12
votes
Is it possible for an adult to learn a language without carrying a foreign accent?
It is definitely possible. There are many language learners who have learned an L2 from birth or a very young age, and thus, have mastered the pronunciation in the language. Others have years of ...
- 8,977
10
votes
How do I lose an accent in a foreign language?
Have a native speaker coach you on your pronunciation.
Your best bet as far as identifying certain sounds you make and training yourself to speak more like a native would be one on one training with a ...
- 1,661
9
votes
Is it possible for an adult to learn a language without carrying a foreign accent?
It is possible, but I am not aware of many adult learners who have achieved this (in spite of watching many YouTube videos about language learning).
The example that always come to mind is Dashan or ...
- 19.3k
7
votes
What can I do before I start learning a language to help reduce my eventual accent?
Research by Patricia Kuhl suggests that even newborns are able to distinguish the sounds of their mother tongue from sounds of other languages. An implication for L2 learners is that exposure to a lot ...
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7
votes
How do I lose an accent in a foreign language?
In my experience, there are two types of "accents." That is the "lack" of a local accent, and the presence of a "positive" or "foreign" accent.
My greater problem is the "lack" of a local accent. ...
- 1,859
5
votes
Accepted
How to start recognizing tones and accents?
Since this question isn't a reference-request, I will answer from personal experience and Internet.
The closest to a tonal language that I have studied is Japanese, which only goes as far as pitch-...
- 4,885
5
votes
How do I lose an accent in a foreign language?
A foreign accent is caused by "sound blindness" in terms of:
automatic pronunciation patterns you add from your native language
the sounds you "don't hear" in the foreign language
...
- 253
5
votes
How to avoid an English accent in Hebrew
I'm no expert in Hebrew, but I did find this extremely helpful YouTube playlist of 6 videos that directly addresses difficult pronunciation sounds in Hebrew for native English speakers. The videos are ...
- 8,977
5
votes
Is it possible for an adult to learn a language without carrying a foreign accent?
It is possible. But very few people achieve native-like pronunciation.
Example: There is a popular Russian TV host Vladimir Pozner. He grew up in US. His parents spoke French at home. When Vladimir ...
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4
votes
Are there any studies showing that absolute pitch affects second language acquisition?
Summarized from Absolute Pitch, Speech, and Tone Language:
Some Experiments and a Proposed Framework (emphasis mine):
The verbal labeling of pitches necessarily involves speech and language,
so ...
- 8,977
4
votes
Is it possible for an adult to learn a language without carrying a foreign accent?
There are several studies that seem to indicate it is indeed possible for adult learners to reach a level of pronunciation that is perceptually indistinguishable from native speakers. One could cite ...
- 116
4
votes
Is it possible for an adult to learn a language without carrying a foreign accent?
You can improve and get close, very refined, very mild, but getting an indistinguishable-from-native accent in adulthood is so rare as to be practically unheard of.
And in my experience, there's a ...
- 41
3
votes
What are some effective methods for improving one's accent?
I would search the internet for "How to speak English with an (insert your native tongue here) accent."
Let us say your native tongue is German. Searching "How to speak English with a ...
- 286
3
votes
How can I improve my Arabic accent?
If your main focus is on accent reduction, then one method would be to listen to native speakers and attempt to reproduce what they are saying. If you don't have anyone you can talk to in Arabic, ...
- 797
2
votes
Is it possible for an adult to learn a language without carrying a foreign accent?
Personally, I've never met someone who learned German as an adult (or even teenager) without accent. Some level of accent was always audible.
Regarding TV or radio hosts: there have been many popular ...
- 229
2
votes
Accepted
How to avoid an English accent in Hebrew
There are two big issues outside of 'r' and 'kh' sounds:
Vowel length. English speakers tend to have much longer vowel sounds than Hebrew speakers. Shorten your vowels.
Another aspect of ...
- 5,016
2
votes
What can I do before I start learning a language to help reduce my eventual accent?
One thing is to know something about "accents." For instance, American vowels are "softer" than those of European, or most other languages. For instance, the American "short a" is usually pronounced ...
- 1,859
2
votes
How do I lose an accent in a foreign language?
Live in the country[ies] that the language is spoken in
This is similar to having a native speaker coach you, but having many of them assisting you one way or another and being able to hear and ...
- 371
2
votes
Accepted
What techniques do accent coaches use?
A particular accent coach that helped me to improve my English accent did the following:
Established the scope of work
Based on my first language, the coach already had a list of pronunciation ...
- 988
1
vote
How valuable can feedback from software be when learning foreign languages?
I have been using the Google translator app (translate.Google.com) for exactly this purpose. In both the source and target windows of the translator there is a pronunciation icon which when clicked ...
- 416
1
vote
Is it possible for an adult to learn a language without carrying a foreign accent?
I'm a Chinese speaker who speaks English at C2 level and it doesn't matter how much accent reduction training I do, my Chinese accent still lingers in my English. (It gets worse when I'm angry or have ...
- 29
1
vote
Is it possible for an adult to learn a language without carrying a foreign accent?
It is necessary to point an important misconception about learning the correct accent/prononciation in a foreign language: it is not about passing for a native speaker, but about being understood by ...
- 372
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