speaking a foreign language without any accent

..."speaking a foreign language without any accent" is somehting I'm really concerned with. As I know from my past experience (ok, I'm just 19 years of age...) concerning language learning, I'm luckily gifted with the ability of emulating foreign "speech melodies" or certain characteristic intonations quite well.

I started learning chinese at the age of 17 (or 18?), and many chinese people believe my chinese pronunciation is a quite pleasant thing you can listen to.

But that's not enough!!!

I've already watched many discussions about "accentless speech" and its im/possibilities in regard for us mortals, and finally, my ambition to achieve that goal all the more increases...

I'd learn the whole phonology from scratch if necessary. I know, most of the "scientific and reliable discussions" strictly rule it out, especially in the case of chinese...

Maybe I'll give up in 40 years, when my accent has been vanished all along

What do you believe to be feasible?!

It won't be possible unless you live there... for a long time. The slightest of phonetic nuances can only be acquired in an environment where they are used all day every day. Good luck!

What do you believe to be feasible?!

It is not possible to have no accent.

To get rid of one accent, you have to develop another accent to replace it.

I think it would probably be exceedingly difficult, but not impossible.

I knew a Chinese guy in China who had never even left his own city, let alone travelled to any English-speaking countries. Yet his spoken English didn't carry any discernible Chinese accent. He would easily have passed off as a native speaker.

The slightest of phonetic nuances can only be acquired in an environment where they are used all day every day.

I recently watched the PBS miniseries "The Secret Life of the Brain". The first episode,abt babies, was remarkable. They tested babies listening to Chinese. The really tiny babies had differences in brain wave activity that showed they were making distinctions between xi and qi (or some such similar syllables) but brainwaves of older babies who had never heard Mandarin reflected that they were unable to hear the distinction. The conclusion was the networks in our brains connect themselves when we're babies based on our linguistic environment, enabling us to hear those subtle nuances (and it follows that the ability to hear these nuances would help us to imitate the accent perfectly)

While I don't think it's impossible to speak Chinese without a foreign accent, research seems to suggest that developing a native accent is a race against the clock and the babies and kids have the advantage.

What I used to tell my Chinese English students who wanted to get an American accent:

"Keep on imitating the laowai when we're not in the room. I know you do it anyway so you might as well practice and perfect it." Those with a flair for doing impressions have a serious advantage when it comes to reproducing a foreign accent.

One trick for learning to do impressions or for perfecting an accent is to record yourself and listen. Most of us are too lazy to do that, but if you want to get really good, you need to have some way of hearing yourself as other people hear you.

Probably a good start in first learning a language is not learning words or sentences by romanization. Whenever a native speaker speaks to you in Mandarin, translate in your mind what that person said in traditional or simplified characters. This reasoning might sound superfluous, but it could work to a foreigner's advantage who is learning the language.

If you try to learn Korean words and phrase through romanized texts, your mindset is adapted to the Latin alphabet and this may result in you speaking Korean with an audible foreign accent. That's why I never like language books that heavily use romanization to depict word and sentence pronunciation, especially when learning Korean.

A lot of ABC's who are children of first-generation parents can speak and understand Mandarin, but their Mandarin sounds like American-accented Mandarin, almost like a laowai speaking Mandarin. Coincidentially a large portion of these second-generation kids have limited proficiency in reading and writing Chinese characters.

That's why I highly recommend parents to speak their native language with their children at an early age, and insist on speaking the native language at home. I would if I became a parent.

Is it possible, I sure don't know, but as far as tips for getting as close as possible, I think the tips already given are pretty good.

1) Do record yourself and listen and have others listen. Try to use those lab voice recorders so you can hear yourself and a native speaker at one time.

2) Do immerse yourself in an environment in which you are surrounded by the language if possible or at least find opportunities to listen/ use it as much as possible.

3) Do surround yourself with people who will not tolerate any accent and almost annoyingly correct you all the time, (not the ones who just say you're Chinese is already good enough and understandable....)

4) Read out loud....

5) Pay attention to tongue, teeth, lip...placement and or shape.....

6) Sometimes Chinese teachers won't directly criticize students in class so don't be afraid to take the initiative to approach your teachers directly say your concerns and ask them to point you in the right direction.

I think that doing imitations of native speakers tip was good too.

