Aprender Inglês
- The Queen's English Or The Received Pronunciation
Received Pronunciation, often abbreviated to RP, is an accent of spoken English. Unlike other UK accents, it's identified not so much with a particular region as with a particular social group, although it has connections with the accent of Southern...
- Pronunciation And Listening Comprehension
Some tips on learning how to pronounce foreign languages and on improving your listening comprehsion.Why good pronunciation is importantLearning how to pronounce a foreign language like a native speaker is difficult but not impossible. The better your...
- Which Pronunciation Should We Teach Our Students? [part Two]
By Jennifer Let me address the teacher?s own speech in greater detail. This is an important factor to consider in answering our main question about which pronunciation we should teach our students. It is not so simple to say, for example, that standard...
- Myth #6: "if You Didn't Learn A Foreign Language As A Child, You Will Never Be Fully Proficient In Its Grammar"
© Tomasz P. Szynalski, Antimoon.com This is a more general version of the "foreign accent" myth described in the previous article in the series. It has its roots in the Critical Period Hypothesis proposed by Eric Lenneberg in 1967. Lenneberg suggested...
- Myth #2: "the Best Way To Learn A Foreign Language Is To Speak It"
© Tomasz P. Szynalski, Antimoon.com This is probably the most frequently repeated piece of advice for language learners. You will hear it from teachers, webmasters of ESL sites, and people in the Antimoon Forum (e.g. see Jeff Hook's posts in this...
Aprender Inglês
Myth #5: "You are a foreigner, therefore you will always have a foreign accent"
© Tomasz P. Szynalski, Antimoon.com
This line is often used to discourage language learners from studying pronunciation seriously. You didn't grow up in an English-speaking country, so why bother trying to get your English vowels right?
It is related to the Critical Period Hypothesis (see next myth).
Fact:
The fact that most foreigners have a foreign accent does not mean that you have to be like them. Many comedians are able to perfectly imitate the speech of actors, politicians, etc. Renee Zellweger was able to do a perfect British accent in The Bridget Jones's Diary, even though she is from the South of the United States. I can also humbly offer my own example ? on listening to my speech samples, a number of Americans said that if they met me on the street, they couldn't tell I wasn't an American. (By the way, I have lived in Poland all my life and started studying English pronunciation at 15.)
There is no reason why you can't speak a foreign language with a perfect, natural accent. You will need at least some talent for imitating sounds (if you can imitate people in your own language, that's a very good sign). However, if you just don't have the knack, you can largely make up for it with persistence and a little technology.
For example, you can record your voice with your computer and compare it with the proper pronunciation (if you're learning American English, you can use PerfectPronunciation for that). This technique helps many learners see where their pronunciation is different from the original and lets them gradually make it more native-like.
You will also need to study phonetics. First, find a resource which has recordings of all the sounds of the language you're learning (like the table with English sounds we have for English). Then, discover which sounds are used in which words by listening to the language and by reading phonetic transcriptions in dictionaries.
Perhaps you will not be indistinguishable from a native in the end, but you are likely to achieve clear, pleasant pronunciation that will give native speakers something to wonder about (for example, Michal Wojcik's accent is confusing for some native speakers ? they think he's from an English-speaking country, but they can't tell which one).
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- The Queen's English Or The Received Pronunciation
Received Pronunciation, often abbreviated to RP, is an accent of spoken English. Unlike other UK accents, it's identified not so much with a particular region as with a particular social group, although it has connections with the accent of Southern...
- Pronunciation And Listening Comprehension
Some tips on learning how to pronounce foreign languages and on improving your listening comprehsion.Why good pronunciation is importantLearning how to pronounce a foreign language like a native speaker is difficult but not impossible. The better your...
- Which Pronunciation Should We Teach Our Students? [part Two]
By Jennifer Let me address the teacher?s own speech in greater detail. This is an important factor to consider in answering our main question about which pronunciation we should teach our students. It is not so simple to say, for example, that standard...
- Myth #6: "if You Didn't Learn A Foreign Language As A Child, You Will Never Be Fully Proficient In Its Grammar"
© Tomasz P. Szynalski, Antimoon.com This is a more general version of the "foreign accent" myth described in the previous article in the series. It has its roots in the Critical Period Hypothesis proposed by Eric Lenneberg in 1967. Lenneberg suggested...
- Myth #2: "the Best Way To Learn A Foreign Language Is To Speak It"
© Tomasz P. Szynalski, Antimoon.com This is probably the most frequently repeated piece of advice for language learners. You will hear it from teachers, webmasters of ESL sites, and people in the Antimoon Forum (e.g. see Jeff Hook's posts in this...