The Dark Side of Being Good at a Foreign Language

#languagelearning #chinese #accent #fluency #polyglot #mandarin #languages

Does your accent matter more than your fluency in a language? Here’s my take on it! Thanks for watching 🌹

Copyright disclaimer: All rights go to the original creators. No copyright infringement intended.

[duskshadow]

Foreigner: 你好 (Ni Hao)
Chinese Native: WOW, YOUR CHINESE IS SO GOOD!
Foreigner: 💀

[GopherpilledTunneler]

The Dark Side of -Being Good at- *Having a Good Accent in* a Foreign Language

[somedragontoslay]

That happens with me in English. I have a British accent even though I'm Mexican and people treat me like I'm awesome. And I believed it. Until I started to apply for jobs writing in English and I got rejected many times. Why? I wondered. Then I decided to use Grammarly and it flags my texts like the 4th of July. That's when I realised I am not as good as I thought I was. I would have loved for someone to point that out to me.

[shutterchick]

I get this problem in Spanish. I used to work with a Puerto Rican woman whose native Spanish was slightly better than her fluent english. Saying my speaking skills are B1 might be slightly generous. I also often have trouble trilling my r. However, one day, I asked her how to say "whiteboard" in Spanish, which is "Pisarra blanca". For some reason, my tongue just decided to cooperate with me that day, and my trill came out perfect. Perfect enough that I sounded exactly like her. She got this huge, pleasantly shocked grin on her face, and said "Where did you learn Spanish!" From then on, whenever we'd speak Spanish together, she'd speak at a normal pace, with native vocabulary, and I struggled to understand her sometimes. My good pronunciation made her think I was more proficient than I really was. But I tried....

[_elifilen]

That's remind of a British Youtuber with a perfect French accent to a point French people though he was dumb french becouse he didn't understand some evryday slang.

[sobugg]

I am an ESL teacher. I may show this video to my students as an illustration of why you cant focus on one single aspect of a language. It takes a balanced approach to achieve fluency.

[necro-claud]

Putting you in heritage class was an overkill imo. Too difficult tasks kill progress as good as too easy ones do.

[hultonclint]

I have this "problem." I cannot have conversation in Chinese (I know tons of words but little experience putting them together in sentences), but I have studied lots of languages, know the value of pronunciation (and have a "good ear"), so I pronounce the phrases that I do now well. Every time I order at a Chinese restaurant (in Chinese), I brace myself for the reply by the server. They are like "Wow, you know Chinese!"—which I just barely get from context, and then say a bunch of other stuff which I don't understand! Basically, I can express some of my basic needs to people in Chinese, but then I'm lost.

[JoRoBoYo]

she use 100% of her face muscle when talking

[zt]

I'm an English native speaker and live in Germany. I work in a German-speaking workplace and I only use English in my personal life, and even then it's only to communicate with people back home. I get told a lot that my accent is really good, and although I'm clearly not a native speaker, my foreign accent is barely noticeable. This has been more of a curse than a blessing. My German competency is very often overestimated, and I have had multiple run ins at work with superiors thinking I am being obtuse, lazy or generally trying to avoid work when I tell them I'm having trouble understanding the task or unable to do a certain task because of my language skills. It's nice that I don't get treated like a foreigner/outsider and blend in with the people around me, but people seem to have made up their mind as to how well I speak German and become quite irritated with me when they find out that I can't be handled like a native speaker.

[xDJxChowwy]

Relatable, moved to Japan 1.5 years ago and started learning Japanese around then. I've always had good ears (musician) so picking up accents was very natural for me. My coworkers or bosses will always forget I'm Australian and would get annoyed why I don't know how to do certain things (the Japanese way) because it is common sense whilst Australian values taught me to just figure it out and as long as it gets the job done.

The imposter syndrome I get is immense daily but it has forced me to improve more in Japanese, advancing at a rate more than most people but definitely wouldn't recommend this method due to the insane stress.

[paholainen]

there's truth in what you're saying. People tend to judge by accent. Some immigrants in Australia have heavy accents but actually speak/understand quite well and are completely functional

[corsaircaruso]

This can happen with opera singers. We spend anywhere from a semester to multiple years in pronunciation courses for Italian, German, French, and even English. Ideally (but not always) we study the languages themselves for a year or two, and our practice with translating and singing the texts over the years can give us a major head start on accents.

[MingCheng]

Very relatable topic, I’ve experienced this too! Good imitation of sounds ≠ fluency. Just because I can sing along K-pop songs doesn’t mean I understand a word of Korean 🤣

[GIRLdisambiguation]

the same thing happened to me with Spanish lol. In high school, I was easily the best student in my class (and my accent wasn't even that good it just wasn't the terrible stereotypical American accent) so my teacher started putting me in the hallway to do more advanced work with the heritage speakers. I was instantly embarassed asf because while I could pronounce words fine, my vocabularly was so limited that I could not have a regular conversation with spanish speakers my age. Being good at tests does not equate to fluency unfortunately

[jaimeduncan]

Your father was correct in another level: you are young, and as you get older the ability to detect high-frequency sound and differences in tone lowers. So better to learn it when one is at full capacity.

[shawnmoses]

Honestly I had a similar experience with having an ego. I studied abroad in Brazil when I was in college. Before going, I took Portuguese courses. Understanding grammar made me feel like I was fluent. So when I got there found out I was not at all and understood nothing, my ego was hurt. It wasn’t until I stopped thinking and stressing about being fluent was when I ironically spoke and understood Portuguese better. Egos get in the way of the language-learning progress. Keep up the good work.

[celalergun]

This is the same for me for Russian language. Every time I meet with a native speaker they say my accent is perfect but when the conversation goes beyond the basic vocabulary I start making obvious grammar mistakes.

[hameley]

Kisara, it was the complete opposite for me when I visited my hometown two years ago. I arrived, and everyone was speaking Portuguese. I was trying so hard to read their lips. Because native speakers speak it at a higher pace and higher tone. It was like bomb settlement all around. I asked them if we could speak both English and Portuguese. They laughed it off, but I explained that it's been years since I stopped speaking the language as I adopted Hawaiian and English into my daily speech. Everyone around me treated me like an alien from another planet. I did try my best to speak it with my grandma and her sister, who are the eldest. I felt comfortable speaking my native language again, but some from my dad's side of the family members made fun of my pronunciation and my tone. I wanted to give up and scream and go home. But this is my family. My own family was being disrespectful while strangers from around stores, pharmacies, and restaurants made the effort to speak to me in English and Portuguese as slow as possible. I also put in my best to communicate. Whether you are excellent or mediocre at pronunciation, writing or reading another language, people will always find faults and point out your weaknesses instead of teaching you.
I was also taught French and Spanish growing up. I know the basics and can form sentences. But I still have much to learn, just like any other non-native speaker.

Keep at it and don't give up on nay sayers. I'm enjoying these videos. Thank you for sharing your experiences. ❤ 🗣

[pironiero]

goddamn, your facial muscle movement is really impressive