[subego]

And if not, why?

Is there something specific about English that brings this out in people?

[analogika]

What the hell are you talking about? Do you actually speak a foreign language?

How the hell do you "hide" your native accent?

The implication is that people "put on" a foreign accent when they're perfectly able to speak without an accent - this is quite possibly true for somebody like Schwarzenegger, who makes his money off his accent, but a patently ridiculous assumption in daily life.

[subego]

Originally Posted by analogika 

What the hell are you talking about? Do you actually speak a foreign language?

Not enough to consider myself fluent, but I fail to see the relevance.

On the few occasions I have to speak a foreign language I try and sound like the people I'm talking to.

I pronounce it "parlay voo" even though my normal accent would be...

Well, I was going to write something like "parlays voos" but to be honest, I can't even imagine trying to pronounce that without an attached French accent.

So why does someone who is French speaking English say "zis or zat" instead of "this or that"?

Originally Posted by analogika 

How the hell do you "hide" your native accent?

Huh? You can't mimic regional accents in your native language? It's the same thing. Maybe I'm gifted or something.

Originally Posted by analogika 

The implication is that people "put on" a foreign accent when they're perfectly able to speak without an accent - this is quite possibly true for somebody like Schwarzenegger, who makes his money off his accent, but a patently ridiculous assumption in daily life.

Actually, the implication is that people don't bother with the effort of trying to sound like a native. I can think of plenty of reasons why one would do this. Remember I come from the country where people don't even bother to learn a foreign language, let alone try and hide their accent.

[Oisín]

^^ What he said (analogika, that is).

I can’t see any reason for wanting to speak anything (other than Danish) with a Danish accent, except on occasion for comic value. Other than that, a Danish accent sounds horrible with just about anything, most especially English.

I’m not sure what you mean by “Is there something specific about English that brings this out in people?”. Do you mean the way many English-speaking people tend to carry rather a heavy accent when speaking foreign languages? Or that foreigners tend to carry an accent from their own language when speaking English?

The two are basically two sides of the same story: that most people can’t shed their own accent without lots and lots of training. As infants, we’re susceptible to more or less all vocal sounds; but very early on, we’re conditioned to focus on the sounds in the language(s) we learn natively, and lose sensitivity to all other sounds. Thus, when we’re learning a language as an adult, we must try that much harder to discern differences in foreign languages that don’t exist in our own languages. Otherwise, we end up having a heavy accent.

For some reason (probably due to the way in which foreign languages are taught in schools), some nations seem to be averagely worse than others where this is concerned. People from English-, Spanish-, and Chinese-speaking places seem to be the worst, in my experience, which I assume is because foreign languages are taught in schools via the native language, not via the foreign language. Conversely, places where foreign languages are taught, as far as possible, in that foreign language itself (like Scandinavia, the Netherlands, Israel, etc.) tend to produce speakers who have less heavy accents overall.

[analogika]

Are you saying that if you say "par-lay voo" instead of "parlezz voose", you think you sound French?

You're just speaking the language. Chances are pretty close to 100% that no native speaker will EVER, regardless of how much effort you put behind it, mistake you for a Frenchman.

Unless you're exceptionally gifted or have been fully multilingual from a very early age, you will ALWAYS be bound in some way to the phonetic framework of your mother tongue.

A Frenchman or a German will say "zis" because the sound for "th" does not exist in our languages. It takes a huge amount of training to learn it if you didn't as a child.

Just like you trying to say the German word "kalt" will ALWAYS make it sound like "cult" because the open "a" sound simply doesn't exist in American English.

[Oisín]

Originally Posted by subego 

I pronounce it "parlay voo" even though my normal accent would be...

Well, I was going to write something like "parlays voos" but to be honest, I can't even imagine trying to pronounce that without an attached French accent.

So why does someone who is French speaking English say "zis or zat" instead of "this or that"?

That’s a bit backwards. Saying /parlay voo/, pronouncing it like ['pʰɑɹlɛɪ 'vu:], is not hiding your own accent. It’s approximating French sounds just like saying ‘zis’ or ‘zat’ is a Frenchman approximating English sounds.

If you really ‘hid’ your native accent, you’d be saying [paʁˌle 'vu].

[- - e r i k - -]

Indeed. Accents can wear off over time, in some people faster than others. But intentionally hiding it by trying to mimic a local accent just comes off as parody. Not the intended effect you might be after.

