Why are non-native speakers so obsessed with RP?
Obsessed with RP?
I experienced the opposite.
As I kid in Asia I was laughed at for speaking with a British accent. They were much more familiar with American accent.
I tried so hard to speak American, but I've never managed it until now. My vocabulary and expressions are more American, but my pronunciation is still closer to RP.
They probably didn't understand a word you were saying! Better to play safe and go with the flow. There are, after all, many times more speakers of standard American English than there or of the British varities.
I don't believe there is any kind of "obsession" with English English RP. Except maybe in Tunbridge Wells or Sunningdale.....
"Yes we can tell. Of course you can always find the the proverbial ignorant "man on the street to support any argument, but this probably goes for anywhere."
Sorry but you can't, Australian or British English doesn't make any difference for many Americans. Not to mention the way some accents from Britain can be perceived in America.
"If your friends aren't just feeding you a load of BS and the Americans they are referring aren't the idiot "man on the street" type of people then most likely all they experienced was either politeness mixed with sarcasm."
There are some foreigners who are thought to be native speakers in America, and that's much more likely when they don't speak American English, that what I said.
"We can tell a Brit from a Spaniard as soon as they open their mouths. The Spanish don't sound any more British to us than they do to the Brits. We definitely hear a Spanish accent, not a British one"
That's what I didn't say.
"although we can often tell if they had learned a British pronunciation as opposed to an American one, we are still not fooled into thinking that they are British any more than the British would be."
Oh well, at last. So can we tell from now on that it is possible to guess where some picked their accent from? Maybe you and Brian think it doesn't make any difference whether some sounds like they learnt BE or AE, but that's just your opinion, and you didn't provide any reason why something that can be perceived as different doesn't make any difference. At least for it can be sometimes very revealing of someone history and interests.
Sorry, I meant for ME it can be very relealing
"Brian put it nicely above:
"And it makes me laugh how learners talk about how they are learning British pronunciation or American pronunciation. A lot of the time they sound neither American nor British, just foreign. I remember, for instance, a Spanish man telling me that he was learning BE and spoke with a British accent. I thought to myself "No, you're speaking with a Spanish accent. Your English sounds neither British nor American.""
He was trying to learn, maybe in one year he will sound more native. How do you know he won't? But if your main point is he was overstimating his English level, well, it's just an anecdote mate, people can learn languages until reach a level very close to natives, that's a scientific fact I suppose you won't deny, and the ony way to sound native is listen to real natives. Maybe it's a ridiculous goal to you, and interesting opinion, but you at least could explain why.
"He was trying to learn, maybe in one year he will sound more native. How do you know he won't? But if your main point is he was overstimating his English level, well, it's just an anecdote mate, people can learn languages until reach a level very close to natives, that's a scientific fact I suppose you won't deny, and the ony way to sound native is listen to real natives. Maybe it's a ridiculous goal to you, and interesting opinion, but you at least could explain why. "
If his English is anything like yours it will take him a hell of a lot longer than just a year.
<<He was trying to learn, maybe in one year he will sound more native. How do you know he won't? But if your main point is he was overstimating his English level, well, it's just an anecdote mate, people can learn languages until reach a level very close to natives, that's a scientific fact I suppose you won't deny, and the ony way to sound native is listen to real natives. Maybe it's a ridiculous goal to you, and interesting opinion, but you at least could explain why.>>
Because he never will sound native. He will always sound Spanish even if his fluency becomes impeccable. When we English-speakers hear non-natives, we don't hear American or British because they usually sound like neither; they sound foreign, like they learned English in a classroom or from books or the internet.
The only people I've ever heard who sound almost native are Scandinavians or the Dutch and sometimes Germans; and they almost always sound American, not British. But even then, they will have a certain feature in their speech which gives it away immediately. Heidi Klum, for instance, comes as close as one possibly could to sounding native and she still sounds German. Her speech sounds sharp and choppy.
Next you'll mention Arnold Schwarzenegger, heh
But I agree with Damian, "I don't believe there is any kind of "obsession" with English English RP. Except maybe in Tunbridge Wells or Sunningdale....."
