English pronunciation (foreign and native)

[quote=“Hobbes”]I think you’re basically right LBT, although I would add that where you study can still effect your accent to some extent.

A former colleague of mine (American guy) speaks Chinese with an American accent to be sure, but you can also tell that he studied and lives in Beijing. Chinese people have told me they can hear both accents. I also have a friend here in Taiwan who grew up here but studied in Australia after college, and you can definitely hear it when she speaks English.[/quote]

I agree. People tell me all the time that my Chinese accent is becoming more and more “Taiwanese,” but I will never sound like a native speaker because I didn’t start studying Chinese until I was 20.

Oh for pity’s sake!

There is no longer a “proper” pronounciation for English. Don’t you know this died with the Beatles! Get a life. Do you think I pronounce the English language the same as Sandman? No. Because I speak in my particular dialect and he speaks with his. Somebody who lives 10 miles the other side of London will speak differently to me. The Indian woman, the Australian guy…

Get over it. There is no common standard - it’s just something the bloody Yanks invented to make them feel better about themselves. :raspberry: :fume:

Vive la difference! :wink:

This “bloody yank” is not saying that there is a proper English. However, if the system could teach KK properly, At least, if the way in which “KK” symbols are taught could be improved, Taiwanese English-learners would be pronouncing more in the vicinity of UK/US/OZ/NZ. This would sound much better than saying “I want to eat some braid”. What? You wanna eat someone’s hair??? Supposed to be bread. Etc, etc.

Maybe it is your inability to understand because you are so fixed on your own accent?

GET OVER IT!

You somehow believe you have a right to impose your “proper English” on the world.

F me - I am ENGLISH, and I don’t do it!

Stop watching Hollywood films and get a life…

I can pronounce the “x” in “xue”, but the sound does not exist in English. Am I a genius, or was I taught Chinese properly?

I have met scores of Chinese people who can pronounce English words intelligibly, with or without a discernable accent, so a failure of the Taiwanese to do so is a failure in teaching methodology, not an inability on the part of Chinese people to pronounce words that don’t exist in their mother tongue.

One of the main barriers to teaching anything here is the systems desire to have everything broken down into easily teachable and easily testable chunks. This is carried over into the private sector, of course, because students demand it.

The vast majority of people learning Engish here do it in order to obtain a piece of paper which allows admittance to a place of study from which another piece of paper will be obtained which will result in a higher salary than could be obtained without said piece of paper. It is equivalent to asking me to learn swahili in order to get a NT$40,000 a month pay rise. I’ll do it - but I’ll not give a tuppeny feck about anything other than passing my swahili exam.

On the other hand, I have met (but very few) Chinese people with a real interest in English, and their English is always pretty damn good.

The accent thing. A reflection, I think, of the obsession with appearances here. I wouldn’t mind if they could speak at the level of the average Filipino, but I’m convinced the American accent thing has to be rooted in “face”. It is similar to the pointless acquisition of new words the meanings of which are never learn. As soon as a Taiwanese person discovers the word “hike”, for example, the word “rise” is never used again, regardless of the difference in meaning between the two words. Pretending to have an American accent and using words you don’t know the meaning of must in some mysterious way provide additional “face” - meaning the user feels good at someone else’s expense.

Its also to do with British accent belonging to another time and is considered old fashioned by the Taiwanese.

Why do you hate Singaporeans?

The folks here don’t really care about proper pronunciation FYI. They know that their teaching methods are wrong but most people here are apathetic. In fact most people here rather not bother with English unless a 12-gauge is pointed at their skulls.

Its also to do with British accent belonging to another time and is considered old fashioned by the Taiwanese.[/quote]

I’m not convinced that 99% of them could tell the difference between an RP accent and a General American one, let alone the 57 varieties in between.

Thanks to Hollywood the most commonly understood English is probably American Standard. It makes sense for students to study the pronunciation of that particular form because it will improve their listening comprehension, and when that improves everything else comes more naturally.

If you indeed English, you’ll know that Paul McCartney is still alive and bashing out tunes for the dads. :smiley:

There’s no such thing as a ‘British accent’ (ask any Welsh, Scot or Irishman and he’ll tell you!) but I think you mean ‘recieved pronunciation’ in the manner of 1960s BBC broadcasters. I once read of an anecdote about a Londoner going to the States and being asked by an American: ‘So what language do you speak in England?’ Perhaps its the same perception.

Another thing, it always makes my hair stand on end when I hear Chinese students speak in perfectly robotic English a la Stephen Hawking’s computer, from which you can tell that they’ve copied every nuance on their electronic dictionaries. Its not to do with fluency though, just inhuman sounding.

In the end, ‘proper’ accented English is just the ability to convey yourself in an intelligible manner.

American Standard is basically an attempt on the part of Americans to speak with the clear, brisk accent of a western Canadian. It is fortunate for everyone that Hollywood is spreading this accent around the world. No need for everyone to applaud. Those of you in the front rows can just rattle your jewelery.

Definitely to keep face when many of the locals try to mimic a proper accent of any kind. But the bottom-line is a few talented locals can prononce English properly even as a non-native speaker but most will never be able to naturally fake proper accents. The muscles in the mouth and larynx are trained as any other muscle very early on and to retrain the same later is practically impossible, especially with the type of learning done in Taiwan.