Accents and sounds

[jojzoro]

Thank you for your effort. I wonder if you can send me the text as I could not hear you properly. Thank youb

[AlimeProductions]

I heard that I have an American accent in Chinese, but it's light, but no matter how much I try to get rid of it, I can't for some reason.

[daglug1]

How do you place your mouth to make that swedish sound at 4:13?

[yurismir1]

You actually pronounced "preface" wrong. It's actually /ˈprɛfɪs/. Don't worry, a lot of native speakers of English don't even know that.  I could try to help with your English intonation as well. Some things stuck out to me in this video. Overall you speak very well though.

[estderoma]

hai viaggiato molto? sei stato a contatto con dei madrelingua per ogni lingua?

[Emi0612]

Thanks! I've been living in the UK for a year, my English is good but l have a strong accent and it's driving me crazy! I don't know what to do, I live with native speakers, watch tv and films, listen to music... I'm bilingual Italian/Japanese so learning another language was supposed to be "easier" for me, and as far as lexis, grammar and structure are concerned I'm fine, I just don't hear/see the various sounds, even when recording myself :(

Sorry for ranting. Thank you, you're an inspiration!

[YouStoleMyTube]

@Emi0612 Don't worry, the people who judge you for your accent rather than commending you in the other areas where you succeed are probably not the kind of people that you want to be friends with anyways!

[ScarsonFilms]

You are such an inspiration to me! I completely agree with you, learning the accent of a language is out of respect, not out of vanity!

[TMDLex]

I love your videos, but one request is that you could perhaps invest in a microphone? The sound is pretty hard to hear because of the distance and echos. Thanks.

[eichael09]

i must admit your thoughts have struck me. i am a native english speaker, took spanish throughout school, and recently, haphazardly have been studying french, although i was briefly exposed to it when i was younger. your video about early core strength, attentive ears, and moments of epiphany reinforce feelings i have about my recent exploits. great vids. i enjoy watching

[keyeskey]

谢谢你的视频，最后的那个用手听回声的方法蛮有意思的。我能问下­您是从什么开始学外语的吗？

Great video, thanks for the tip! BTW could you tell me that when do you start interested in language learning ?

[poliglotta80]

@keyeskey 我大约在13岁开始对学习语言产生兴趣。我认真地自己学习英语 :-) 卢卡

[YouStoleMyTube]

If someone has a bad accent it's probably not that they're trying to butcher the language. They're probably doing their best, and focusing on the actual construction of sentences WHILE speaking them flawlessly is a difficult task for a new learner. If someone spoke to me in English or Mandarin with an accent, I wouldn't be annoyed. I would applaud their successes and effort and encourage them to keep up the good work!

[Loyal801]

Seeing sounds that's great !!!!!!

[apocaloso27]

Io sto cercando di migliorare la mia pronuncia in tutti i modi, ma non sono soddisfatto.

[thelinguistblogger]

Yes! I liked the whole thing but two aspects of your speech really jumped out at me: respect and prejudice. The sooner we get over how "funny" a new sound is in a foreign language, the sooner we will learn. I also think that xenophobia (and therefore a lack of respect for all other cultures) has to do with people not learning languages. Many people resent having to learn English, Spanish, etc. and end up not learning the language as well as they could.

[loki2504]

The most important is to listen EVERY single day to the target language and michel thomas is very bad. I mean they give you bad pronunciation in the records... So I decided to get rid of it and choose pimsleur. Pimsleur is great ! have you ever used it?

[kalacz]

hiya :) I have to disagree coz not every course is recorded with michel thomas in person

Portugues , dutch ,japanese and arabic (maybe mandarin too - dunno) are recorded with native speakers

I reckon that it's quite good

[loki2504]

Sono daccordo, cuando impariamo una lingua, dobbiamo assolutamente impararla con l'acento del paese, se no non è un respetto per gli altri

[Luiseut59]

I totally agree with you in both explainations. I mean, ineficciency is in many other school systems around the world. And I also think that most of the people who decide to live in another country where people speak another language, have too much accent, because they start speaking the language very soon.

Bueno, es lo que yo pienso. ¿Qué crees tú?

[poliglotta80]

Lo que pienso es que si te marchas a un pais y ya tienes un discreto conocimiento del idioma,o sea, ya has "preparado" tu cerebro al estructura fonetica y gramatical del idioma, tu progres va ser enorme, probablemente mejor que si te vas por alli sin saber nada. Es normal que vayas a aprender bien el idioma de toda manera,pero quizas con defectos de pronunciacion y gramatica que puedes evitar de desarrollar preparandote en manera adecuada :-) Bueno,por lo menos es lo que pienso yo :-) Luca

[Luiseut59]

Bueno, tu tienes más experiencia que yo, así que, te tomo el consejo.

[QKlilx]

Perhaps this is true for everyone, but at least in my case I have a difficult time with proper intonations. I'm told to have a near-native Japanese accent and a very good Korean accent, but I need work on my intonations in both languages.

I suppose I should sit down with someone sometime and have them correct me each time I make a mistake. :D

[poliglotta80]

Learning to pronounce single words is very feasible,but the real challenge is to get down the intonation of a language, which is the secret to getting a native-like accent. This also can be feasible but requires a higher level of concentration and a harder work, possibly with a native speaker correcting your flaws and pointing towards the right direction :-) Luca

[storebror21]

It IS difficult to get rid of your native accent, but I think most people's problems with accent and pronunciaton in general is that they don't LISTEN to the target language carefully enough.

[poliglotta80]

Exactly. Most people tend to "hear" a lot instead of "listening" a little bit, carefully. I believe in quality AND quantity even on this topic. Listen to some audio-material carefully at the beginning and then, once you have a good grounding of the "phonetic fabric" of the language, all your listening will be more conscious and pleasant. Once you reach this point, things start warming up not only with single words but with the overall intonation of the target language

[jmarsh8822]

how old were you when you started?

[poliglotta80]

I started learning English at the age of 10, at school, but it wasn't until 13 that I seriously starting learning the language, due to the inefficiency of the italian school system (an ineficciency shared by many other school systems around the world as far as language learning is concerned)

[EjPwned]

ur getting sexier!