A few articles have appeared over the last couple of weeks on pronunciation and why it’s ok to have a foreign accent.
Such as:
- Memrise: How to play the accents game
- Language Fluency: Dare to Speak as Much as You Can – And Don’t Worry About Your Accent…
I have to agree. While I post a lot of things on here about improving your Vietnamese pronunciation, they are aimed at improving how clear and understandable you are.
If you want to aim for a native speaker accent, good for you. Go ahead!
However, it’s not a requirement. Thinking about English for a minute, there are so many people who speak fluent English with foreign accents from Arnold Schwarzenegger to Antonio Banderas. There’s a difference between having an accent that is hard to understand and having an accent where words are pronounced intelligibly but with a foreign twist. Heck, many people even find Banderas’ and similar accents attractive.
Having an accent just indicates where you’re from, even native speakers have regional accents. There’s no such thing as “accentless” English or Vietnamese.
If languages are about communicating with other people, expressing a meaning, sharing ideas, connecting with people then there’s nothing wrong with a little accent.
Over to you: What kind of accent are you aiming for? Do you think a native speaker accent is necessary or desirable?
2 replies on “What if you speak Vietnamese with a foreign accent?”
In general I agree. But having an accent in VN makes it harder for natives to understand you – at least in comparison to non-tonal languages like English, German, French, etc.
Accent doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with tones.
If your foreign accent is so strong that you don’t pronounce an important part of a word, then yes it’s difficult to be understood. Whether that’s a Brit saying something like vo minh thich an com without any intonation or a Vietnamese person saying my wi’ li’ ri’ with any final consonant sounds.
Accents, however, are not unique to language learners. Everyone has an accent in their native language. Having produced an app about dialects, you’re well aware of these variations in Vietnamese.
Really, I think the key sentence of this post says it all: “There’s a difference between having an accent (a foreign accent) that is hard to understand and having an accent where words are pronounced intelligibly (understandably) but with a foreign twist.”