anyone using NLP to speak English better?

adal   Wed Jul 18, 2007 5:24 pm GMT
Hi, lately I have been reading and going through most of the post on this Forum about how to improve fluentcy , accent, etc. But to my surprise there have been no posts talking about using alternates methodologies to Improve their English Skills, or like the latest technologies on Neurolinguistic Programming. So all this makes me think that we all are trying to use those outdated oldfashioned ways to learn English.

I would like to know if someone on this Forum have tried to model an American Actor (using NLP techniques ) to speed up the their English Skills ?

I am not familiar with American Movies but would like to know any recomendations of what American Actor's accent you like the most?

thank you .

AA
Jasper   Wed Jul 18, 2007 8:45 pm GMT
I'm not sure what you're referring to. If you're referring to the "modeling" technique (where you speak each sentence along with the speaker, until you sound exactly like the speaker), I've heard that the method is extremely successful. However, it does take many hours of study.

If this isn't the method referred to, could you be referring to the Lazanov Method?
K. T.   Thu Jul 19, 2007 2:51 am GMT
I wonder why you are not familiar with American movies. Are you going to start watching them in order to model the actor's accent?

Some actors may have a different accent in every film. Christian Bale reportedly uses different accents. He isn't American, though.

Your topic is interesting, and I'm not surprised that Jasper was the first to opine, but you should tell us more...
Jasper   Thu Jul 19, 2007 5:43 pm GMT
KT: :-) We have several interests in common.

I have a question. Here I sit, all broken-hearted at my keyboard, because I don't like my accent and want to change it. Right now, it's a Southern/Western hybrid.

Here's the problem--I can't think of a variety of American English that I like 100%--except for the extinct ones. The trouble is that I am deathly allergic to any kind of vowel-raising, either in Americans or foreigners. I have heard accents, purportedly lovely, that sound awful to me because of prodigious vowel-raising, e.g. Cambodian or Vietnamese. It seems like all the extant American dialects--except Southern, which has other problems (!!)--have some vowel-raising to an extent.

If I wanted to do some "modeling" work, can you think of an actor/performer who has an American speech that would be looked up to as a standard in good speech? I thought of mid-Atlantic, such as Bill Buckley speaks, but that variety, in spite of its ineffable beauty, just sounds too "phony" to model.

What are your feelings?
adal   Thu Jul 19, 2007 8:03 pm GMT
Jasper

Although I was not even aware of the existence of Lazanov Method, I think his method is very close to an NLP Technique.

From what I read on its website he claim that by training some specific areas on our brain like Emotional State, Personal Motivation, Imagination , Methapors we could learn up to 3 to 4 times faster any language and that is exactly what NLP could help anybody trying to master a foreign language.

Yes it takes many hours study but on the other hand NLP facilitates faster asimilation and memory retention. The Lazanov Method explains something about how this work but I could not find any details or exercises,books, etc .

It would be very interesting to know if somebody have come up with some of their own NLP techniques to improve their English Skills !



K. T

When I said I was not familiar with American Movies I meant that I do not normally see American Movies quite often as many students of english said they do to learn the English language.


But I also learnt that by modeling some Actor's voice you really like it would speed up your flluency and improve your accent.

For example, some Women find Marlon Brando (young) or Christopher Walken Voices really attractive so watching some movies of those actor would be a good option for those who want to change their accent and at the same time making your voice more appealable to Native English Speakers.
Jasper   Fri Jul 20, 2007 6:36 pm GMT
Adal, I have had some experience with both.

There was a time that I modelled Peter Graves. (He has a GeneralAmerican accent with few Midwestern influences.) The modelling process is interesting; the conscious mind takes a backseat to the unconscious mind, which takes over the speech production process.

The thing that immediately became apparent was just how bad my accent really was; I hadn't consciously been aware of many of the complexities. Moreover, modelling Mr. Graves taught me some unrealized things, like breathing properly. I hadn't consciously realized that my own speech is too "breathy"; modelling taught me to slow the breath/speech production, if that makes any sense.

