When living in Ireland, I always admired the foreign people who could speak English so well that you couldn't tell that their native language wasn't English.

For instance, there was a Dutch woman living on my road; she grew up in Holland and then moved to Ireland in her thirties. She's been in Ireland now for about 30 years and she sounds exactly like any other Dubliner.

At the total opposite end of the spectrum, I had a foreign lecturer in college who had been in Ireland for about 30 years. Even after thirty years of immersion, he still spoke with an Arabic accent, and he still neglected to use plural forms (e.g. I saw five dog).

In learning the Lao language at the moment, my aim is to one day speak it so naturally that I sound like just another Lao person. There are two reasons why I aspire to this goal:
1) Vanity. I think it's something to be very proud of, something to show off.
2) Having people speak comfortably with me.

I'll explain that second point: Staying in Lao at the moment, I encounter people with varying degrees of proficiency in English. I encounter native speakers such as English people, Australians, Canadians, and Irish people; I speak to these people freely without censoring or monitoring my speech.

Sometimes though I find myself speaking to someone whose English isn't quite ten out of ten. When speaking with these people, I make sure to say "What are you doing?" instead of "What are you up to?". I also chop up my words, for instance I'd say "What did you do?" instead of "What ja do?".

And of course on the far end of the spectrum there are the people to whom I say "I no go shop yesterday" because I feel I'll confuse them if I say "I didn't go the shop yesterday".

To distinguish between these three groups of people, the most important deciding factor is accent. For instance, today I was at the swimming pool and a Russian man answered my question with a very clear "Yes". The "Yes" was spoken so clearly, with such pain-staking clarity, that I immediately identified him as "non-native" and I toned down my own English, using more simple constructs and words. If the man had replied with "Yeah" then I would have continued speaking freely with him. In this case, the speaker's speech was too clinical. There are of course circumstances though in which the speaker's speech is just too difficult to understand; for instance, over here they don't put a lot of effort into pronouncing the consonants at the end of a word (mak, map and mat all sound the same to my ear when a Lao person speaks English with a Lao accent).

I can be unfair though with my discrimination. Last night I spoke to a young man from Bangkok. He spoke English with a Thai accent, so it sounded a little different. From the offset, I was in "censored English" mode. After about five minutes of speaking with the man though, I realised that he had quite an extensive vocabulary. Then as he spoke, I started to wonder to myself: If his accent were more English-sounding, would I be more comfortable speaking to him? I ended up saying to him that he had very good English, and I politely suggested to him that he should work on pronunciation if he wanted to sound more natural.

Because of these experiences and more, I want to pay particular attention to adopting the accent, because no matter how well you can use a language, your audience will still be uncomfortable if you speak with a dodgy accent.

So... in aiming to achieve the goal of speaking Lao just like another Lao person, I have to adopt, practise, and imitate the locals. The first obstacle in this is coming to terms with sounds that I've never made before (for instance I wasn't able to pronounce "ngun" at first). Also there are a few strange vowel sounds over here that I have to get the hang of.

One thing I've found myself doing is dropping the Lao accent when I lose confidence in my speech. For instance, if somebody is talking to me and I don't understand them, I tend to respond speaking Lao with an English accent. I think I do this because I want to actually convey that my Lao is weak in the hope that they'll speak slower and more simply to me.

What kind of experience do people here have learning another language and trying to adopt the accent? How important do you think it is?

Bím ar mo dhícheall leis, ach ar mo dhá dhícheall le deachtú agus le gramadach. Tá an blas täbhachtach i ndeireadh scéil, ach sin rud a thiocfas le haimsir. Is mó liom féin go dtuigfí dom is uaim.

I dtaca liom féin de, tá mé ag foghlaim Gearmáinise i láthair na huaire agus ní féidir liom a rá go bhfuil a blas sin á fháil agam ach go cuíbheasach. Is minic a mheastar orm anseo gur Ollanach atá ionam. Níl a fhios agam cén fáth nó cad ina thaobh murab é blas na Gaeilge é, mar Ollanach níor casadh orm riamh go bhfios dom.

Cogar, más daoine iad seo atá in ainm is a bheith ag foghlaim Béarla, ar chuimhnigh tú ar an díobháil a mbeifeá a dhéanamh dóibh? Ní miste do chuid cainte féin a chaighdeánú agus a shimpliú len í a chur in oiriúint dá leibhéal, ar ndóigh, ach ní dóigh liom gur ceart dearmadtaí a dhéanamh d'aonghnó glan le go mb'éasca acu thú a thuiscint. Nach baol leat go bhfoghlamófar uait agus go mbeidh drochBhéarla ag an bpobal trí chéile i do dhiaidh?
Bhí Bearn s'againne ag gearán tamall ó shin faoina leithéid de chur chuige a fuair seisean áit eicínt in Éirinn, mura bhfuil dul amú orm.

(My expereince with German) It is very important because a language is a multimedia phenomenon and each language when spoken is transported more easily through its own particular spectrum of sounds. Speaking the language in the right accent is like running; anything else is like hurdling - and the hurdles are all over the place. And you start getting positive feedback from your own speech.

So it is a good investment in effort. Don't be afraid to imitate (imitate:yes; parody:no). Just open your mouth and let fly.

Abigail, if people sometimes mistake you for a Dutchwoman, that means you are doing well in acquiring a good accent. That is a good step up from being identified as a native English-speaker all the time. Weiterhin viel Glück.

quote:

Ní miste do chuid cainte féin a chaighdeánú agus a shimpliú len í a chur in oiriúint dá leibhéal

Agus... níos tábhachtaí fós, labhair go réidh cúramach. Is féidir liom Béarla a labhairt nach bhfuil intuigthe ach do dhuine eile a bhfuil an chanúint chéanna ar a thoil aige agus é suite díreach in aice liom. Má tá mé ag caint ar an nguthán nó le duine nach an Béarla aige ó dhúchas, deirim "what do you think?" in áit "whatcha think?" agus mar sin de.