Language learners, Why can some people just not seem to get the accent down?

Question

What do you think? Are some people just stubborn? Is it a neurological thing--some people just can't make their mouths move the right way? Do they just get more attention from native speakers if they have a thicker accent?

I've been studying Spanish for some time, and I must say that I'm quite proud of my accent. I'm a native English speaker, and I still have some trouble pronouncing my rr's fluidly, but I'm working on it.

When I was taking Spanish classes, though, it seemed like there were some people who were not even trying to speak with the right accent. Why is that?!

I used to think it was just stubbornness. If you have to take language classes, you might be less into the language, so you might not try as hard to pronounce the words correctly. But since my school days, I've met a few people who really love the Spanish language and Spanish and Latin American cultures, but they talk like the most stereotypical gringos ever.

Just a clarification--this was not meant as a criticism of non-native English speakers, I have nothing but respect for anyone who makes an effort to speak a language that isn't their first.

This was meant more of as an observation about why some people can't do the accent in whichever language they're learning and some can do it just fine.

When I was learning Spanish in school, it just always seemed a little rude to me when my classmates seemed like they were just refusing to pronounce things correctly.

Answer 1

I have quite a few ideas about this question, since it gets to the heart of my field of study and research. I'll try to be brief, though.

First of all, just about every person who learns a new language after about the age of 15 speaks that language with an accent. It's actually quite rare if the person isn't noticeably different from a native speaker. Many researchers in second language acquisition (SLA) disagree with the fact that non-native speakers are always being compared to native speakers. After all, why should native speakers of a language have special status? So it might be erroneous to even consider it in terms of who has an "accent" other than saying that the characteristics of their sounds are different from those of other speakers of the language. When I teach my ESL pronunciation students, I don't have it as a goal to make them sound like native speakers, since I think this would be a fruitless and frustrating goal. Instead, I try to make their accents more understandable. It seems from your question that you believe that people like yourself are able to speak with a native-like accent, but even you admit that your trilled "r" is off, so you're not native-like after all. There are some parts of the sound system of language that contribute more to understanding than others. If you think about it, I doubt that you know any non-native speaker of any language who could fool a native speaker into thinking that they were a native speaker for very long.

One common explanation for accent that is definitely false has to do with muscles. On forums such as this one I sometimes hear that people's muscles are trained to make the sounds of their native language and can't be trained to do new things. This is false if you think about it because muscles can be trained to do new things -- at least, that's what I hope when I go to work out at the gym! In addition, just about anyone, with a relatively small amount of training, can learn to make sounds from all the world's languages. Most students in introductory linguistics classes, for example, receive enough training to be able to imitate sounds from quite a few of the world's languages. However, making a sound as a linguistic exercise and making a sound when you're communicating in that language are two different matters. Nevertheless, it demonstrates that we are not talking about a physical phenomenon, but a psychological/psycholinguistic one.

The linguistic theory about this question that I currently hold and design my research around has to do with perception. There are a number of convincing recent studies that have provided evidence that people do not always perceive the information in their new language in the same way that native speakers of that language do. Their perception is influenced by the sound system of their native language, we think. For example, in a relatively recent study by Matthews and Brown, two researchers who work in Japan, Japanese-speaking research subjects couldn't tell the difference between words along the lines of "ekto" and words along the lines of "ekuto". In Japanese, it is not possible to have two different consonants next to each other; there will always be a vowel between them. Therefore, Matthews and Brown conclude that, when speakers of Japanese hear a word like "ekto", their perception inserts a vowel between the consonants, so the word they actually hear is more like "ekuto". The implication of this research for your question is that the non-native speakers you are talking about might actually not be able to tell that what they are saying is different from what native speakers say, because they perceive what native speakers say through their own sound system. It also means that the information about the new langauge is modified on the way in, so that when language learners store the information about the language in their mental dictionaries, the word is stored in an "accented" form. Speaking with an accent, therefore, could simply be faithfully producing accented forms that already exist in your mental knowledge of the language. This could not be explained as "stubbornness", then.

