Pronuciation is very important. I have Spanish speaking family and a German wife. When I try to talk to them in those languages, if my pronuciation is poor, it takes them time to try and comprehend what I said. Sometimes they don't even try, and they tell me to tell them in English. That is family. A person on the street is not even going to try to comprehend.
I couldn't agree more with you guys, pronunciation is so important to me. Whenever I've started to learn a new language, I check the pronunciation rules in order to start reading everything aloud since day one.
Wow I’ve never heard Davide speak in English completely. As a learner of Italian, I’m working on my intonation. When in Italy 🇮🇹 years ago staying with a family who’s origin is Neapolitan, I remember them noticing my British accent. My friends’s mother couldn’t understand me 😂 As I was speaking Italian daily I improved a lot. Back in the UK when i speak to Italian visitors they seem to think I’ve lived in Italy
I love you when you are talking about phonemes versus graphemes, nerd here. German has also a lot of dialects and differentvregional prosody. I love listening to these nuances (not only in my native language). I mostly learn languages whose orthographies are very phonemic, which have their own scripts and which are therefor very exact. It's a pleasure to listen to you both.
I think it's also important when learning a language to speak slowly and clearly enough and have a 'good pronunciation', and not worrying about speaking a million miles an hour like many natives. I've heard people try to speak at the same speed as natives when they haven't gotten the language down yet and it can be a car crash
Hi guys! I was born and raised in Los Angeles. I grew yo bilingual, speaking English and Spanish well. I now speak French and Italian as well. I spend a few months in Italy every year and I’ve been told that the biggest giveaway that I’m not from Italy is that my accent is neutral. That being said, I spend most of my time in Piemonte and a lot of the idioms I’m catching myself saying are the things that my “host family” says. I do wonder sometimes if I should focus more on accent or if I should just remain neutral. That being said, accents are not particularly difficult for me but I do feel a strong sense of imposter syndrome when I use a regional accent. Anyways, awesome video. Much appreciated and definitely things to consider. Thank you both.
For me pronunciation comes by it self when we're surrounded by the language we are interested with,every single day. It's a deliberate choice we have to take every day if we are interested to be fluent in that language.
I actually first got into languages when I was a teenager and realised I have a talent for imitating accents. It's a double edged sword though. I very rarely get that thing of native speakers speaking back at me in English. But on the other hand people sometimes overestimate my skills because my pronunciation is good - even though I've just said the only ten words I know in the language.
I’ve always had “a good accent” in other languages. It’s something that I’ve always paid close attention to and worked hard at, but I also happen to think that having a finely-tuned ear and the ability to precisely mimic sounds is very much a separate and distinct talent within language learning - one that I personally believe accounts for way more than 20% of the final result. I understand why you’d want to downplay “accent talent”, to encourage people… but realistically, from observation… I will also say that having quite a high degree of “accent talent” has always earned me a lot of strokes and caused people to think I’m a much better speaker of the various languages I’ve learned than I actually am. In short it’s always been highly motivating for me, and I count myself as lucky to have this particular ability!
Loved the video - and I agree completely with Davide when it comes to his tips. They are great, thank you! I'd add: learn the vowel (and konsonant) charts of your own learning and the language your learning. It helps so much understanding how to move the articulators to get from a known vowel to a new one that we encounter in the new language. Especially helpful when shadowing or practicing with a native speaker But yeah, learning IPA for English studies seemed such a waste of time for me a few years ago but now it really helps 😂
Interesting. BTW... English has many accents. You both have accents to me. I would say that Lucas has somewhat of a New York accent... like a New Yorker from Italy that's trying to not have an accent and the other gentleman after hearing him speak I would guess that English is not his primary language and Latin is; however, you both have excellent pronunciation of the English language. I've lived on both coasts and know people all over the United States with various accents... some born here and others not. The accent usually helps us know from what part of the country you're from and/or your cultural influences. I know a guy from Jamaica that spent years in New York. His parents insisted that he not speak in public with a Jamaican or New York accent so, he speaks very clearly and with control. You can't pick up an accent however, you can pick up that English is not his primary language. When you speak your primary language... all your body language speaks at the same time. Language is truly more than just sounds we vocalize into words. Either way, I'm super impressed that you both speak English so well.
I can't emphasize enough how important it is to have a good accent it you want to be treated seriously. People treat me completely differently after improving my English accent
I had an interesting experience listening to a French artist talk at a museum. I had a lot of trouble understanding him so I started analyzing why. His grammar, vocabulary, word choice, pronunciation was all good. I finally figured out what the problem was. He was putting the stress on the wrong syllable in every single word! And that made all the difference in my ability to follow what he was saying.
I once watched a video in Spanish by a French speaker. She put the accent on the last syllable of Spanish words, which is usually dropped in French. If she had put the accent on the Spanish syllable corresponding to the stressed syllable in French, it would have been a lot less irritating, though the dragonfly would have given her away.
