Thinking and Speaking in English Naturally and Automatically

<<There are reports of people changing their accents throughout their life, but all the reports I hear occur in their native languages, but could not the same thing happen in their second language too? Just like the mentioned 42up to 49up accent change (where 42 year-olds changed where they lived and by age 49 their accents had changed)? >>

As I said in a different thread, that is sort of my problem nowadays. I've changed my target accent, so to speak. When I was formally learning English, the target accent was RP, and I was fortunate enough to have as teachers native speakers who wouldn't hesitate to correct me. Now I'm surrounded by native speakers of American English who, as Blackhawk pointed out, will not normally say things like "By the way, dude, you totally messed up those glottal stops". I'm sure I'm less successful at my present attempts than I was before. And fluency does suffer when you think too much about pronunciation.

I'll be posting a sample shortly, just for fun, and I'm looking forward to seeing my accent being torn apart. However, there's still one thing I don't understand about the politeness factor, especially when it comes to teachers and other professionals... If I want them to teach me, and I don't consider myself lazy, why do they have to make it "easier" for me and persuade me that I'm already "good enough", or even worse, close to being perfect? It might be true that most Russian immigrants don't distinguish between "v" and "w" and still get along... But most of them just don't give a damn about it... all they're doing is recreating their culture here in Canada. You can sound 99.9% Russian (or Polish, or Chinese) and still be "very easy to understand" (well, not really, but that's what they say). For crying out loud... Make the native speaker's pronounciation the target, and if I'm already "close", be a little harder on me... I don't understand the point of making the target closer to my first language... I'll hit it with 100% accuracy, and I'll still end up sounding like I'm from another planet. If I target the native speaker's pronunciation, I'm *guaranteed* to miss the target (for physiological reasons), but at least, I'll end up being much closer to it... Any criteria based on "the average second-language speaker" are meaningless... It's kind of like bell-curving math majors relative to the general population or high school graduates.

I don't think I'm going to take another shot at losing the accent... If I had some kind of computer-based monitoring device that doesn't have the ability to be polite, I'd give it another shot... But in practice, it's way too frustrating for me to handle it... One day you think you've reached the goal, and the next thing you know, you find out that you're still light years away. I guess I must be on the wrong planet ;) All I have to do is fully convince myself that I've already reached my physiological limit.

Just post a speech sample, why don't ya?

Toto,
Yes, it is easier to learn and to be native in 2 or 3 languages when you're young. But that doesn't mean you can't learn a new language and be as proficient as your mother language. The difference is what happens in your brain.

When you learn as a baby, you fill in a library (your brain) with lots of visual and audio stimulations. When your brain has form it's own filing system (meaning relates to life), new information will be added and sorted aligning to your old books (logic). Like you said, you need to do "translation" before you can speak. It's actually a process of association and retrieval.

When you learn a new language as an adult, you associate it with your old language. This process takes time. Remember the first time you try to use your computer, you need to think before you press any buttons. Now, you enter your password without thinking. You've practised it so well that the process time shortens. But how to practise a new language?

When you speak, your brain has done a lot of work simultaneously. It needs to understand what was said to you, relates it to your previous experience, coordinate with your mouth, and respond, then quickly predicts what's coming and repeats the whole process again. These all happen in a fraction of a second. When you speak a new language, this process (wiring in your brain) needs to be polished.

You cannot translate word by word. You should translate the meaning. For example, "have" in Chinese is "owning", but the Chinese "owning" has another meaning "existing". Hence, sometimes you will hear Chinese says "There has a dog." Which should be "There is a dog". But in English "there" is not "being" a dog. It means "A dog is over there." If you translate it word to word, you will find it awkward. I believe you have the (English channel) system established. All you have to do is to retrieve it fast. When someone says "do you ...", your brain will automatically prepare some vocaularies like "yes", "no", "I don't know"... When people are talking about animals, your brain will be flooded with words like "it", "fur", "fierce"... So when you practise, you need to imagine some situations and practise responding to it. When you watch TV, repeat the phrases with the clips, or practise with an alternative response. It takes time training your brain, so practise more.

Mirror, I really appreciate your advice!

Blackhawk,

You know what you need? You need people to tell you how much you suck. You need people to tell you you speak funny and to beat you up for it and steal your lunch money.

In other words, you need a good few months of [i]hazing[/i].

Blackhawk,

Hmm, now that I think about it, you don't need it as much. After all, you've already been telling yourself how much you currently suck; this suggests that you are thinking about it and probably working on it.

Still waiting for you to post that damn speech sample of how much you suck.