Do you think it's ok to have a foreign accent?
I used to think that one needed to get rid of their foreign accent and sound like native speakers but now I am not too convinced. For example, I have recently listened to a podcast in English and the podcaster had a very strong French accent, so I thought that if his accent didn't get in the way of what he was doing, why would he want to get rid of it? It's a question of time after all that one would otherwise spend on something more useful.
Would you spend time on improving your pronunciation?
In this post, I am sharing some of my thoughts on this, not sure everybody would agree LOL <a class="in-cell-link" href="http://blog.vocblocks.com/2018/01/pronunciation-pain-part-1-do-i-need-to.html" target="_blank" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; text-align: center; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">http://blog.vocblocks.com/2018/01/pronunciation-pain-part-1-do-i-need-to.html</a>;
I think that pronunciation is a major part of learning a language. Your "accent" when you are learning a new language is frequently an excuse for being lazy and is a nice way of saying that you are not forming the sounds correctly. For example, I am learning Spanish. It is very easy to pronounce Spanish like a gringo. Don't bother learning how to make the vowel sounds correctly! Go ahead and pronounce the long vowels as diphthongs! It's ok! You'll sound like a gringo. Native speakers will understand you. They will say, "Oh, isn't that cute!. He sounds like a gringo!"
Part of learning to speak Spanish is NOT to sound like a gringo. Why? Because Spanish is NOT pronounced like that. You are doing a disservice to the language when you say to yourself, "Oh, it doesn't matter that I am totally slaughtering my pronunciation of my Spanish vowel sounds. They'll understand me." If the goal of learning a new language is only communication, then we should be making a lot more grunting noises and hand gestures. You can communicate so much with grunting sounds! Why try to learn proper grammar if they can understand you with really horrible grammar and a few choice grunting noises?
Learning a foreign language is like playing a musical instrument. I can play you a melody, but my tone, my phrasing, all of the nuances of music might totally suck. Should I be happy with that? Should I say to myself, "Well, they can tell that I am playing "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star?" The important thing is that they can tell what melody I'm trying to play." I don't think so. Music is more than just getting across to someone what melody you are trying to play.
In the same way, learning a new language is more that just shooting for understanding.
Phonetics is just as much a part of a langauge as syntax, semantics or anything. If you do that out of curiousity, then yes, you can say, the accent doesn't matter, but you can also say the same about anything.
If you have a practical reason... You know, I'm not good at practical reasons:( Breton, Afrikaans, Irish, Vitnamese, Moroccan Arabic... these are languages that attracted my interest. Do they seem very practical?
If I wanted to "be understood" by Bretons i'd learn French.
I feel happy and confident until I start speaking with a Native. LOL
Seriously, I keep practicing and investing in learning the language on a daily basis.
Good Luck.
I'm not really happy yet, from my point of view a good pronunciation is the result of a lot of hours practicing. Particullary, I take conversational classes in order to improve my English.
Greetings!