Most non-native people don't even know what RP is and, guess what, they don't want to know.
Why is the fact that he will never speak like a native a reason not to learn RP English? What's the connection?
They have to learn SOME accent! So it's perfectly legitimate to say "I'm learning British/American pronunciation"... What other pronunciation could one learn?
>>The only people I've ever heard who sound almost native are Scandinavians or the Dutch and sometimes Germans; and they almost always sound American, not British. But even then, they will have a certain feature in their speech which gives it away immediately. Heidi Klum, for instance, comes as close as one possibly could to sounding native and she still sounds German. Her speech sounds sharp and choppy.<<
Depends. While most of the Germans I've actually known here in the US have spoken North American English, I have heard Germans that sound extremely RP-ish in their everyday speech. In particular, I have a coworker from Germany who speaks RP all the time despite living in the US, which honestly sounds rather funny to me...
"If his English is anything like yours it will take him a hell of a lot longer than just a year."
Maybe, but one thing's for sure - he will get there before you learn good manners, and anyway, you still haven't given any reason nor answered any question. Why is so bad trying a native accent? Why is better trying a "textbook accent", whatever that meant? Perhaps I'm wasting my time asking an American bloke about language learning, it would be like asking him about cooking. You know, everybody can make easy generalisations.
"Because he never will sound native. He will always sound Spanish even if his fluency becomes impeccable. When we English-speakers hear non-natives, we don't hear American or British because they usually sound like neither; they sound foreign, like they learned English in a classroom or from books or the internet."
Don't be ridiculous, maybe I'll never play like Tiger Woods, but what's wrong watching him and imitating him in order to improve my shots?
As I said before, there are many foreigners who get very close to a native English, and they don't get there by doing nothing, they imitate natives.
I mean they are noticeably close to natives, at least for every English speaker in the world except maybe for native speakers if we have to believe you.
"The only people I've ever heard who sound almost native are Scandinavians or the Dutch and sometimes Germans;"
That's on average, mainly due to social conditions in those contries, but that doesn't mean anything for individuals. What make you think a Hispanic cannot make it? Anyway I'm glad you recognise at last that there are foreigners who speak noticeably close to natives. Good for the Dutch.
Next question.
>>Why is so bad trying a native accent? Why is better trying a "textbook accent", whatever that meant?<<
Same thoughts here; I myself would be far more impressed by someone actually learning the dialect spoken here in Milwaukee, or for that matter any real natively spoken English dialect, than either the cut-glass RP or the painfully dry GA that many more competent non-native speakers of English end up learning. Of course, such is almost certainly much harder, as there is little really written on many dialects, and that which is written is generally aimed at linguists and not learners and is largely buried in linguistic journals and like. The matter is that there are also a lot of subtleties to a lot of dialects which really aren't firmly written down, but will still sound strange if not spoken correctly or if appearing alongside incongruous features from other dialects.
The reasons of my own initial interest in RP had to do with the abundance of learning materials based on RP and the fact that many of my teachers used that kind of pronunciation. Until recently, most pronunciation dictionaries for learners recorded only RP.
For some reason, learning tools based on GA usually focus less on pronunciation, or have a very cursory or vague description of phonemes (almost invariably in a system other than the IPA).
My subsequent interest in GA developed out of the circumstances I encountered later in life when I came to the US to study.
Regardless of the proficiency that each of us attains, the simple fact of the matter is that we need a model; we need to identify what our target is, and work in order to get closer and closer to it as we learn. If the model is well documented and if there are plenty of readily available sources to turn to, all the easier on the student. RP and, to a less extent, GA meet those requirements.
I'm happy to depart from RP in my everyday speech. Granted, it happens frequently because of interference from my L1 (especially when I'm tired or stressed). But it also happens because of interference from GA and the dialect spoken around me (NCVS). I'm usually complimented on my English by native speakers I meet for the first time. Many tell me that I do sound native or that I don't have an accent. I don't take this to be literally true, but simply to mean that they can understand me pretty easily, that I sound natural, and that they cannot pick up any strongly foreign sounds in my speech. I guess that should be enough.