How I do it: - Study phonetics of the language to understand what are the basic elements and also how to shape the mouth to produce sounds that you are having difficulty with. - Practice tongue twisters to increase fluidity and make similar sounds distinct from each other. - Recite poetry while practising pronunciation. Tongue twisters are intentionally unpleasant sounding, but poetry is intentionally pleasant sounding. You should also practise pronouncing pleasant sounding speech. - Read novels aloud paying attention to pronunciation, enunciation, intonation, pacing, and also developing your own personality. - Look out for examples of people whose speech you like and pay attention to find out which elements of their speech you want to acquire and try to incorporate them in your speech.
I personally found this to be one of your more helpful podcasts. Accents are extremely important for effective communication skills, and our goal should always be to speak a language as closely as possible to native level. When I was studying Spanish at the university level, most students wouldn't even try to imitate a native accent and would speak Spanish with whatever US regional accent they had. Even at that time, I found it almost laughable. Can you imagine an Italian sounding like a redneck? At that time I had a good friend from Guatemala and he spoke with an almost perfect American accent; when I first met him, I didn't believe that he wasn't American. Then I started listening more closely and I could hear his problematic areas. I would love to have a month to study with either of you guys. Excellent work.
This is brilliant and there are some real gems here. I love Luca’s comment about language chunks. Davide’s point about teachers not teaching pronunciation was very pertinent too. I’ve never seen a textbook mention the long d in “a ddire la verità” for example.
As a native English speaker, I think that eliminating schwa and learning to speak with very pure vowels is an underrated challenge when learning Italian or Spanish, especially the letter I. And, interestingly, it works both ways. If I were teaching an Italian or Spanish native how to eliminate their accent, the first thing I'd ask them to work on is how to pronounce the 'i' in sit, knit, and fit, etc. /ɪ/ is the most common pronunciation of the vowel in English, not 'ee' and not 'eye' but /ɪ/. Just go around saying /ɪ/ all day until you get it.
I have noticed that speaking in a non native language pronunciation is important, for example in English, which I'm fluent in, and other languages which I know some, like French, German, Portuguese and Italian, otherwise people are going to have difficult understanding. But Spanish speaking people will understand other non Spanish speaking people speaking Spanish.
About which accent to learn in a language, I agree with what is said but I would advise to stick to one accent at the beginning. Most people I know that learned a language in a setting where a lot of accents were mixed had a less good pronunciation than people that started with a single accent. I think that it is due to the way our brain learns through passive exposure. If you hear 9 times tomayto and one time tomaato , your brain will learn tomayto even if your mother tongue says tomaato is more logical. But if you hear 5 different pronunciations, 2 times each, your brain will not be capable of identifying one as the "correct" one and will revert back to the way you would read it in your language or something similar. For anyone from the statistical field, it is what happens when your data is not informative enough, your posterior looks a lot like your prior!
I completely agree about liking the way it feels when I'm producing sounds of a forgein language in my mouth. Languages are music and adapting to the sounds as best as I can makesnme enjoy it more
Excellent advice. These 2 guys both speak English with near native accents. Luca can pass for American quite easily. I live in a place with lots of Italian immigrants, who’ve been here decades, with still thick Italian accents. That’s been my experience locally. So, it’s amazing to hear these two, living in Italy, speaking English like Americans.
As wonderful as someone sounds with a good accent you have to be realistic. I know Luca thinks you can make a lot of progress up front if you invest the time but I take it slow with pronunciation. I have to be able to hear the language before I can even start imitating it.
I totally agree! I can make a bunch of mistakes when speaking Polish. But my accent (I guess) is good enough that native speakers are always blown away and seem to skip over my loose grammar.
Davide said that one needs talent to master a good accent. Whilst I don’t have the incredible learning and ability of Davide and Luca, I would argue that most people are capable of learning a decent accent, but for most adults it will be hard. That is because they have so many linguistic habits of which they are unaware, which will have to be peeled back in order to produce a decent target accent. The most basic is replacing English diphthongs with French pure vowels, for example. In some cases hard work will suffice, in others they will need coaching. A friend was bilingual in French and English and spoke fluent Spanish, possibly to native level, as well as some German. He loved to play with accents, for example speaking French with a Glasgow accent. He taught me by example how to do comedic accents. Musicians will probably learn more quickly as they are trained to listen.
@@glennkelly4058 I think the hard part is nailing down the cause of the difference. Fixing it just needs work. It took me over a year to realise that French and English timing are different.
I think the biggest problem is that people are afraid to imitate. Wouldn't it help to start by trying to imitate the target language accent but speaking native language words? E.g. an American trying to learn Italian might start by saying "Ahl make heem an offer he canna refuse" or "Mama mia that's-a spicy meat-a ball-a". Psychology: we have all encountered immigrants who still sound heavily non-native after decades. Part of their brain still says "my pronunciation is correct, and all those millions of natives are wrong!"
No. Because language is more than just prosody, you could start by listening to the target language and humming or singing along with it to help your prosody, but when it comes to speaking you should learn the phonology first and slow it down until your pronunciation is perfect, Italian has different sounds to English, accent is more than just prosody
The standard to learn would be the English middle class accent, because it is not tied to a particular region and is found everywhere in England, unless someone lived in and/or had an affinity for a certain area
Luca, Jean Cocteau, disait que les Français sont des Italiens tristes… En tant que francophone, je dois avouer que quand tu parles français, fort bien d’ailleurs, tu deviens tout à coup beaucoup plus sérieux… ! Comme quoi les sons et la prononciation sont une composante inextricable de l’aspect culturel d’une langue étrangère. …!