[OreoCookie]

Not hide, but you pick up bits and pieces from the region you're living in anyway. I think my German accents is getting more pronounced with age. When I lived in the US the first time when I was 16, 17, people usually didn't realize I was not an American until somebody told them. Then they could `hear it'.

The second time I've lived in the US, it was considerably harder. But on the other hand, when you live in the Bay Area, there is not one single `accent' to pick up. Should I try to imitate the owner of Bing's Wash Salon? Or put some Mexican accent into my English?

The reason why I want to try to `lose' my accent is to sound neutral. The best I can do `at my age' is to mask my native accent so well that people can't pin point where I'm from. At least in my case, the goal behind this is simple: I want to be easily understood by my audience. I do that even when talking to Japanese people: I japanize my English (i. e. mutilate it). It's purely subconscious. Same when I talk to English friends of mine. Or when I've moved to different regions within Germany.

@analogika
Germans have an easier time, because German contains a lot more sounds than other languages. Japanese, for instance, are screwed, as you know. They have few sounds and a lot of problems to just hear the differences between sounds, let alone imitate them.

[subego]

Originally Posted by Oisín 

I’m not sure what you mean by “Is there something specific about English that brings this out in people?”. Do you mean the way many English-speaking people tend to carry rather a heavy accent when speaking foreign languages? Or that foreigners tend to carry an accent from their own language when speaking English?

As someone who doesn't really speak a foreign language, and spends most of my time in America, I'm far more sensitive to the latter.

Originally Posted by Oisín 

The two are basically two sides of the same story: that most people can’t shed their own accent without lots and lots of training. As infants, we’re susceptible to more or less all vocal sounds; but very early on, we’re conditioned to focus on the sounds in the language(s) we learn natively, and lose sensitivity to all other sounds. Thus, when we’re learning a language as an adult, we must try that much harder to discern differences in foreign languages that don’t exist in our own languages. Otherwise, we end up having a heavy accent.

For some reason (probably due to the way in which foreign languages are taught in schools), some nations seem to be averagely worse than others where this is concerned. People from English-, Spanish-, and Chinese-speaking places seem to be the worst, in my experience, which I assume is because foreign languages are taught in schools via the native language, not via the foreign language. Conversely, places where foreign languages are taught, as far as possible, in that foreign language itself (like Scandinavia, the Netherlands, Israel, etc.) tend to produce speakers who have less heavy accents overall.

Now that you mention it, I believe I've heard this before. I guess I should also give props to my French teachers in high school who were very cognizant of teaching us the sounds in French that had no English equivalent. This wasn't so much the case with Spanish in grade school.

One thing I have noticed however, and this is of course only my observation, is that many Americans can do accents. I live in the north, we can all do fake southern accents. Most people can do either British or Irish accents. A fair number can "soun like zee are speeking zee English as eef they were fronch".

Isn't something like this at the core of sounding like a native?

[Oisín]

@analogika
Germans have an easier time, because German contains a lot more sounds than other languages. Japanese, for instance, are screwed, as you know. They have few sounds and a lot of problems to just hear the differences between sounds, let alone imitate them.

That’s all relative. Germans have an easier time when learning English or French, since German contains most of the sounds that are present in those two languages.

Germans don’t have it any easier if we’re talking about learning Vietnamese, Hausa, or Damin.

[analogika]

Originally Posted by OreoCookie 

@analogika
Germans have an easier time, because German contains a lot more sounds than other languages. Japanese, for instance, are screwed, as you know. They have few sounds and a lot of problems to just hear the differences between sounds, let alone imitate them.

Actually, the single biggest problem Japanese have, IMO, is that they're taught their school English via katakana syllables by Japanese teachers who learned them that way.

If kids' only exposure to English is via a teacher who says bokushingu and oosutorahria, they're basically ****ed for life unless they spend a substantial amount of time outside the country.

[subego]

Originally Posted by - - e r i k - - 

Indeed. Accents can wear off over time, in some people faster than others. But intentionally hiding it by trying to mimic a local accent just comes off as parody. Not the intended effect you might be after.

This hasn't been my experience. Once I know someone well enough I always try and get them to do an American accent if they weren't born here. Most of them can pull it off, at least to the point that their thick (usually Eastern European) normal accent is what sounds like the parody.

I must disclose however, there is usually some alcohol involved.

[Oisín]

Isn't something like this at the core of sounding like a native?

