Thread: English Accent

Hey!
Is it really that difficult to get rid of an accent?

The trick just is in the correct position and form of the tongue tip, and root.
One friend of mine had VERY hard (English-like) Ч's and Щ's. But after one ICQ voicechat and a little of theory she got them perfect and even better than some Russians say sometimes. And that usage of the correct tongue decided all the problems with ЧА, ЩА etc., which should sound like ЧЯ, ЩЯ etc.

So, just ask your penpals to tell where's the tongue and you'll be fine.

It's important not to be too hard to yourself with regards to accent.

I hated my English when I was in my early teens. I never wanted to speak it because I thought I had an ugly accent.

Then I travelled to Asia and heard people in ex-colonies speak TERRIBLE English, with very strong accents and full of grammatical errors. I noticed that they were not embarrassed and that people could understand them fine and nobody laughed.... This gave me the courage to speak myself without being so self-conscious. Once I started speaking I soon became fluent and the accent gradually disappeared.

Originally Posted by DDT

Originally Posted by gRomoZeka

Hm, Lundgren is not so bad. Unfortunately, I can't remember any other examples right now..

Yes Dolf Lundgren is Swedish and not typical actor. He used to be a doorman at a night club in Sydney, called "Jamison Street". I used to see him there at the door, as I was a lifetime member there. He was a big guy but always nice. I'm not surprized that his accent was better than, say, Rodger Moore's.

random and off topic, but Dolph has a masters in chemical engineering. Quite surpising having only known him for his movies

Originally Posted by vox05

'You scared me with the kettle' at 1:51 is unintelligible for me.

Кажется она сказала "Я с ворами не говорю" с сильным акцентом. Вообще субтитры очень приблизительно соответствуют сказанному, в лучшем случае. Но в данном фильме ещё ничего, всё не так запущено как во многих других).

Тут говорилось об иностранцах, особенно англоязычных, говорящих на хорошем русском. Вот нашёл на ютуб, американец, студент по обмену, как по мне, так отличный русский с незначительными помарками).
Here is a video of an American talking good Russian - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ajge2...eature=related

What sounds most harsh to a Russian ear is when foreigners pronounce middle "е", "я", "ё" the same way as in "yes", "yay", "yolk", etc. For example, they try to pronounce "принесёт" as "приньесьёт" and so on.

How is it meant to be pronounced?

Originally Posted by Marlow

they try to pronounce "принесёт" as "приньесьёт" and so on.

How is it meant to be pronounced?

Well, if you pronounce it like "pree-nee-sot" it will be already better for a Russian ear. Then the next step is to modify sound "s" to make it "soft" or "palatalized" but it should not be like "-siot". Get rid of diphthong "io" (as well as ia, ie, iu): there are no diphthongs in Russian.

But it seems to be very difficult for English-speakers.

Here are the main mistakes english-speakers do about sound softening in Russian:
1. Don't soften consonants followed by soft vowels or the soft sign.
2. Pronounce soft vowels after soft consonants improperly like at the beginning of a word.
There shouldn't be the Y(Й)-sound at the beginning of the vowel sounding in this case.

The only correct way of memorizing the principle of softening is to treat them as pairs.
When you come upon a soft vowel or the soft sign, remember that they've also softened the preceding consonant, like:

Мяч has the Я sound. It's pronounced similar to "Yah", only when it is standalone.
The first Y-part is only needed to put the middle of the tongue into the correct "soft" position like at the beginning of a word or something like that.

In the мяч-word the М is also softened by the Я and it's pronounced like [М'] with raised middle of the tongue. But:
This raised position is also used for the Я-sound, so:
the soft (palatalized) M prepares the tongue for the following Я-sound.
So you don't need to say that Y-part, just saying the rest when the Y is removed.
They are a pair -- the soft M and the soft Я. Same for every single soft vowel running after every single consonant,
except ones affected by those stupid spelling rules, that are used only for writing and just puzzle everyone but Russians, when they learn the language.
This way of saying when one sound flows out of the previous one is very natural, and it's used by native russians when we speak.

Getting used to this way of speaking will eliminate following mistakes with ЖШЧЩ and vowels after them, which is
another greeeat trouble for english-speakers learning Russian.

