How can I disguise my native language?
Unless you are trying to break out of a prison in Europe, you don't need to do this "White Lie" "Fake German" routine. I imagine that it makes you feel clever, but if you want to get to know people better, this is not a good way. It's smug, I'll give you that.
When you can spend a few days with an accent reduction course and internalize the language, why go for the quick fake routine? Okay, okay, I get it, you are breaking out of prison, trying to get to Switzerland and access your big fat bank account there, then you will jet off and meet James Bond...
>> Unless you are trying to break out of a prison in Europe, you don't need to do this "White Lie" "Fake German" routine. I imagine that it makes you feel clever, but if you want to get to know people better, this is not a good way. It's smug, I'll give you that. <<
Because you want them to speak *German* with you, and not resort to English.
>> When you can spend a few days with an accent reduction course and internalize the language, why go for the quick fake routine? <<
A few days? You mean several years. That's generally how long it takes most to completely eliminate their accents, and it takes a enormous effort that is beyond many people. The quick and easy method that I outlined earlier will allow anyone who is fluent in German to be able to sound like a native speaker in a matter of hours or days, rather than years. The hardest sound to master, in my opinion, is the pronunciation of the letter "r".
No, I mean A FEW DAYS, a month for some people. Germans will talk to you long before you eliminate your accent in German.
Star, German just isn't that hard for English speakers to learn to speak well very quickly. I'm talking about the accent, of course, not the grammar. Of course, you can do whatever it takes to get your response,
and I'm not against using an accent or even your tips (without lying) to get the other person to speak.
The biggest problem people have is not listening enough to native speakers who speak the language well. I can see how this can be an issue in German because of all the regional dialects, but then there is Deutsche Welle with all those videos. Listen and internalize.
The other sticky issue is this: Is it really one's accent? I wonder this because I hear the same thing about French and how French people won't talk to English speakers. I almost want to see a video of what transpired. This does NOT happen to me and yet I hear this complaint all the time.
Te he compuesto un poema, K.T.
Dígame, mi noble caballero
¿cómo has llegado
a ser tan noble?
¿No podrías al menos
insinuarme la clave
de tu infinita sabiduría?
Pienso en ti, siempre que visito
este nuestro hogar materno
que llamamos Antimoon
¿Qué es lo que te ha bendito así?
Sólo tú y Dios mismo sabéis por qué
Seguiré esperándote
Siempre que esté aquí
Que eres tan supremo
como la nieve invernal
te echas encima a los pecadores
como si fueras el espíritu de la bondad
plasmado en un hombre
Ayer, sentíme triste y solo
ahora, todo ha cambiado
Díomete Dios,
y ahora me siento renovado
repleto de pasión y fortaleza
listo para encararme con la muerte
y la nada de purgatorio
¡Vaya poema! He pasado todo el día componiéndolo.
wow, nice poem! Here's the Google translation:
We have composed a poem, K.T.
Tell me, my noble knight
How has come
to be noble?
Could we not at least
Key insinuations
in your infinite wisdom?
I think of you, whenever I visit
this our home mother
we call Antimoon
What makes you so blessed?
Only you and God himself know why
I will continue waiting
Whenever you're here
That you are so supreme
as the winter snow
you'll top the sinners
as if you were the spirit of goodness
embodied in a man
Yesterday, sentíme sad and alone
Now, everything has changed
Díomete God,
and now I feel renewed
full of passion and strength
ready to deal with death
and none of purgatory
Go poem! I have spent all day composing.
>>
The other sticky issue is this: Is it really one's accent? I wonder this because I hear the same thing about French and how French people won't talk to English speakers. I almost want to see a video of what transpired. This does NOT happen to me and yet I hear this complaint all the time. <<
It certainly happened to me when I was in France. While I can converse in French, the minute they heard my accent, they immediately switched to English, and refused to speak French at all to me. I even responded to them in French, even though they were speaking English. In about 5 different restaurants, I wanted to look at the French portion of their multilingual menu. Every time I switched to the French side, the waitor came and flipped it back to English. So yes, disguising ones accent is absolutely essential.
