Advance learners, how did you get rid of your accent from your mother tongue?

[amytheorangutan]

3 hours ago, imron said:

I think both are important.  You need to develop an ear for correct pronunciation (which will only come from listening to enough correct pronunciation) and you also need to apply that ear to your own speaking, otherwise you'll think you sound great when actually you don't.

I agree with this. I never recorded or listened to myself speaking English until a couple of years ago. In my ears, when I speak I sound native and when my husband corrects me I would repeat the same word and in my ears I think I sound exactly the same as him even though I don't. I think some people are blessed with being able to hear and mimic pronunciations and accent easily without the recording and fixing it many times exercise while people like me really need this process. 

[imron]

1 hour ago, amytheorangutan said:

I think some people are blessed with being able to hear and mimic pronunciations and accent

Like everything, this is a skill that can be trained and it gets better with practice.

[永鈞]

a few years ago i used an app called wai chinese to improve my pronunciation. it cost money but there was a free trial period and i don't think it was that expensive anyway. the app is very simple, you are given phrases to record and their pro teachers will give you back a graded report on your pronunciation. they will give you very specific criticism, so in this way it's better than just asking a chinese friend about your pronunciation. the friend might tell you you sound foreign but probably won't be able to give specific pointers.

 

 

i'm not even sure if the app is still around, but at the very least it will make you develop a habit of recording yourself regularly.

[murrayjames]

12 hours ago, imron said:

You need to develop an ear for correct pronunciation (which will only come from listening to enough correct pronunciation) and you also need to apply that ear to your own speaking

 

I agree with this.

 

9 hours ago, yueni said:

to ensure proper accent correction (assuming the learner is not especially talented in picking up accents like some people are), then the active portion of the learning can't be left out

 

I agree with this too. Mere passive input and mindless imitation are not the way to go. We must also listen critically, imitate mindfully, ask others for advice, reflect on our progress, and apply what we learn in a patient and sustained way.

 

My point is that recording and listening to ourselves speak over and over again are not essential to improving our pronunciation. Sure, systematically listening to our old voice messages on WeChat may be helpful. But it is not necessary. While recording is a useful tool, it is not a prerequisite for learning proper pronunciation. Presumably it was possible for foreigners living in China to speak Chinese well before Edison came along.

 

Imron, you have written eloquently on these forums about the value of reading actual books in Chinese over making and editing giant flashcard decks. I am making a similar argument with respect to Chinese speech. Perhaps people who record themselves in Audacity every day would be better served talking with real-world Chinese people, if they are not doing this already. As you know, there is a tendency for language learners to look for technological "hacks" in lieu of engaging with the language directly.

 

Frequent and purposeful exposure to native speech is an under-recommended strategy for intermediate and upper-intermediate language learners. Again, Imron I picked this up from you. You have written that regularly and consistently reading and listening to things in Chinese is the most reliable way to get over the intermediate plateau. You were right. I know firsthand (and anecdotally) that this method works. That is part of the reason why I am pro-intentional daily exposure to Chinese and less convinced of the necessity of recording yourself. On a related note, when I lived in China, the foreigners with the best Chinese pronunciation were always around Chinese people. The foreigners with bad Chinese pronunciation were at the Bookworm or wherever, chatting with other expats and with Chinese girls who spoke good English.

[DavyJonesLocker]

5 hours ago, murrayjames said:

On a related note, when I lived in China, the foreigners with the best Chinese pronunciation were always around Chinese people. The foreigners with bad Chinese pronunciation were at the Bookworm or wherever, chatting with other expats and with Chinese girls who spoke good English.

Agree with all your other points but this I partly agree with. Yes in that you 100% need exposure ti the languahe. My Chinese improved massively when I actively avoided foreigners, foreigner places and English speaking Chinese (friends excluded)

 

The foreigners with the best sounding Chinese in my view are those who are naturally inclined towards languages. Same as singing. Some people just are naturally inclined towards it.