In a way, yes. The only difference is that people are exposed to the sounds and idiosyncrasies of other dialects of their own language from infancy, while they’re not usually exposed to those of other languages until much later.

[- - e r i k - -]

Originally Posted by subego 

This hasn't been my experience. Once I know someone well enough I always try and get them to do an American accent if they weren't born here. Most of them can pull it off, at least to the point that their thick (usually Eastern European) normal accent is what sounds like the parody.

But why?

[subego]

Originally Posted by Oisín 

That’s a bit backwards. Saying /parlay voo/, pronouncing it like ['pʰɑɹlɛɪ 'vu:], is not hiding your own accent. It’s approximating French sounds just like saying ‘zis’ or ‘zat’ is a Frenchman approximating English sounds.

If you really ‘hid’ your native accent, you’d be saying [paʁˌle 'vu].

Well, there's trying, and there's succeeding.

I did have a bit of trouble coming up with a good "layman" written pronunciation for that. I diddled with 3 or 4 different spellings and just said **** it.

[analogika]

Originally Posted by subego 

One thing I have noticed however, and this is of course only my observation, is that many Americans can do accents. I live in the north, we can all do fake southern accents. Most people can do either British or Irish accents. A fair number can "soun like zee are speeking zee English as eef they were fronch".

Isn't something like this at the core of sounding like a native?

Sort of. But there's a substantial difference between "doing an accent" for parody among a couple of buddies and actually sounding like a genuine Frenchman with a bad accent. As in, distinguishable from a Quebecois with a bad accent, or a Cote-d'Ivoirian with a bad accent.

Oddly, I speak both German and English completely without accent (having grown up with both), but I cannot fake a convincing German accent in English.

Just can't do it.

The other way round works fine.

[OreoCookie]

Originally Posted by analogika 

Actually, the single biggest problem Japanese have, IMO, is that they're taught their school English via katakana syllables by Japanese teachers who learned them that way.

katakana no hatsuon, yes, you're right.
Actually words in katakana are usually the hardest to understand for me.

Originally Posted by Oisín 

That’s all relative. Germans have an easier time when learning English or French, since German contains most of the sounds that are present in those two languages.

Germans don’t have it any easier if we’re talking about learning Vietnamese, Hausa, or Damin.

Yes, it's relative, but since we focussed on English (and Europeans), I think we still have an edge. Chinese, Vietnamese, etc. are a different story.

[subego]

Originally Posted by - - e r i k - - 

But why?

Laughs aplenty.

There's usually some editorial content involved in what they choose to say as an "American".

What kind of accent they do is also interesting. I dated a girl who sounded as Polish as the day was long, and then all of the sudden she could sound like she came right out of Southern California.

Edit: I would have asked her this question, but I thought it could adversely affect me getting in her pants. Judging by the number of pants I'm getting into with this thread, that was probably the right choice.

[OreoCookie]

Originally Posted by subego 

One thing I have noticed however, and this is of course only my observation, is that many Americans can do accents. I live in the north, we can all do fake southern accents. Most people can do either British or Irish accents. A fair number can "soun like zee are speeking zee English as eef they were fronch".

Isn't something like this at the core of sounding like a native?

Well, you can try to fake a Southern accent, but I've yet to meet many who can fool other Southerners into believing they are Southerners as well. It's very hard (in any language) and you need to be gifted. Of course, most can parody a Southern or French accent.

So I don't think this is the core of sounding like a native. I could try a Saxonian or a Bavarian accent in German (I lived in both places, but I'm not native to either of them), but I wouldn't be very good. My brother, on the other hand, can imitate them much better than I can, it's not just being native, it's also talent. And you need to have lived at that place to really know what words they're using and the style they tend to talk to each other (more aggressively, faster, slower, etc.).

[subego]

Originally Posted by analogika 

Oddly, I speak both German and English completely without accent (having grown up with both), but I cannot fake a convincing German accent in English.

Just can't do it.

The other way round works fine.

Actually, I find this is fantastically interesting.

Any idea why? Just how your voice is trained? Do you think you could do it if you tried really hard? (I mean practice, not just using the force or something) Do you think you could do it with help?

[analogika]

Actually, I could probably do it well enough to convince you.

