the phonemes of their mother tongue, but do less
well with the phonemes of languages acquired later than early
childhood. I don't think we should see it is a problem (although some
language teachers do) but as part of life's diversity.

If anyone in the UK trains to teach English to foreign students, one
of the groundrules (so of course it's got its jargon) is what's called
"L1 interference", L1 being the student's native language.

If a student can be easily understood, even if he/she speaks with an
accent, then there is little cause for concern. If, however, they
can't be understood, remedial action needs to be taken.

Half the battle in English seems to be getting students to recognise
and reproduce stress and intonation patterns - unstessed syllables
becoming a short "u" sound. So "vegetable" becomes vej-tu-bl"


Keith, Bristol, UK

DE-MUNG for email replies

Keith wrote:

Half the battle in English seems to be getting students to recognise
and reproduce stress and intonation patterns - unstessed syllables
becoming a short "u" sound. So "vegetable" becomes vej-tu-bl"

Pesky forriners keep trying to pronounce different vowels sounds,
whereas English sounds more authentic if you replace them all by "uh".
And end every sentence with "actually".

A more common situation is that French people consider their language
part of their identity, and so they refuse to abandon their accent
("linguistic ego"). Quite a few French speakers have this problem.

But either way, they could not make it sound better even if they wanted
to, a good English prononciation is hard to achieve for a Frenchman,
much harder that a perfect Spanish or German accent.

pikatxu writes:

But either way, they could not make it sound better even if they wanted
to, a good English prononciation is hard to achieve for a Frenchman,
much harder that a perfect Spanish or German accent.

That's what all the French speakers with thick accents say. The ones
with no accent don't agree, however.

--
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Padraig Breathnach writes:

Not true. The brain changes. It's called development.

The brain does not change. That's a persistent urban legend.

--
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Keith Anderson writes:

Half the battle in English seems to be getting students to recognise
and reproduce stress and intonation patterns - unstessed syllables
becoming a short "u" sound. So "vegetable" becomes vej-tu-bl"

Stress is important, but intonation otherwise generally is not. A lot
of ESL courses from the UK waste a tremendous amount of time on pitch
intonation and such, requiring students to distinguish between "neutral"
and "polite" intonations even when the examples given are valid only in
certain parts of the UK and nowhere else in the world.

--
Transpose hotmail and mxsmanic in my e-mail address to reach me directly.

Mxsmanic wrote:

Padraig Breathnach writes:

Not true. The brain changes. It's called development.

The brain does not change.

Speak for yourself.

--
David Horne- www.davidhorne.net
usenet (at) davidhorne (dot) co (dot) uk

Padraig Breathnach writes:

That's a male perspective.

To some extent it's a female perspective, too. Many American women
visiting France complain that the men all seem like scrawny, stuck-up
wimps.

--
Transpose hotmail and mxsmanic in my e-mail address to reach me directly.

Mxsmanic wrote:

Padraig Breathnach writes:

That's a male perspective.

To some extent it's a female perspective, too. Many American women
visiting France complain that the men all seem like scrawny, stuck-up
wimps.

How do they find you?

--
David Horne- www.davidhorne.net
usenet (at) davidhorne (dot) co (dot) uk

Mxsmanic wrote:
pikatxu writes:


But either way, they could not make it sound better even if they wanted
to, a good English prononciation is hard to achieve for a Frenchman,
much harder that a perfect Spanish or German accent.


That's what all the French speakers with thick accents say. The ones
with no accent don't agree, however.


Indeed, but it's a question of proportion of "thick accents" in the country.