 

However as imron noted it's a skill that can be practiced. That may mean though, one person needs to put in several multiples of effort that another person. It's just the reality of the situation so best roll the sleeves up and get stuck in if that's the case. 

 

 

 

[imron]

@murrayjames I agree with doing all the things you mentioned doing.  Learners should definitely be doing these things too.

 

With regards to recording, I think it is useful to do occasionally at the complete beginner level, and then once you have developed an ear for correct pronunciation (from other activities such as listening practice) and can correctly distinguish and produce difference in similar sounds (-ang/-eng, -en/-eng and so on) do recording daily for a fixed period of time (say 1-3 months) to build and cement good habits.

 

Then it's useful to do further occasional checkups (maybe a couple of times a year), with fixed periods of further drilling if you notice deficiencies (the daily drilling allows you to overcome bad habits and build new good ones).

 

Everything else you mentioned should be done too, and recording shouldn't be prioritised over that.

 

9 hours ago, murrayjames said:

On a related note, when I lived in China, the foreigners with the best Chinese pronunciation were always around Chinese people. The foreigners with bad Chinese pronunciation were at the Bookworm or wherever, chatting with other expats and with Chinese girls who spoke good English. 

Right but be careful of spurious correlations.

 

I mean do you know whether those people with good accents did or didn't record themselves from time to time and make corrections?

 

I would argue that their accents are more the result of the dedication of the Chinese learner.  Speaking of my own learning experience, I think I have good pronunciation and in line with your hypothesis I also mostly hung around with Chinese people in my time in China!  Case closed right?  But then I also spend time outside of spending time with locals working on my pronunciation because the people you hang around with the most are already used to your pronunciation quirks are the least likely to give you detailed and consistent feedback for every little mistake.  Recording yourself allows you to be your own strongest critic and go over any problems with a fine tooth comb.

 

Which was the cause of my accent?  Both.

[amytheorangutan]

Wise words about spurious correlations @imron I definitely was not making any effort and wasn’t even aware of my accent when speaking English despite working with 80-90% English speaking natives for years, have english speaking partners and more than half of my friends and acquintances are native English speakers. On the other hand, I once met a guy in Lisbon who has never lived in any English speaking country his whole life but spoke English with almost perfect American accent. I asked him how he did it and he said he learned it himself through watching American sitcoms ? I say we most likely need both practice and environment but since I don’t live in China, I have got to put in that extra effort on the practice side. 

 

 

[carlo]

Only thing I'd add to the above discussion is that your inner ear may not be as good as you think. I would occasionally do this:

1. Ask a native speaker to record a few sentences for me;
2. Spend at least an hour trying to mimic him exactly. This means >30 takes, spectrum analysis one syllable at a time to spot problem areas, cut and paste, etc.
3. I'd then mail him an mp3 of my "impersonation" and ask for feedback.

 

More often than not, he'd pick up on things that totally passed me by. One of the best partners I found for this (a very good language learner himself) was able to point exactly to where I sounded off. It would have taken me years of passive exposure (if ever) to achieve the same on my own.

[abcdefg]

The above discussion, from which I have leaned a lot, makes it clear to me that immersion alone is not enough. You cannot learn Chinese by passive osmosis even if you live here a hundred years. You may get the "survival" stuff down well enough and you might even become able to hold a simple conversation, but you won't get to "fluent" without a good deal of specific targeted effort. (I'm not there, even though I sometimes try to fool myself about it.) 

[amytheorangutan]

@carlo I have a private tutor I see once a week. I think I just have to have a discussion with her this week to be more strict and correct me as much as possible ?probably ask her to review my recordings. 

 

@abcdefg speaking is definitely my shortcoming unfortunately. Listening, reading and writing are much easier. 

 

 

[imron]

53 minutes ago, amytheorangutan said:

I think I just have to have a discussion with her this week to be more strict and correct me as much as possible

The problem with this is that constantly correcting ongoing speech is really invasive and not conducive to conversation.