But I find it very difficult to concentrate on the common errors Germans make - the overcompensating for the "th" sound, thwacking a couple of innocent "s"'s in the process, the inability to have a word end in a vocalised "s" ("blue eyece" instead of "blue eyez"), and the constant mix up of "v" and "w" in overcompensation for the fact that in German, the "w" is pronounced as the English "v", while the "v" is either pronounced like the English "v" or "f", depending rather arbitrarily upon the word. These mistakes are incredibly difficult to get right, especially since Germans speaking foreign languages try very hard to be gramatically precise.

From what you've posted, these are probably all things that you would never notice, but they're actually what makes the accent real, along with the vowel shifts and slightly choppy melody that are the hallmark of a run-of-the-mill German parody.


Going the other way isn't as difficult, as American phonetic mangling is very predictable - just darken all the vowels, choke the glottal fricatives, and send everything through the bubble-gum filter.
Another rather important factor here, though, is typical sentence structure mangling - that's not arbitrary, but based upon applying rules across languages.

[residentEvil]

i'm trying to be clever with my http://forums.macnn.com/89/macnn-lou...crazy-wombats/ thread, but i'm tired...been up all night.

[hwojtek]

Originally Posted by subego 

I pronounce it "parlay voo" even though my normal accent would be...

Wrong. "parleh' voo" with a shortened "oo". Sorry, you fail with your accent skills.

Originally Posted by subego 

So why does someone who is French speaking English say "zis or zat" instead of "this or that"?

Because when s/he was developing their speaking, s/he got accustomed to the specifics of the pronunciation of the native tongue. It's near impossible for late-learners to mimic the proper actions of the speech apparatus of a native speaker.
I have yet to see a native English speaker able to persuade me he's Polish. Or German. Or French. Or Russian. Even professional translators and interpreters are only close to a perfect imitation.

On the other hand, the more complex the pronunciation of the mother tongue, the easier it is to mimic a foreign language accent. No way for a German to pronounce the famous Polish tongue-twister "W Szczebrzeszynie chrząszcz brzmi w trzcinie" properly. Never. However, a Polish schoolkid learning German would have no problems with "Im dichten Fichtendickicht sind dicke Fichten wichtig." Polish (and Slavic languages as such) are among the most phonetically complex.

[subego]

Originally Posted by analogika 

Actually, I could probably do it well enough to convince you.

Don't set the bar too high, now.

Originally Posted by analogika 

But I find it very difficult to concentrate on the common errors Germans make - the overcompensating for the "th" sound, thwacking a couple of innocent "s"'s in the process, the inability to have a word end in a vocalised "s" ("blue eyece" instead of "blue eyez"), and the constant mix up of "v" and "w" in overcompensation for the fact that in German, the "w" is pronounced as the English "v", while the "v" is either pronounced like the English "v" or "f", depending rather arbitrarily upon the word. These mistakes are incredibly difficult to get right, especially since Germans speaking foreign languages try very hard to be gramatically precise.

I'm still imagining though, that were you to choose one of these issues and concentrate on it, you could probably master that one issue in a week or so?

Originally Posted by analogika 

From what you've posted, these are probably all things that you would never notice, but they're actually what makes the accent real, along with the vowel shifts and slightly choppy melody that are the hallmark of a run-of-the-mill German parody.

Actually from the answers I'm getting here, I think that may not be the case, and is ultimately what led me to ask the question.

I mean, you are correct in the sense that I'm not familiar enough with German to know what to be listening for, but when I am put in the (as I admitted, rare) circumstance where I have to speak a foreign language it is painfully obvious to me there are sounds involved that my mouth has had no training with, and my brain (on its own) can't even really wrap itself around exactly what the sound is.

But oh boy, can I hear it's there, and I felt like an idiot for not having gotten it down beforehand.

As someone who does hear it, it really made no sense why someone wouldn't put a fair amount of effort into addressing that early on, certainly before attaining a massive vocabulary.

[Goldfinger]

I personally don't have any problems with mimicking sounds. I can speak practically any language without any influence from my mother tongue (Dutch).

[subego]

Originally Posted by hwojtek 

Wrong. "parleh-z voo" with a shortened "oo". Sorry, you fail with your accent skills.

Wee.

[hwojtek]

I've been expecting more.

[subego]

Kwa?

[hwojtek]

M, o, r, e.