As I've noticed during the teaching process short simple and maybe childish examples work better than any explanations,
so here's the one for those who don't feel certain in the softening:
Do some self-hypnosis, imagine you're a Russian :"": cat and say МЯЯУ. That's the great simple example of the soft M and the soft Я running together,
explaining the main principle of softening in Russian: http://www.sendspace.com/file/be9yhj
Notice that the correct soft M is highly important to make the correct Я in the words.

P.S. And I should admit that our languages have only one identical sound. It's when we snore in the sleep

Originally Posted by Eugene-p

Here are the main mistakes english-speakers do about sound softening in Russian:
2. Pronounce soft vowels after soft consonants improperly like at the beginning of a word.

There are no 'soft vowels' as sounds. There are sounds - hard+soft consonants plus five vowels, and letters - consonants plus 10 vowels. They only differ in pronunciation of consonant,
and not in vowel sound afer it. Vowels are doubled in their count instead of doubling number of consonants.

There shouldn't be the Y(Й)-sound at the beginning of the vowel sounding in this case.

Right.

Мяч has the Я sound.

No. In has soft-M and 'А' sound.

In the мяч-word the М is also softened by the Я and it's pronounced like [М'] with raised middle of the tongue. But:
This raised position is also used for the Я-sound, so:

No. The Я-sound is actually 'А' sound. As well as in 'Мяяяу"

They only differ in pronunciation of consonant,
and not in vowel sound afer it.

OMG! Vox! Are you okay?
1. Try saying "Нина" and if you can imagine Ы instead of И then.....hmmm....I missed something in my life.
2. Cut the first consonant in the "мяч" out using audacity or something and try to hear the A there.....
3. Try to hear the O while saying "Сёмга".
4. Try to hear the У while saying мюсли/кюре/пюре.

Thinking this way will cause learners to aforesaid mistakes, that's why I repeat to treat them as pairs:
If they treat the Я as the A but soften the consonant properly, they will get the М'AСО instead of МЯСО, which is the most common mistake.
Then they hear that something's wrong and start adding the Y-part to get the Я correct and that causes another mistake.
I'll record the 1-st one:
http://www.sendspace.com/file/596phk
Do you see what happened when I tried to preserve the A original without softening? It's exactly the same thing I talked above of, referread as an accent.

The reason of you can hear the hard sounds is because of stretching them.
If you stretch sounds like мяяяяяяяясо you will hear the A because of the tongue moving to the "hard" position in these longer things. But when said normally these sounds sound really soft. The softness appears at the connection of the soft consonant and the soft vowel and lasts about 1/4 of a second, because it's not a convenient position for the tongue in vowels, it starts moving into the convenient resting position (which corresponds to the hard pair of the vowel), or to the position needed for the next sound intended to be said.

if you knew German that would be easier to explain, but Russian soft vowels with the Y-part cut off sound very close to the umlaut-things in German (double dots above).
They are also front ones and they are also soft ones.

If you listen to the recording attentively starting from different positions of the МЯУ word, you will notice how the soft M is turning into the SOFT A (Я) and only then, just right before the У, it's being turned into the hard A, because we need to say the У, but not the Ю, and lowering the middle of the tongue immediately affects the Я turning it into the A.

Dissecting sounds this way like a surgeon, you can guess now why you won't hear the hard vowels instead of the soft ones in the entirely-soft-words like няня, дядя etc., because it's not needed to move the middle of the tongue into the hard position and nothing affects the soft vowel bothering you to hear it.

Originally Posted by Eugene-p

1. Try saying "Нина" and if you can imagine Ы instead of И then.....hmmm....I missed something in my life.

и/ы is a special case, you're right.

2. Cut the first consonant in the "мяч" out using audacity or something and try to hear the A there.....

Done, 'А' is the same.

http://www.sendspace.com/file/596phk
Do you see what happened when I tried to preserve the A original without softening? It's exactly the same thing I talked above of, referread as an accent.

I hear [ммм'асо] - long 'м' that is no palatalized at the beginning, then becomes palatalized and from this point it sounds more or less like 'мясо' should.