 

As carlo suggested, I suspect you might have better luck recording something and then asking her to go through it with you to spot mistakes and how to fix them.

[murrayjames]

13 hours ago, imron said:

Right but be careful of spurious correlations.

 

Noting that foreigners who spend more time listening and talking with native Chinese speakers tend to have better Chinese pronunciation is not an example of a spurious (i.e., a plausible but false) correlation.

 

Of course I agree that some percentage of these foreigners might also record themselves—or have a high IQ, or be naturally gifted at languages, or be harder working, have a more discriminating ear, etc. There are multiple reasons why foreigners who speak good Chinese speak good Chinese.

 

13 hours ago, imron said:

With regards to recording, I think it is useful to do occasionally at the complete beginner level, and then once you have developed an ear for correct pronunciation (from other activities such as listening practice) and can correctly distinguish and produce difference in similar sounds (-ang/-eng, -en/-eng and so on) do recording daily for a fixed period of time (say 1-3 months) to build and cement good habits. Then it's useful to do further occasional checkups (maybe a couple of times a year), with fixed periods of further drilling if you notice deficiencies (the daily drilling allows you to overcome bad habits and build new good ones).

 

Ha! We agree more than I thought. I did something like this many years ago, but without recording myself! If you have a good ear (which I do) and are hard on yourself (which I am), you can do this without a recording device. Listen to the sound you want to reproduce. Then listen several more times until the sound is "in your ear" (meaning you are familiar with the sound and can reproduce it in your head). Reproduce the sound out loud. If your out-loud sound is different from the original sound, reflect on why the two sounds are different. Listen to the original sound a few more times. Think about the sound and try to say it in your head. Reproduce the sound out loud. Repeat the above steps, making slight changes to your speech mechanism (tongue and throat position, oral cavity, mouth and lip shape, use of air). Pay attention to hear if those slight physical changes get you closer to the sound you are trying to reproduce. Repeat the above steps as necessary.

 

This can all be done without recording yourself, if you know how to listen to yourself. It is the same method I use to imitate the tone and timbre of other musicians and learn new musical styles and performance techniques. (I am a musician and music educator by profession.)

[imron]

21 hours ago, murrayjames said:

Noting that foreigners who spend more time listening and talking with native Chinese speakers tend to have better Chinese pronunciation is not an example of a spurious (i.e., a plausible but false) correlation.

I agree, but suggesting that's the reason for their better pronunciation is.  If you are careful about analysing their accents, and have the capability to analyse your own without external aid then maybe yes (though I would argue it's more related to analysis ability), and perhaps that speaks to your experience but I'm not sure the same is true of others (see for example amytheorangutans experience with learning English).

 

 

21 hours ago, murrayjames said:

Ha! We agree more than I thought.

I suspected that was the case!

 

21 hours ago, murrayjames said:

This can all be done without recording yourself, if you know how to listen to yourself.

I agree, the question is how many years did you spend training in music that lead you to the point where you now have that ability?

 

Recording yourself and listening to it back is a shortcut for people without the same training.

[Dawei3]

A common theme in many of the above posts is that they suggest practicing full sentences and/or paragraphs.  I absolutely agree - practicing full sentences gives you the rhythm & emphasis that Flickserve mentions.

 

An accent reduction specialist in the US noted that the biggest problem for Chinese speaking English is usually not word pronunciation, it's word emphasis - both regarding the words themselves and the appropriate syllable within a word.  In English, when we say "small" words like "a", "the", "of" etc, we say them more quietly & with less emphasis than "big" words.  In contrast, she noted that native Chinese tend to give English words equal emphasis.  The wrong emphasis within a word is also a problem, i.e., saying IN-spire versus the correct in-SPIRE (in American English).

 

I wonder what accent reduction specialist in China would say about the common problem of native English speakers speaking Chinese? 

