We all have accents

In Why we talk funny: The real story behind our accents, Valerie Fridland explains how as babies we could make any of the possible sounds in human language.

But after a year, we fine-tuned our babbling to the sounds in the language(s) we needed to talk with those around us.

By puberty, we’d become used to the sounds in our native language(s) and could no longer easily get our tongues around those sounds we filtered out long ago as babies.

Those filtered-out sounds are what give us trouble when speaking other languages as adults.

Our fix is to transfer and substitute sounds and speaking patterns from our native language(s), resulting in a foreign accent in other languages.

Yet keeping a foreign accent is perfectly fine.

Because for most of us, our goal when speaking another language is successful communication: to talk clearly and be easily understood by our listeners.

(In fact, having a foreign accent can mean being more quickly forgiven when making a mistake, such as using informal tu rather than formal vous as I’ve done in French.)

The pronunciation issues that cause speaking difficulties for us and understanding problems for our listeners depend on our first language(s).

Therefore “one-size-fits-all” is not an effective approach to improving speaking.

Instead, Valerie recommends targeted pronunciation practice and feedback based on language background.

Like in my English pronunciation clarity check.

© Christina Wielgolawski