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Improving accent in Spanish (for interpreting and in general)
Thread poster: hfp
hfp
hfp
United States
Local time: 04:14
Spanish to English
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Back in Chile Feb 12, 2009

Thanks for all the help everyone. I returned to the United States for about two months and now I am back in Chile. Chileans say they have no trouble understanding me, but they notice the accent right away! I'm going to force myself to read out loud and record myself so that I can compare my voice to that of a native speaker. Nothing is impossible!!!
 
chica nueva
chica nueva
Local time: 20:14
Chinese to English
Exercise your voice, great idea. Feb 14, 2009

Kathryn Litherland wrote:

Like with a lot of things, one of the keys is to practice practice practice. I find that reading texts out loud to yourself (preferably in an environment where you can exercise your voice in different ways, repeat things, overenunciate, etc. without feeling embarrassed) is a useful tool, because you don't have to be simultaneously worrying about picking the words and putting them together in the right fashion.


Nice, Kathryn. Great idea to exercise the voice like this.
(and btw I have replied to you on another thread).

I agree. Read aloud. Or memorize short pieces. (That was how I was trained)
In the language lab or with a tape recorder: read aloud - with tape and text.

Use 'Read and look up' technique, to develop fluency and 'chunking'/phrasing.

If you want a native accent, expect possibly PAIN/ACHING in vocal area, as you use parts which have never been used before (my personal experience). You are recalibrating/tuning an instrument. Be aware of breath-control, elocution, phonetics terms such as 'plosives' - go to a speech, pronunciation, elocution teacher or class. Learn 'chants' and 'songs'.

@ Good Words (always value you at Proz):

Keep the two languages apart - that's absolutely right, so you can 'switch' from one to the other.

Yes, I agree. Develop 'an ear' for tune/pitch, falling/rising intonation, speech rhythm and stress/accent etc, pausing. If you have learnt music/singing this might help. English has quite a large pitch range compared to some other languages, (wc is why foreign learners s'times sound 'flat'/monotonal in English.) In English the accented syllable in a word is always higher in pitch than the rest - is it the same in Spanish?

hfp: I think it is wonderful that you have this aim, because IMO verbal language is a 'performance art', amongst other things, and its 'physicality' and integration with non-verbal behaviours such as gesture, body-language, facial expression should not be overlooked.

what I found personally is, first of all, your pronunciation is not very accurate - it's a rough approximation, but you can gradually over months and even years tune and adjust it. There are very specific things you have to master in Chinese and one of them is 'the four tones', and the relative distance between them in your natural voice range. In my first year of full time learning as an absolute beginner at age 25 or so I remember my teacher specifically pointing out something I should do. I wasn't aware, and I really valued the input.

If you have a teacher, it's necessary to have a dedicated teacher, who believes that foreign adult learners can achieve close to native pronunciation. Many linguists refuse to believe it, but I disagree with them.

Lesley

[Edited at 2009-02-14 03:17 GMT]
 
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Improving accent in Spanish (for interpreting and in general)







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