[ghporter]

What little Spanish I speak I generally pronounce with an accent that's a combination of junior high "Castillan", San Antonio Mexican American, and "Academy Colombian" accents (kinda dependent on whom I learned that particular bit of Spanish from). I try to not sound like a Midwestern hick when I pronounce anything, most especially something that isn't English, and I think I'm pretty much successful at it (though I can simulate a few U.S. regional accents pretty well when appropriate, much like Oísin's mention of "approximating" French).

I have a problem-I am a natural mimic. That means that if I don't pay attention, I wind up mimicking the accents of people I'm speaking with. This can be QUITE embarrassing. I've worked out a fairly generic U.S. accent and I've made it part of how I speak, but having this "problem" does make pronouncing non-English words a bit easier for me.

[subego]

Originally Posted by hwojtek 

M, o, r, e.

Okay.

Other than your assessment of my accent skills, I thought the essence of what you said seemed to be in direct opposition to what everyone else is saying.

While I think OC's point that talent is an aspect has merit, I think pretty much anyone can decide to learn how to make a particular sound. Separately from sounding like a native, if you say "zis" instead of "this", you can teach yourself to say "this", or at least get a much closer approximation than "zis".

Now, OTOH, if the idea is that you can't really hear the difference, that's going to make things a lot more difficult. As I think about it, I've read about examples about this in English. IIRC, some people have trouble distinguishing between an "en" sound like in "pen" with an "in" sound like in "pin", and as such, don't really make a differentiation in their pronunciation. All of this seems to be in contrast to the idea that the main issue is one of mimicry, which is what you claimed.

Likewise, I've heard plenty of non-native English speakers who could pass for natives, so I have to take the fact you haven't been convinced in the other direction with a grain of salt.

Not that I can figure out how you know you have never met such a person, anyways.

[Doofy]

Heck, I hide my native accent in my own language.

[subego]

Originally Posted by ghporter 

I have a problem-I am a natural mimic.

Same for me, and my "natural" accent is about as neutral as you can get, so I don't have much distance to hit any other accent.

So, I know I have to cut people some slack, but it's these (to me) hugely obvious substitutions (like "zis") that leave me baffled.

Though not as much now.

[Oisín]

Originally Posted by hwojtek 

Wrong. "parleh' voo" with a shortened "oo".

That’s hardly much better than ‘parlay voo’. The only way to properly represent it (as I did above) is [paʁˌle 'vu].

On the other hand, the more complex the pronunciation of the mother tongue, the easier it is to mimic a foreign language accent.

To a certain degree, yes. The more sounds a language contains, the greater the chances are that a native speaker of that language will find it easier to pronounce similar (or identical) sounds in another language.

That’s not the same as mimicking an accent, though. An accent consists of much more than just individual phonemes—there’s a whole layer of grammar, prosody, phonotactical limitations, etc.

No way for a German to pronounce the famous Polish tongue-twister "W Szczebrzeszynie chrząszcz brzmi w trzcinie" properly. Never.

Depends on the German. And tongue-twisters are not really good things to use as examples, since they’re entire raison d’être is that they’re supposed to be difficult to pronounce for native speakers as well. I’m not German, I know, but I can easily pronounce all the individual phonemes of that one, but putting it all together into a sentence is what makes it hard—naturally, since it’s what makes it hard for Polish people, too.

However, a Polish schoolkid learning German would have no problems with "Im dichten Fichtendickicht sind dicke Fichten wichtig."

And that would depend just as much on the Polish schoolkid as the above example would depend on the German. Personally, I have never heard a native speaker of Polish speak German in a way that I was not able to tell that he was not German—and my German is most definitely not very good.

Polish (and Slavic languages as such) are among the most phonetically complex.

Nonsense.

The reason Slavic languages have a reputation for being phonetically ‘complex’ is that they tend to allow fairly complex consonant clusters, nothing else. The vowel systems are, almost without exception, very simple and straightforward, compared to a language like English or Danish (I’m not sure exactly how many vowels standard Received Pronunciation English is said to have normally, but Danish is normally considered to have either 33 or 34 phonemically contrasted vowels).

And even Slavic languages aren’t ‘special’ in allowing complex consonant clusters. Just think of something as simple as Angstschweiß in German, with eight consonants in a row (though only five phonemes). Or something like Georgian mts’vrtneli ‘trainer’, which is a challenge for a Slavic speaker, too.

The overall phonemic and phonotactic inventory of Slavic languages is not significantly larger than most other languages, and is far smaller than that of languages like !Xóõ, for example.