Your question also brought up some other issues that may affect accent, such as the way that native speakers judge the non-native speakers. As a linguist heavily influenced by sociolinguistics, I continually claim (as I have done many times on Yahoo! Answers) that the way we perceive people's language is definitely affected by our judgment of the people themselves, not just our judgment of their language characteristics. Language learners are sometimes sensitive to this, and there is at least one theory that I know of that claims that language learners may speak with an accent because people would be more forgiving to speakers who seem to be at a lower proficiency level. However, again, although language learners may be sensitive to such sociolinguistic issues, chances are that they are not conscious of them, so, again, this could not be explained as "stubbornness". Also, since native speakers are judging non-native speakers by more than just their accent, they may be relatively intolerant of people whose native language is spoken in a culture that they don't like, for example. You can see many examples of this right here on Yahoo! Answers, with the frequent recent complaints from native English speakers about having to press 1 for English on the telephone or hearing Spanish when they eat in restaurants, for example. Complaints such as these are not often true complaints about the Spanish language, but rather a reflection of the dislike, prejudice and (dare I say?) racism that many Americans have towards Hispanics in the United States. In other words, our feeling about whether a person's accent is understandable or not understandable is often affected by our feelings towards that person. Since our judgment of accent is so partial, then, who's to say whether a person has a "good" accent or not?

As a teacher of ESL, these ideas make me feel a little guilty, because, as I said, I believe that speaking with an accent is a perfectly normal thing to do, yet I teach ESL pronunciation from time to time, which is a class designed to change my students' accents. I am aware of the irony in the fact that I claim that non-native speakers have just as much right to speak the language as native speakers do and that native-speaker-like speech should not necessarily be the target, and yet teach non-native speakers how to make themselves more understandable to native speakers. I would feel much more comfortable if I also taught a class where I taught native speakers how to understand people with unfamiliar accents better. I think I would have a very hard time talking my university into offering such a class, but I think it would be much more just than the system we have now.

Your question "Why do people speak with an accent when they learn a new language" is very much an open question in the field of linguistics right now. It gives linguists like me and other members of my lab plenty of work to do. I will probably spend a large part of my career as a linguist thinking about and working on this question.

P.S. I find it interesting and perhaps even revealing that the characteristic of your accent that you chose to mention was the trilled "r" sound. I wonder why it is that English speakers seem to equate mastery of this sound with speaking Spanish with a good accent. Actually, I believe that the rhythmic differences (read: differences in the way that English speakers and Spanish speakers do the lengths of vowels and syllables) are much more important. I actually know two native speakers of Spanish who don't do the trilled "r" either; for them it's considered to be a speech impediment, not that they are non-native speakers. Do you know what I mean?

Answer 2

I'm a Linguistics major and have a few ideas as to why this may be. First, though, I think you're right - if people *have to* take certain classes, they may not make much serious effort.
Studies have shown that by the age of 10 months, babies have already begun to phase out sounds that they will not need. This could include certain vowels (like European "ü") or hearing the difference between consonants (like the interchangeable usage of "b" and "p" in Korean, if I remember right). We're all born with the ability to learn any language, but quickly zero in on our home language's sounds. Later in life, it takes a lot of work and particular training to hear other sounds. I would recommend a university level Phonetics class.
Also, many native English speakers don't realize that basically all English vowels are diphthongs while Spanish vowels are more "straight-forward" single vowel sounds. Like an English "o" sounds more like "ou", while the Spanish one is a plain "o". And the English "a" is more like "ei", while Spanish has "a" or "e".
Letters often don't effectively represent sound. Like the examples I just made, an "a" can be pronounced differently in different languages (and even within English itself). Someone may not be able to let go of their native language's rules for a letter's sound (I think of my Dad who always says "ve-ge-ta-bles"). Again, a Phonetics class would help one let go of these mental restrictions and pay attention to sound.
Lastly, Spanish tends to also pronounce "d"s, "t"s, and "n"s more between (or at) the teeth while English pronounces these behind the teeth at the alveolar ridge. This alone can change the shape of the mouth enough to create an accent at the following vowel.

Answer 3

The ease at which people learn languages is highly dependent on how the language centers of their brains develop during their formative years (first 5-6 years of the life). So, yes, whereas some people do not make the effort to even try speaking with the right accent, oftentimes, it is hard for people to even hear that they are pronouncing some words wrong; although it is blatantly obvious for a native speaker, a foreigner's brain may just not be primed for learning certain tones or accentuations.

Answer 4

First of all, if you learn a language as an adult, you will probably *never* get the accent right. Some people get it better, and some less, but never perfect.