I did only about a week of this modelling because a major life event interrupted; later on, I decided that his voice wasn't really what I was looking for, anyway--too old, too stagey. But I can attest to you that the method is extremely effective, possibly even more effective than accent reduction classes because such things as breathing, intonation, cadence, etc are addressed. Our unconscious minds are extremely powerful.

About the Lozanov method, I read Superlearning in the 70s, and I can attest that some of the techniques, such as the rhythmic breathing, are very effective for memory retention. Moreover, it makes learning fun. The USGovernment, however, has come to the conclusion that, while the Lozanov method makes learning more fun, it doesn't speed up language learning any. You will have to make your own decision about this.

Hope this helps.
K. T.   Mon Jul 23, 2007 1:30 am GMT
Thank-you for sharing about the Lozanov method. I have sometimes thought about which actors (male and female) would be good role models for students in ESL class, but reading your post made me think about how important it is to choose age-appropriate men and women as models.


I'd look for actors who DON'T have hallmark ways of speaking and a man or woman (for any ESL ladies) who have a similar speaking voice range.
K. T.   Mon Jul 23, 2007 1:33 am GMT
"who have a similar speaking voice range to YOUR voice."

Best wishes!
Kess   Mon Jul 23, 2007 2:23 am GMT
try Meg Ryan in ''Against the Ropes'' if you want
to acquire a Northern cities accent

new kids an da black
lol
K. T.   Mon Jul 23, 2007 2:46 am GMT
Ack, my grammar...Lol...Meg Ryan interesting choice.
Jasper   Mon Jul 23, 2007 6:13 am GMT
Unless you're an actor, I'm not really sure why anyone would want to acquire a Northern Cities accent--it's a departure from General American (Standard American, it's called, in some quarters).
K. T.   Mon Jul 23, 2007 6:16 am GMT
I wondered about that as well.
Travis   Mon Jul 23, 2007 6:58 am GMT
>>Unless you're an actor, I'm not really sure why anyone would want to acquire a Northern Cities accent--it's a departure from General American (Standard American, it's called, in some quarters).<<

If one is intent on learning a standard form of English, yes. But at the same time, if one is not so specifically intent on such, I do not see why such would be any worse than any other sort of North American English, such as California English. Yes, NCVS-affected dialects have some distinctive phonological features, but I do not see why these would really be problematic overall.
Jasper   Tue Jul 24, 2007 5:30 pm GMT
Travis:

If the modeller is a native attempting to get rid of an accent, it would be trading one accent from another; his goal would almost certainly be the closest to General American as he could find.

If the modeller is a foreigner, though, I wouldn't necessarily see a problem with Northern Cities English. I can imagine some pretty funny scenarios, though. Can you imagine a Pole modelling Rosanne Rosanna Dana? That wouldn't be as bad as a Pole modelling Paula Deen, though.

ADAL:

If you want to pursue this further, audiobooks spoken by various actors are easily bought, or borrowed from the library. This is the easiest way to get samples of speech.
Travis   Tue Jul 24, 2007 5:57 pm GMT
>>Travis:

If the modeller is a native attempting to get rid of an accent, it would be trading one accent from another; his goal would almost certainly be the closest to General American as he could find.

If the modeller is a foreigner, though, I wouldn't necessarily see a problem with Northern Cities English. I can imagine some pretty funny scenarios, though. Can you imagine a Pole modelling Rosanne Rosanna Dana? That wouldn't be as bad as a Pole modelling Paula Deen, though.<<

If the person in question is a non-native English-speaker, I would think the most important thing would be to be able to naturally sound like a native English-speaker, not necessarily to strictly follow some particular standard (which may very well sound rather marked to most native speakers in itself, such as with strictly following RP). I don't think it really matters what English dialect one chooses to speak, as long as one sounds natural doing it (and ideally one would probably want to try to sound like a native speaker), even though if one might live in an English-speaking area it would probably be best to choose a dialect spoken there.

And if one is a native English-speaker, I do not understand why you would really *want* to change your accent unless you're an actor (where then you would probably want to speak in a wider range of English dialects naturally); and even in the case of one's native dialect being commonly deprecated (such as with AAVE), why not instead try to promote said dialect rather than internalize its being deprecated and marginalized?