 

I remember a Chinesepod lesson in which John Pasden mentioned Americans using an American "a" in Chinese (e.g.,  an American using the "a" from English "pan" instead of the softer "a" in Chinese "pan" 判 ).  This "a" is one of the ways an American accent comes across in Chinese.  

 

One of my problems with Chinese is bad pronunciation ingrained from poor guidance in the first books I used.  They suggested the final "e" in pinyin should be said with an "r" sound as in English "her."  Now, I say words like 车 che and 课 ke with too much of an r-sound.  It's hard to break this habit.  

 

[imron]

35 minutes ago, Dawei3 said:

the biggest problem for Chinese speaking English is usually not word pronunciation, it's word emphasis

Also syllables get dropped and/or blurred in the wrong places.

[mungouk]

9 hours ago, Dawei3 said:

bad pronunciation ingrained from poor guidance in the first books I used.

 

I find this is a problem with books generally, without audio, especially if they're using things like: 'a' as in cat.  The 'a' sound exhibits enormous variation in English accents.

 

I've been focusing only on pronunciation with my teacher over the past few lessons, going right back to basics to check I've not started picking up any bad habits.  It has been useful and interesting to go through all the sounds systematically, following the guide early on in the HSK  1 standard textbook (we used another text when I started out). This has diagrams showing the position of tongue and lips etc, but of course I had my teacher there as well on Zoom. 

 

I was surprised how many subtle aspects I hadn't picked up fully before, mostly around tongue position and aspiration. 

 

I think the next step is to try and ensure I can get pronunciation, emphasis, rhythm etc right across whole sentences, and word emphasis as mentioned above, without my English intonation creeping back in. I'm going to ask my teacher to be strict on this until I can get it right. 

 

Has anyone had success with memorising passages to practice with, maybe poems? 

 

And/or are there any standard texts in Chinese that can be used for practice, a bit like the classic (old-fashioned) British ones "The Leith police dismisseth us", "the rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain", "and the dragon will come when he hears the drum"... etc?

 

 

 

 

 

[yueni]

In terms of word emphasis, that's partly the reason for the passive listening recommendations. The idea is that even if you're not completely listening to the radio/tv show/movie, you're still passively absorbing the rhythm of the spoken language. Being around native speakers as well helps. Each language has their own spoken rhythm, and the language learner who wants to sound as native as possible also has to try to absorb and mimic the spoken rhythm.

 

The active recommendations are then to ensure that you are properly mimicking the rhythms you are hearing. Just the entire process itself is a whole series of skills that needs to be linked together to get the proper outcome.

[TCcookie]

On 7/23/2018 at 9:34 AM, Dawei3 said:

One of my problems with Chinese is bad pronunciation ingrained from poor guidance in the first books I used.  They suggested the final "e" in pinyin should be said with an "r" sound as in English "her."  Now, I say words like 车 che and 课 ke with too much of an r-sound.  It's hard to break this habit.

 

Maybe this is a case of having to learn British English in order to access some of the better Chinese learning materials? To my (American) ear, the final "e" in pinyin does indeed sound pretty close to the vowel sound of "her" in non-rhotic British English. I know I felt like I had to learn some unfamiliar British vocabulary while going through the Routledge Grammar Series Chinese books.

[Flickserve]

On 7/24/2018 at 10:30 AM, mungouk said:

Has anyone had success with memorising passages to practice with, maybe poems? 

 

Not poems nor passages. 

 

Short sequences of words that are three to four words longs. Yes.

 

When I listen to a Chinese second language person speak (Coming from English background), although that person may speak Chinese fluently, their control of the first tone can be inconsistent and frequently not high pitched enough.

 

Even a word like 是 can sound a bit off because I noticed a 4th tone word needs to be a bit louder and shorter (unless it's the second character of a double 4th tone word) 

 

[艾墨本]

Thank you for reviving this thread. I somehow missed it the first time around. This is a gem of a thread, especially as I am putting forth effort to work on this now.