I try to give advice that works in the long term, not a quick fix that I'm not sure everyone can pull off. I've never liked that "fake accent/fake story" technique and frankly, I think it lessens the site where it is proposed.
>> I've never liked that "fake accent/fake story" technique <<
Well, K.T., Smith asked how to disguise the fact that English was his native tongue. He also said that he spoke the target language fluently, but was worried that his English accent would give him away.
>>I try to give advice that works in the long term <<
Well, unless you go through massive accent reduction programs that will take YEARS, not months or days, I highly doubt that you will be able to sound like a native speaker of the language without using my method, which has been proven to be the most effective in the world and which can be learned very quickly by practically anyone. And anyway, you can always refuse to reveal where you are from, if it bothers you to pretend to be from Germany. You don't have to tell everyone you meet that you're from England, or America or whatever. Not everyone you meet will really ask you where you're from when you're ordering something to eat, or hailing a taxi. And if you really do want to get to know someone well, you can eventually tell them that you are from, and since they know that you can speak German, and sound like a native, they probably won't feel the need to switch to English. Or, you can move to somewhere like Berlin, Texas for awhile, and be able to legitimately claim to be "from Berlin".
<<wow, nice poem! Here's the Google translation>>
Google seems to work fine even there's some mistakes in the original spanish.
>> Google seems to work fine even there's some mistakes in the original spanish. <<
Yes, it's amazing how good Google has gotten.
"Well, K.T., Smith asked how to disguise the fact that English was his native tongue. He also said that he spoke the target language fluently, but was worried that his English accent would give him away." star
If Smith is a "spy" then, yes, this would be a problem, but otherwise I suspect the problem is that he hasn't put in enough listening time.
Star, have you ever tried an accent reduction program? It does NOT take years if the person has hearing within normal limits imo. Let's call it a pronunciation and prosody improvement program, then. I know that it helped my Spanish within a few hours because I started making the sentences sing in the right direction.
I have studied phonics in French and plan to do one for Russian. I did one program in Spanish and another because I didn't like sounding Italian in Spanish. It works! I've also used one in English to help people who are not native speakers.
Please tell me if you've done this. If you haven't, then I don't think you know how easy it is.
>> Star, have you ever tried an accent reduction program? It does NOT take years if the person has hearing within normal limits imo. <<
I've yet to meet someone from one of those programs that actually sounded like a native speaker. More understandable, yes, but they certainly would never be mistaken for a native speaker. Only my method, which I outlined previously in this thread, is absolutely 100% guaranteed to work to make any English speaker that is fluent in German sound like a native German. The only problem with it is that it is not available in all languages.
Although I think it is advisable to sound as native as possible, isn't the real issue that the person isn't getting in any conversational practice?
I think the roots of that problem are deeper than most people are willing to admit. I often meet people who tell me that they speak language X. I will talk to them in language X and it turns out that they really cannot speak the language AT ALL, they STUDIED it or I will hear their speech and ow! it's like 'What in Sam Hill is that? What are they trying to say?"
Unless the person is the victim of those who want to practice English, then I think there is a real problem with fluency or accent.
If you like, post a video or sound file of you demonstrating your method.
I tried star's XSAMPA method, even though I'm not from England. Does star's method really work? I tried to follow it as much as possible. Am I understandable? Where do I sound like I'm from? Can anyone guess where I really am from?
Here is the audio file:
http://www1.zippyshare.com/v/22900735/file.html
Here is the passage text from the lesson (near the bottom):
http://www.italki.com/knowledge/wiki-German%20Level%20I%20Kleidung.htm
Here's the translation:
We drive in the Black Forest. I have a green shirt. The trip was long. It started to become colder and cool. I listened to music on my brown iPod. I am finally asleep. When I awoke, I saw the blue sky and white snow.