[OreoCookie]

Angstschweiß

[Oisín]

So, I know I have to cut people some slack, but it's these (to me) hugely obvious substitutions (like "zis") that leave me baffled.

They’re hugely obvious to you—but to someone who does not have the sound [ð] or [θ] in their own language, they may well be the closest equivalent they can relate to. Many Danes (of the older generation, where exposure to English came later in life) have little problem producing [ð] (as in ‘this’ or ‘that’), since Danish has that phoneme too, though never syllable-initially. However, [θ] (as in ‘think’) does not exist in Danish, but nor does [z], so the closest equivalent to many of these people is actually [s], which means that to them, ‘think’ and ‘sink’ sound exactly the same.

Similarly, many English-speaking people can probably hear that the letter r in French sounds different to their own r, but they can’t distinguish them enough to actually pronounce the right French r [ʁ], and they just produce their own English r [ɹ or ɹʷ], despite the fact that the closest equivalent to the French r in the English language is really the [x] sound found in words like ‘loch’, the only velar-uvular fricative or trill to be found in English.

[Oisín]

Originally Posted by OreoCookie 

Angstschweiß

Great word, isn’t it?

[OreoCookie]

Mir rinnt der Angstschweiß von der Stirn, wenn ich daran denke, dieses Wort auch nur aussprechen zu müssen

[Oisín]

Actually, I find auszusprechen a lot more of a tongue-twister than Angstschweiß.

(We have angstskrig, closest we can get)

[MarkLT1]

Originally Posted by subego 

So, I know I have to cut people some slack, but it's these (to me) hugely obvious substitutions (like "zis") that leave me baffled.

Ever tried to speak Mandarin? If you are not a native mandarin speaker, try properly pronouncing the xi sound. It is a sound you probably have never intentionally made in the english language, and is almost impossible for those who didn't grow up speaking Mandarin to pronounce properly. A mandarin speaker can EASILY produce this sound, but most non-native speakers find it incredibly difficult.

The same is true of the "th" sound in english. For those who have never pronounced this sound, it is actually quite difficult. Heck- try to explain to someone how to pronounce a proper "th". Its not exactly trivial.

[turtle777]

Ay traii tuu haiid my äksant, idz tufff.

-t

[Eug]

Originally Posted by MarkLT1 

Ever tried to speak Mandarin? If you are not a native mandarin speaker, try properly pronouncing the xi sound. It is a sound you probably have never intentionally made in the english language, and is almost impossible for those who didn't grow up speaking Mandarin to pronounce properly. A mandarin speaker can EASILY produce this sound, but most non-native speakers find it incredibly difficult.

The same is true of the "th" sound in english. For those who have never pronounced this sound, it is actually quite difficult. Heck- try to explain to someone how to pronounce a proper "th". Its not exactly trivial.

? For an English speaker it's easy to pronounce "xi".

It's almost identical to the English word "she". The reason it's confusing is the spelling, not the pronunciation.

P.S. It drives me up the wall that just about the entire non-Chinese world now pronounces "Beijing" like they're speaking French like in "Je m'appele", cuz the more proper pronunciation would be like "jingle bells". Ironically, that's how it's spelled, but people choose to pronounce it differently for some strange reason.

In an attempt to "properly" mimic the language, some people just make things far too complicated.

[Oisín]

Originally Posted by Eug 

? For an English speaker it's easy to pronounce "xi".

It's almost identical to the English word "she". The reason it's confusing is the spelling, not the pronunciation.

P.S. It drives me up the wall that just about the entire non-Chinese world now pronounces "Beijing" like they're speaking French like in "Je m'appele", cuz the more proper pronunciation would be like "jingle bells". Ironically, that's how it's spelled, but people choose to pronounce it differently for some strange reason.

In an attempt to "properly" mimic the language, some people just make things far too complicated.

No, it is not at all identical to ‘she’! They’re similar enough to be understood if you confuse them, but they’re quite different, in fact, physiologically, they’re almost exact opposites (the s sounds, not the vowel, there’s less difference there).

The sh sound in ‘she’ [ʃ] is rounded, meaning you make ‘pouty lips’ when you say it. The x sound [ɕ] is not.
[ʃ] is a regular laminal postalveolar sibilant fricative, meaning it’s produced by placing the apex (or rather, the entire front) of the tongue against the back side of the alveolar ridge and doming the body of the tongue up against the palate, and then allowing air to ‘sift’ through. [ɕ] is dorsal alveolo-palatal, which means it’s the back of the tongue that’s pressed against the alveolar ridge and the palate simultaneously, while the apex of the tongue is pressed towards the lower front teeth.

