How is my accent?

Austrian boy   Thu Jul 19, 2007 4:18 pm GMT
You aren't wrong, Jérémy! At school, my French teacher talks in French all the time, although we have been learning French for just 2 years (and we haven't learned much in these 2 years!)!!! I can understand her without any problems, however, when it is my turn to talk, I don't know what to say or HOW to say it in French! In my opinion, reading and listening is usually much easier than writing and speaking, regardless of the language you are learning!
Jérémy.   Thu Jul 19, 2007 6:51 pm GMT
I thnk it's normal that you can understand your techer speaking French because anyway teachers speak rather slowly and they articulate enough for you to be able to understand, especially when you haven't been learning the language for a long time. And it's normal you have difficulty knowing what to say or how to say it in French, since you've only been learing French for two years, which is not a long time.
ctually when I said I ha difficulty understanding spoken English, I was not talking about understanding my teachers. I do understand al of my teachers, even the ones who are native speakers of English. Although t's university, they have to pay attention to what they say, i.e. they have to speak a very decent, not too colloquial English. I have almot no problem understanding the BBC either because it's a standard English, though it's faster. As soon as someone is speaking to a lot of people (like on the rado) they have to make efforts to be clear enough.
But wha I hae difficulty understanding is "real life English", people on the street, som Youtube videos, films, etc.
K. T.   Fri Jul 20, 2007 3:09 am GMT
Thanks for sharing your experiences-all very interesting. I have thought similar things about language and those who expect everyone to speak English.

I wondered if you had studied German and you confirmed it. In my case, French is my strongest language after English and it has coloured my Spanish. My point is, I guess, that other languages we study can intrude when we learn another one.

If you have only had short stays in England, then a longer visit in England, Canada, or NZ (?) may be your next step in reaching your goals for perfect intonation. Honestly, it wasn't bad at all if that is how you usually sound. It's good to shoot for excellence in language, just don't stress yourself too much, y'hear (I had to add something "southern" in to soften that...)

Did you ever think about teaching at an Alliance F. for a year?

Thanks for the offer to make recordings. I usually don't have trouble with words, but occasionally I do. I tripped on a word in French tonight, lol.
Guest   Fri Jul 20, 2007 3:13 am GMT
"K.T.,

Japanese is your native language, right? If so, let me hear a recording of you.

Also, tell me when you started to learn English. "

Actually, English is my native language. Is it THAT bad? I sometimes think in other languages, so perhaps that does something to my sentence structure in English. I lived in Japan for a long time, though.
beneficii   Fri Jul 20, 2007 3:51 am GMT
last Guest to post,

I'm going to guess you're K.T. No, it's just that I heard something about you and Japanese. I've never heard you speak before. When did you start to learn Japanese?
K. T.   Fri Jul 20, 2007 5:20 am GMT
Yes, I forgot to sign in. I started learning Japanese about 16 years ago.
beneficii   Fri Jul 20, 2007 5:27 am GMT
K. T.,

And the obligatory follow-up question: How old are you?
K. T.   Fri Jul 20, 2007 5:40 am GMT
The obligatory answer: Legal (lol)
Travis   Fri Jul 20, 2007 6:24 am GMT
>>Actually, English is my native language. Is it THAT bad? I sometimes think in other languages, so perhaps that does something to my sentence structure in English. I lived in Japan for a long time, though.<<

Don't worry - I myself have had people say that they seriously thought I was a non-native English-speaker from recordings of my speech as well as have had people seriously not believe my transcriptions of my own speech...
Jérémy   Fri Jul 20, 2007 8:07 am GMT
I am a bit doutful German could have intruded my English because I didn't like studying German and therefore didn't pay attention to it. I mean I was quite good at it but I was looking forwards to stopping it as soon as possible, so I didn't focus on it.

A longer stay in England is planned in the course of my studies anyway.

What is an "Alliance F." ?
K. T.   Fri Jul 20, 2007 6:17 pm GMT
Travis,
Really? Did you live overseas as a child? Last night someone told me that my English was standard except when I was mixing in foreign words. I hope that I am not doing that now. I used to do that and didn't realize it.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
To J,

"Alliance Française"

You probably know this already, but they seem to be everywhere and sometimes they need French teachers.

K. T.
Guest   Fri Jul 20, 2007 7:22 pm GMT
Check post
Guest   Fri Jul 20, 2007 7:23 pm GMT
I see that some posts require a password now. Oh well, that's too much trouble to do everytime. So Goodbye, Antimoon.....
Travis   Fri Jul 20, 2007 7:30 pm GMT
>>Additionaly, though I can express myself rather well, I have a lot of difficulty understanding "natural" (everyday life) spoken English if it's too fast or coloquial. The whole speech turns into an undisconnected mumbling in which I can't separate the words. That's annoying.
The way I can write an to a certain extent speak does not match the way I can understand. That's odd because it seems to me that non-native speakers can often understand better than they can talk. Am I wrong?<<

The matter is that how native speakers of some given language speak generally does not coincide with the "school" version of that language. Furthermore, the "school" version of that language normally does not take dialect variation into account very much. For instance, I really would not expect someone who is only familiar with school English to really fully understand the dialect here in everyday speech without taking a while to get used to it (particularly because of certain elisions, the pronunciation of historical /l/, and final devoicing).
Travis   Fri Jul 20, 2007 7:32 pm GMT
>>Travis,
Really? Did you live overseas as a child? Last night someone told me that my English was standard except when I was mixing in foreign words. I hope that I am not doing that now. I used to do that and didn't realize it.<<

Nope - I've always lived here in southern Wisconsin, and have only lived outside the Milwaukee area when I was going to college.