How important is accent when speaking an ancient language? In Ancient Greek, Angela (Alpha with Angela) speaks Erasmian in a way that sounds Greek, while Darryl Burling (Master Biblical Languages) pronounces Greek as if it were English, often misplacing the accent. In the Latin and Greek chats, it's common for people to use different pronunciations. Then there are Egyptian (no vowels and only one descendant) and Sumerian (partly logographic, no descendants or relatives).
I lived in Italy for a couple of years almost 30 years ago. My English teacher’s pronunciation was terrible. She would ask me, a native English speaker, to read out the vocabulary lists. I hope the standard of English language teaching has improved since then.
Just because you did not mention it, the history of present Mandarin produced a similar situation. The standard Mandarin spoken on tv has no regional connotation. Many can and do speak it, but it’s not peculiar of any place…even if Beijingers and Dongbei people would tell you otherwise.
This is interesting since I’ve learned and continue to learn Romanian and while most people born post-ussr can speak with “neutral” pronunciation there is a similar situation as in Italy where regional accents involve distinct phonetic differences which are cool to listen to
We'll never be able to learn english properly in Italy until we'll keep dubbing movies... and we all know we're going to do that until the end of time. It's nearly impossibile to find a movie theater that features V.O. films. Kids get used to dubbing and when we get to our 20s we're to lazy to switch. I would say only 20% of people in Italy watch shows with subs. We just learn those three or four sentences we need at work to be understood - like "you're welcome" for waiters - and always with a terrible accent.
For American English speakers to avoid ending words in schwa, we do have multiple syllable words in English which are rare that do not end in a schwa, but a full ahh sound. Words like Omaha, Wichita, Crenshaw, Arkansas. There may be others, but I can't think of any off hand.
The place names Omaha, Wichita, and Arkansas all come from American Indian languages, so maybe it makes a little sense that their “ah” sounds don’t become schwas. Though some Americans who aren’t Native will say Omaha with a schwa on that middle syllable.
Honestly, I don't think getting a true native pronunciation is a desirable goal. Being a foreigner makes you interesting and unique and it's always cool to talk to someone from somewhere else with different perspectives. If you're so native sounding that people don't believe you that you foreign, it's almost boring. My ideal would be to have good enough pronunciation that it doesn't impede understanding, yet still makes you immediately interesting.
Research says otherwise. Even in countries with tons of immigrants with all sorts of accents like the US the natives have an unconscious bias towards people speaking accented English. It's a subconscious marker of belonging to the same group basically. And I think if you intend to integrate into a host society, this may be *the* most important thing to master
I don't believe most polyglots would agree. I believe this comes from people that try to see the glass half full, which it's okay. Having a cute accent can be nice, but not a strong one, it can alienate you in different aspects.
@@Dirtydreamer2023eh, polyglots may actually agree, depending on their personal goals. Some learn a lot of languages at a good enough level or to read books. They don't really master pronunciation in either of them. People who are really serious about one language, though, will probably disagree
@@Limemill I understand what you're saying, but aside from this (being the case or not), I was discussing whether they would prefer to have good pronunciation or not and I believe the answer is still yes. If they are all talented enough to achieve it in a short time, I don't know. But like Davide said, it is something easier to achieve compared to a wide range of vocabulary.
@@Dirtydreamer2023probably true, but then I can't help but think of someone like Steve Kaufmann who clearly doesn't give a flying f--k and just wants to be able to read complex books in his target languages and, as a bonus, to be able to converse relatively freely without major misunderstandings, but that's it, haha. Tbh, as far as *real* polyglots are concerned the only one I know who speaks several languages at a native-like level is in fact Luca. No one else. I do know guys like Matt from Matt vs Japan and Dogen who ultra focused on one language only (Japanese) and have an amazing pronunciation, but they are not polyglots
While your accents are great, they are slightly off in an uncanny valley sort of way. I think in a social setting, fantastic, but a vid like this has an edge to it haha Both awazing English speakers and I do not mean to put them down. They're incredible.
@@StillAliveAndKicking_Yeah I'm Irish and they sound American to me. Our ears are highly attuned to the dialects of our area so it is much more likely that an American would pick up on something being 'off', even if they couldn't explain what. Many younger Irish people, especially girls, sound American to me these days also, but they probably still sound Irish to Americans Luca's competency in learning the phonology of the languages he learns is inspirational to me.
@@cigh7445 Yes they are both inspirational to me too. I am good at accents, but I don’t know if I will ever get my French and German up to their standards. I don’t have an English accent in either language, but I probably sound strange.
It actually seems strange that in this modern era that so many of language learners adopt an American accent when speaking English. Is it more different for you to speak English with an English accent?
On the internet, most content will be in american english, and american accents are generally much closer to eachother eg. most people speak something very close to "standard american". This is not the case with british, which makes it harder to mimic, as you're not getting as much input from a single accent.
