staircase english
how can you have native speaker's staircase quality in your spoken english?
it just doesn't come naturally to me....
is nonnative's only choice only to immitate it?
I haven't the faintest idea about the meaning of "staircase quality" - in the context of language, or anything else for that matter. All I can think of is the need for learners to take the study of spoken English on a step by step basis and for treachers/native speakers of the language to do the same in order to simplify the process. I can add no more on this one.
maybe I should have said staircase intonation rather than just staircase quality....
I think you should check out Ann Cook's oneline website. I think she used that staircase term. Type American Accent Training on Google.
http://www.antimoon.com/forum/t8962.htm
ESB said "LOL. Guys, I'm Russian.
beneficii, I definitely have an accent, because people always ask me where I'm from, almost immediately. I've talked to a language expert who said that my main problem is intonation, I have a deep neutral voice and don't vary it enough (per the American "staircase" intonation). Maybe this recording wasn't the best, because I just chose a random news article to read, the way I talk socially is not as monotonous.
But is there something specific I should focus on, in terms of consonants/vowels?
Regarding the earlier question about why anyone would wish to lose an accent -- this isn't the topic of this thread, but in many ways it's a social barrier, it can be bad for one's confidence, and I'm tired of having to answer the question "Where are you from?" whenever I open my mouth."
i desperately need the staircase quality in my english
I am a native speaker and I often don't vary my tone much. It might just be the way you are.
Right, polap, I've often noticed that in long and very long sentences each syntagma is a step higher than the previous - graphically it would really look like a staircase. But those were British speakers.
Collins:
syntagma - a syntactic unit or a word or phrase forming a syntactic unit.
To put it simply, I'd say it's a group of words in a sentence that has some independent logical value, a logical unit. Normally we don't pause inside a syntagma.
hi polap
have you read the book"american accent training"?i'm a l2,i'm studying on the staircase pattern,my msn
xiaohan816@hotmail.com,maybe we can share some experience.