In a foreign language, why do you have an accent?

This is due to the fact that pronunciation, stress, and rhythm are rarely taught properly.

When you open a foreign language textbook, one of the first things you'll encounter is an alphabet, which lists all of the letters in the writing system as well as the sounds they represent. This is obviously critical for systems that are unknown, such as Greek or Russian. Even in languages that use the Latin alphabet, the book will explain how diacritics like accent marks influence the pronunciation of a letter, as well as oddities like the -ch- in German or the -gl- in Italian. (The first is generally pronounced like the ch in a Scottish loch, while the second is pronounced like the -ll- in million.)

You can now master greetings, vocabulary, and so on without giving much thought to pronunciation. This is a pity. Learning foreign language accents is far more important than learning the sounds represented by the letters on the page. First and foremost, the rough equivalents given in English are frequently quite rough. In French, the NS of Paris sounds very different from the NS of New York. It's a contrast that is frequently overlooked in English textbooks. The French version lacks the English version's strong atmosphere. (Place your hand in front of your mouth and say "Paris" in English.) Then comes NS. If you don't have puffs, you'll get the French version.)

Despite the fact that textbooks and lecturers note these intricacies, they frequently fail to provide the next step. It's the same with chemistry: it's not about how the elements work alone, but about how they work together. For these combinations, each language contains norms that native speakers (and many teachers) generally grasp but cannot or will not articulate.

Consider the following scenario. The last syllable of every French word is stressed, which is a rule that is generally explained in textbooks. The significance of regulations, on the other hand, is frequently overlooked. It applies to any foreign name, not just French words. The name of the city in Texas is familiar to French speakers. yoos-TON, not HYOO-ston in English. The final stress is frequently reinforced with a higher pitch and a greater volume. English words, on the other hand, frequently have both primary and secondary stresses. The primary stress of the word "civilization" is in the fourth syllable, whereas the secondary stress is in the first. The last word in French has such strong stress that it leaves little room for other syllables.

Second, what linguists call phonotactics, or which syllables are permitted and which are not, varies by language. NS NS of psychiatry When Terror Dactil is present Is silent because English phoneme sequence rules prohibit native words from beginning with pt- or ps-. These consonants are combined in the middle of a word in English. Uptown English speakers can certainly pronounce them upside down. However, even if you recommend that they pronounce NS of Psychosis, they tend to insert extra vowels to fit the template, puh-sychotic. When discussing French soccer player Kylian Mbappe, an English commentator is forced to add a third syllable and refers to him as. Em-bap..

Many foreigners learning English experience similar perplexity. Why do Spaniards think he's from Spain? When speaking English, the consonant combinations sp-, NS-, and other consonant combinations are forbidden at the beginning of the Spanish word, which is why the Swedish capital is Estocolmo. This is only one example. English has a lot of consonant clusters that other languages don't really allow. Google is a video in which foreigners attempt to say squirrel. Here is another case study. Words combining rare skw- At first, strange vowels and tricky middle sounds that most languages lack -rl Finally.

Another reason to be misled by other language accents, even if you are fluent in them, is that it can be difficult to identify a language's rhythm. They differ in how the sentence's syllables are arranged. Cantonese and Italian, for example, have "syllable timing." All syllables are roughly the same length. Read this sentence aloud and try pronouncing all of the syllables this way. Then you may find yourself imitating Italian. English is a "stress time limit" (although not strict). That is, stress syllables tend to occur at roughly regular intervals, with the rest being less pronounced. This allows you to distinguish between English and Italian spoken through t.

When traveling abroad, English-speaking tourists may find themselves speaking English with strange hybrid accents. Linguistic rhythms spread like wildfire. However, as with drums and dances, the slightly clearer teachings aren't a bad thing.