Okay, think as you do. Won't insist, but won't change my mind.

Originally Posted by happyclogs

Hi I was just wondering what you native Russians think of an English (even London if you can be that specific) accent speaking Russian?

What does it sound like to you? Is it nice in itself or would you advise someone to lose it as quickly as i would a Chinese-English accent?
Personally i simply wouldn't bother trying to adopt an English accent if i was a Russian, considering that the Russian accent just sounds so great when speaking English!!!

Well, I'm not a native russian speaker, but I always consider accents as something to be shunned because they can seriously impede understanding. When a person has a foreign accent, he more likely than not louses up some words in his speech and this doesn't bode well for the clarity of his speech.
Keeping that in mind, accents can be fun, when they are not so thick as to hinder communication.
If your russian accent is within the bounds of what is considered acceptable, if russians have little trouble if any making out what your sayin, then more power to you, well done. If on the other hand people have to exert effort in order to understand you because your speech is way too garbled and unintellible, you need to go about the task of shedding some of your accent.

That said, russian is an easy language to get a handle on as regards accents. It has upwards of 10 vowel sounds. This number pales in comparison to a whooping 15 vowel sounds in english. I take it your American? Then you should not feel daunted, because you can have the russian accent licked in a jiffy granted you put your mind to it.

Just remember, 10 minutes per day every day spent doing accent reduction exercises will go a long way.

Originally Posted by Johanna

Then I travelled to Asia and heard people in ex-colonies speak TERRIBLE English, with very strong accents and full of grammatical errors. I noticed that they were not embarrassed and that people could understand them fine and nobody laughed....

Depends on what company you keep. If you have an accent and your in the midst of insidious teens, then chances are you will be a laughin stock every time you say something off. With teens its all about mediocrity - being different will push them to pick on you. Teens don't care for people who do not conform.
If your aquaintances are business people who do busiess with you, they could care less about your accent, so long as they can take in everything you say (ok, lets lower the bar, most of what you say). All they care about is their profit margins.
I speak english with a slight accent, but a few years ago my accent was horrendous And I'm still trying to put an end to my accent, to have it licked so I will sound like an all around died in the wool American. (Ok, I have a liking for the USA, its my favorite place on Earth)

Английский акцент звучит по-русски не очень хорошо. Англоязычным требуется много времени, чтобы научиться произносить слова так, чтобы их легко понимали. Французам русское произношение даётся легче, а литовцы, например, сразу начинают говорить по-русски почти правильно. Чешский акцент кажется мне очень красивым, а вот монгольского я не знаю: те монголы, которых я слышал говорили по-русски совершенно чисто!

When I was in college, I had been studying Russian for TWO F*CKING YEARS without really understanding the difference between hard and soft consonants -- so, for example, if I saw -ля- in a word, I would pronounce it something like -лъйа-.

But a few weeks into my third year of Russian, I suddenly grokked (©1961 Роберт Хайнлайн) the distinction between ла and ля, and so my "American English accent" was immediately reduced, almost overnight. It was like that scene in My Fair Lady, where Eliza instantly and magically switches from the Cockney "The rine in Spine styes minely in the pline" to "The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain"!

Of course, I still spoke Russian with a foreign accent, but after that epiphany in my 3rd-year class, my accent became much less "American."

But there are disadvantages to mastering (or nearly mastering) the "native accent", if you're a foreigner. When I lived in Moscow (93-94), the women in the grocery stores were almost always VERY rude and nasty to me -- and I think the problem was that they mistook me for a native Russian who was either mildly retarded or drunk, because I had a very "clean" accent, yet I often had trouble finding the right word, and spoke rather slowly, and sometimes stuttered.

But my American friend Brian -- who knew maybe 20 words of Russian -- could walk into a store and say "Я кочу купит клэб. Йэст у фас КЛЭБ, поджалста?"... and immediately the saleswomen would be politely showing him their selection of bread, or offering to take him to the БУЛОЧНАЯ store just up the street.

So, there are times when it's better to have a "heavy" English accent.

I heard English speakers speaking Irish. They are not able to pronounce hard and soft (broad and narrow) consonants. I think I can better pronounce Irish words then them although i've just started studying this language on my own.