Yes, in high school language classes, there are plenty of students who don't bother. But even in situations where someone *does* want to learn the correct pronunciation, some people have more of a talent for it and some have less. Some have better teachers, too, which can make a huge difference. I have a friend who learned a second language basically perfectly--except that he has one of the *worst* English-speaking accents that I have ever heard!!

Answer 5

As I told you in an answer for another question you asked, it's a proven fact that only one twentieth of the people ever get to speak foreign languages without a foreign accent. The rest are either deaf to the differences, or unable to reproduce them. I mean, speaking is a psychological action, but it also involves muscles. These won't always respond the way you expect. And as for the "deafness" for different sounds, it's not so weird, either. Did you know that the N in the English words "confirm", "singular", "tenth", "ten miles" and "tiny" are all different? Probably you didn't, so if English weren't your native language, you wouldn't have the feeling you have for the language, and you wouldn't produce the right N every time.

Answer 6

I had a college professor that said that if someone learns a second language before puberty, it is easier to lose their original accent and pick up the "proper" accent for the language he or she is learning. Some people don't try at all to pronounce words correctly (or make up words they think sound Spanish--if anyone says "el homeworko" I won't dignify them with an answer), but some who try will continue to struggle with pronunciation and shouldn't be faulted for it. Maybe you just have a knack for languages, maybe you work really hard to do well, either way keep it up.

Answer 7

I agree with all the answers given. I come from a country which speak atleast 26 languages and many other dialects. It is my personal experience that when a certain language is your primary language, that accent sticks and every other language accent becomes a secondary accent. Unless a person is a linguist it is really not possible to speak in the correct accent of every language learned.

Answer 8

This is an interesting question for me. I am a professional linguist.

First, I’ll offer some anecdotal ‘evidence’. I am bilingual in German and English from birth. Some years ago, while living in Germany, I had two very good English friends – both of whom speak excellent German – but have learned it as a foreign language. One, Andy, is married to a German. He can talk at length on complicated political or philosophical matters in German and I have seldom ever heard him make a grammatical error or stumble over words. He only has to open his mouth for a second though before any German can hear that he is an Englishman. Basically, he speaks German with a strong Newcastle accent! We have discussed this and he is adamant that this is not intentional. He is trying his best to sound like a German but can’t do it.

The other friend, Jonathan, is of a similar age and actually speaks German slightly less well. He finds it hard to talk about politics or philosophy in German, but his German is still very good indeed. However, he can almost pass himself off as a native of Nürnberg (my home town). His accent is almost completely perfect. It may (or may not) be significant that he is also a musician and can mimic people, too.

I have a good friend, Heidi, who escaped from Germany to England as a Jewish refugee during WW2. She is a highly educated woman, speaks and writes English better than I do and is a highly respected professional in her field of science. She has lived in England for over 60 years. However, she speaks English with a very obvious German accent.

I think a number of things come into play here.

1.Some people regard their accent as part of their personality. They don’t want to change it. This is definitely an aspect of Heidi’s case.
2.For many people, speaking completely like a native speaker is not possible. (English and German are similar enough to make this an attainable goal for a few people, but if you are a native English speaker and want to learn, say, Thai or Korean then it is to all intents and purposes impossible to sound like a native however long and hard you try or however gifted in this area you may be. As a previous answerer to this question has mentioned, for most people, making the phonemic distinctions necessary in a foreign language is enough to get you understood perfectly adequately).
3.However, somewhere between these two extremes is a very wide range of ability in pronouncing a foreign language. Andy and Jonathan for example are at opposite ends of this ability range. It seems to have nothing to do with their language abilities in other areas such as grammar, vocabulary etc. (However, the musical abilities might be a factor – and the mimicry factor is certainly important, I would guess).

Bilingual people like me often have problems with accents, too. On visiting Germany after a year or more abroad, I was told I spoke German with an English accent at first. On my return to England (after over a year in Germany) I was told I had a German accent when speaking English.

Answer 9

you see, its not easy first to master another language and second its very difficult to speak that language.. Its an honest thing, you cant, many people try to speak english like the americans ( if they are in america) and they cant, cause there are some words and lettes that just dont exist in their language and they are so used to those words,, dont see accent as stubbornness, see accent as a way to try to speak someone else language,, give people a chance,,,,