Some Examples:

I have a friend that came to the US when she was 12 or so from Taiwan and since her cousins had arrive much earlier than her they constantly made fun of her and harrassed her because of her Chinglish, so she paid extra special attention on pronunciation. However, 12 years later if I didn't know her so well I would never have guessed she wasn't born in the US. The only thing that made me somewhat suspicious at first was that she spoke almost too clearly! Maybe 12 years old is still somewhat young, so I am not sure if this example is relevant, but I also know a few people who came to the US around that time and maybe because they were a bit shy never really got rid of their accent...Instead some told me they wish that they had just came over earlier or later because they feel that are 1/2 way in each language without being "perfect" in either...A different example, I have a friend born and raised in America with super strict Chinese parents who would literally punish him for speaking English at home, as a result his Chinese (spoken) is quite good.....

As for some others I know who came to the US from China during college and have stayed in the US for 10 or more years, there accent was really a factor of how much and well they could imitate others. I have a colleague who mentioned he wanted to specifically get rid of his choppy sounding Chinese accent when speaking English so would always carefully listen to English native speakers. I think in these cases, there still remained a small accent but very very small...Of course these are C=>E examples....there are probably entire thread filled with people evaluations of foreigners speaking English.....

Yet his spoken English didn't carry any discernible Chinese accent. He would easily have passed off as a native speaker.

Technically speaking, even native speakers have accents.

When I'm in China, people don't think I'm from the US, based on the way I speak. The Chinese in the north think I'm from the south. The Chinese in the south think I'm from the north. There's definitely an accent.

When I speak French, I once had a German accent because my first years studying in France involved having a German roommate. We spoke in French with each other.

Whatever you speak, you will have an accent.

It is certainly possible to develop a native or native like accent in chinese. In my view the most important things to focus on are the rhythm and intonation of the language. I believe that the best way to learn intonation is to take a few dialouges and learn them absolutely perfectly. This can be done in the following steps:

1. Split the dialouge into small chunks. Depending on your level an appropriate length may be anything from 30 seconds to 2 minutes.

2. Listen to each chunk many many times. I would say up to 100 times if you can bear it.

3. Having listened many times to a couple of dialouges in this way, your mind should have begun to form a picture of the rhythm and intonation of Mandarin. Now it is time to speak along simultaneously with the recording. Try to match the speakers intonation as closely as you can.

4. Having gone through these 3 first steps you can start recording yourself and comparing with a native speaker. However if you have done the first 3 steps intensively enough I doubt that you really need it.

thanks,

your replies are very helpful...

I've already pondered about recording my voice and native speaker voices respectively, but I'm both (still) not sure about what kind of devices I'll need in proceeding properly and "what" to record.

Please, don't believe I'm stupid or something, there are just so many opportunities...

thanks for your help

All you need is a computer (which I'm guessing you have access to since you're posting here), a microphone (cheap and easy to buy), and then software like Audacity (free as in speech and beer), which will allow you to record your own voice.

Now just find MP3 files of Chinese people speaking, and record yourself saying the same thing. If you use a text book that has a CD, that would be the perfect candidate, otherwise there is plenty of source material on the net.

I think the book & tape (oh..maybe that's a bit old fashioned) for the advanced hsk exam spoken section is a decent/simple reference in terms of correcting someones speaking of Chinese. The only draw back is the tape format (but come to think of it, i've never used the tape) and it sometimes only gives some examples about Korean and Japanese students pronounciation issues...but it includes many exercises and passages you can read. And then I guess if someone wanted to be super ambitious they could look at the putonghua requirements placed on teachers in China ..of course there's an exam for that too!!!

HSK book:

isbn 7-5619-1349-4

it has a blue cover...

I just use a simple handheld tape recorder that has a pause button to record myself....And then alternate who I want to torture to give me a breakdown on what needs improvement...

I used a handheld tape recorder for a while but eventually gave up on it for my voice recording because with a computer you get instant rewind and fastforwarding of your recordings and you can also easily cut/loop various segments. In addition, I found I had a lot of source material on tapes, but only 1 tape recorder/player, making it more difficult to compare my recording to the original as I would have to be continually swapping tapes, followed by more rewinding/fastfowarding/searching for the right bit on the tape.

I still use the tape player to play the source material, but now only use the computer for recording my own speech.

One thing I do when studying a foreign language is try to find a source that will inform me of the ways sounds are pronounced according to linguistic descriptions. With Chinese, my teacher lent me a book--originally intended to teach Zhuyin Fuhao--that displayed a mid-sagittal section for each sound. Practising putting your mouth in the right shapes will help a lot.

But this only puts you halfway there. You also have to learn the allophonic shifts (the way letters change according to the surrounding letters), and regional dialects as well. The best way to do this is listening and practising.

Hope it helps.