Foreign accents

At the moment I’m writing an essay on the acquisition of foreign pronunciation. There seems to be a widespread belief that people who start learning a language at an early age are more likely to speak it with a native accent, while those who learn languages as adults tend to speak them with foreign accents. The essay is exploring whether this is true, and what factors contribute to the acquisition of native-like pronunciation.

While there’s plenty of evidence indicating that the younger you start learning a language, the more native-like your pronunciation will be, there are exceptions to this – some adults manage to acquire native-like pronunciation in foreign languages, while not all children do so. Other factors that seem important include the length of time you’ve spent in a country where the language is spoken, the amount of exposure you get to the language, how much you use your first language, whether you have a talent for oral mimicry, and how important it is for you to speak the language like a native. Other factors don’t seem to be as important.

In my case, I aim to speak languages with as little foreign accent as possible, and am reasonably successful in this. I think I have a good ear for languages, which might be related to my musical abilities, and am quite good at oral mimicry. I find that mimicking the way foreigners speak English and doing the same when I speak their language helps.

Do you speak an foreign languages with a native-like accent? What has helped you to do so.

Irish on the radio

There are a number of radio stations in Ireland and Northern Ireland that broadcast entirely or partly in Irish, and I listen to one of them, Raidió na Gaeltachta, reguarly. However I wasn’t aware until the other day that there’s a radio station in New York (Nua Eabhrac) that broadcasts a weekly radio show in Irish, according to this article.

The show, Mile Failte, is broadcast on WFUV-FM and has been running since 1989. It originally lasted just 10 minutes, but has grown to an hour and includes Irish music, language lessons, poetry and information about Irish culture and history. The same station also broadcasts an Irish music programme called Ceol na nGael.

There seems to be a quite a few Irish speakers in New York, and plenty of Irish language classes in New York City and State, according to this site. There’s some details of some of the Irish-speakers there on this site.

English villages in Taiwan

The Taiwan government is planning to spend millions of dollars “improving Taiwan’s English-language environment”, which will include the setting up of two English-language villages, according to this report.

They will improve English language signage and aim to host more international concerts and exhibitions.

The idea of the English villages is to make it easier for the local residents to practise their English. The first village will probably be set up in Hsinchu Science and Technology Park, which has a large number of foreign staff. The villages will have English language signs, local businesses will be encouraged to provide English-language services, and will be given star ratings for the quality of those services.

Taiwan already has at least one English ‘village’ where children can be immersed in the language, according to this report.

Are there similar ‘villages’ in other countries?

Astudiaethau

Yn ddiweddar dw i wedi bod yn brysur efo aseiniadau ar gyfer y prifysgol. Cyn diwedd y semestr hwn mae rhaid i mi ysgrifennu pedwar traethodau ac i baratoi dau gyflwyniad. Dw i’n wedi gwneud yr cyflwyniadau ac un o’r traethodau yn barod.

Staidéar

Le déanaí tá mé an-gnóthach le tascanna ar an ollscoil. Roimh deireadh an seimistear seo, tá orm ceathair aistí a scríobh agus dhá léiriú a ullmhú. Tá mé i ndiaidh na léiriú agus aiste amháin a dhéanamh cheana féin.

The importance of backups

This blog seems to be working again now and I’ve managed to restore the data up to last November. Unfortunately that was the last time I made a backup of the blog, and due to the problems with my old server, it is not possible to recover the data since then. Oh well, lesson learned. I will try to make regular backups from now on.

The forum is also up again, though I haven’t managed to restore any of the old data, so we’ll just have to start anew. Sorry!

In other news, one of the university assignments I’ve been working on is a presentation on bimodal bilinguals – that is people with normal hearing who have deaf parents and grow up fluent in sign language and a spoken language such as English. Unlike other bilinguals who switch between their languages (code switch), bimodal bilinguals can speak and sign at the same time (code blend). Normally the signs and words mean the same thing, though occasionally one adds to the meaning of the other. When speaking, for example, some of the words may be accompanied by signs, and vice versa. It is also possible to use both languages simultaneously, a difficult undertaking known as SimCom (Simultaneous Communication) which is used in educational settings.

I find this topic fascinating as I’m learning British Sign Language as the moment. So when I give my presentation on this, I’ll be able to demonstrate a bit of code-blending.