Basically, if you imagine seeing the tongue from the side, its position will look a bit like an s turned 90° counterclockwise inside your mouth when pronouncing [ʃ], but when pronouncing [ɕ], it will be more like a c turned 90° clockwise.


Of course, this isn’t enough to make your Chinese incomprehensible if you pronounce xi as you would ‘she’; but it’s definitely enough to make any native Chinese speaker immediately realise that this is someone who is not a native speaker himself.

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by analogika 

but I cannot fake a convincing German accent in English.
.

Originally Posted by analogika 

Actually, I could probably do it well enough to convince you.

But I find it very difficult to concentrate on the common errors Germans make - the overcompensating for the "th" sound, thwacking a couple of innocent "s"'s in the process, the inability to have a word end in a vocalised "s" ("blue eyece" instead of "blue eyez"), and the constant mix up of "v" and "w" in overcompensation for the fact that in German, the "w" is pronounced as the English "v", while the "v" is either pronounced like the English "v" or "f", depending rather arbitrarily upon the word. These mistakes are incredibly difficult to get right, especially since Germans speaking foreign languages try very hard to be gramatically precise.

This is so true, same for me.

To be consistent in the mistakes is VERY hard. If you trained yourself to NOT make the typical German pronunciation mistakes, you can not just turn it off.

-t

[subego]

Originally Posted by MarkLT1 

The same is true of the "th" sound in english. For those who have never pronounced this sound, it is actually quite difficult. Heck- try to explain to someone how to pronounce a proper "th". Its not exactly trivial.

Stick your tongue out a quarter-inch about a centimeter past your teeth, bite down gently, and blow air through your cheeks. This will get you a whole lot closer than the closed teeth "zee" sound, even if it isn't spot on.

Took me about 10 seconds to think of, and about 30 seconds of testing to make sure I was close enough for government work.

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by subego 

Stick your tongue out a quarter-inch about a centimeter past your teeth, bite down gently, and blow air through your cheeks. This will get you a whole lot closer than the closed teeth "zee" sound, even if it isn't spot on.

I get a hissing sound. Not at all close to a "th".

I think the "low air through your cheeks" part is wrong.

-t

[andi*pandi]

Originally Posted by ghporter 

That means that if I don't pay attention, I wind up mimicking the accents of people I'm speaking with. This can be QUITE embarrassing.

This happened to me once with a group of British friends. The accent wasn't just off, it was likely horrible as well, and when I realized I was doing it I was appalled. I blame the BBC and Doctor Who.

Similarly, that's how I get my Maine accent back, by osmosis in a group of people. If I try to do a Maine accent on purpose, it comes out kind of forced. Too long in the flatlands.

I know I have an accent when I try to speak foreign languages, I wouldn't know how to get rid of it. Sometimes you have to listen to yourself on tape to realize what you actually sound like.

[Oisín]

Originally Posted by subego 

Stick your tongue out a quarter-inch about a centimeter past your teeth, bite down gently, and blow air through your cheeks. This will get you a whole lot closer than the closed teeth "zee" sound, even if it isn't spot on.

Took me about 10 seconds to think of, and about 30 seconds of testing to make sure I was close enough for government work.

Actually, that description will give you something that, while not identical to it, sounds almost like [ɬ], the unvoiced l that Welsh is so known/feared for, as in llan.

The precise description would be to rest the apex of your tongue against the lower edge of your upper front teeth, and then press air through the crevice formed between your tongue and your upper front teeth.

If you blow air through your cheeks, you end up with that thing that sounds more like an l than a th.

Edit: Dammit, beaten by a Testudinal!

[paul w]

I used to do the "talk like a French person" thing, and people would often not know I wasn't French. But I've since grown a bit lazy and besides- I like accents on people.

So why not let a little of my new yorkese slip through now and then.

[BRussell]

Nothing annoys me more than to go to a restaurant or store or something in Europe, think I have my perfect German or French down, practice it before I say it, think I have it so absolutely perfect that every native speaker would think I'm also native, and after saying my 5 words they look at me and start speaking English.

But the fact is, I've never heard a native French or German speaker who spoke American-accent English well enough that it hasn't been clear after they spoke more than a sentence or two.