A Chinese Accent

Had a student the other day who wanted to get rid of her accent. She said that when she would converse with other colleagues they would look upset and it bothered her. So we sat down and one of the first things I told her was about building self-confidence. She probably thought that I was going to tell her directly how she would be able to eliminate it. How would it be possible for one to want to eliminate any trace of their accent, I thought.

Now the woman was 24 and I mentioned that by that age the person would have acquired a permanent accent. Twenty-five years ago the age I heard about was 12. Last week somebody told me that in their psychology class they learnt that a woman could learn to eliminate he accent by 24. Men are not as adept, I was told. People use their tongues in different ways was an example that I gave her and at best I could get her to pronounce her l’s and Ra’s better but then the listener would still understand that the speaker is Asian.

Asians are notorious for having the r’s and l’s mixed up. So I am used to hearing about lice when I would rather hear about rice. This is where I get the student to concentrate on where they put their tongue as the l is sounded and that usually it touches the hard palate.

As our conversation continued I noticed that the speaker spoke in broken phrases with the subject missing in her sentences. I told her that it was natural for Asian speakers to talk that way, since many are probably applying the syntax rules from their own native language. She was encouraged to remember the use of the subject and intercalating words joining a subjunctive clause to a sentence or in relating a first conditional form. If it is a subjunctive, I told her not to forget the “that” and for the conditional the use of “if”.

She was directed to an understanding that although her accent may be unalterable because of her age and ability to assimilate what she hears, that she could correct some of her speaking habits to make her spoken language comprehensible. That was beside the difficulty she may have had in reproducing letter sounds. This is where I told her about bridging words and intonations in sentences. She had to practice reproduce the sounds of certain words based on their single vowels or vowel combinations. She had to become more conscious of the verb form to be used, which might confuse the listener if used incorrectly.

I also mentioned that many people use idiomatic forms and that she should familiarize herself with those forms. As well she should become familiar with the use of tags and other grammatical forms used in day to day speak. Her sentences were too stiff and needed flexibility by being able to express preferences in a variety of ways, by alternating between active and passive forms so that her sentences don’t always begin with the first person.

As I mentioned all these things and the fact that she needed to join languages groups and clubs where she could exercise her new found knowledge, then she understood that her issue wasn’t simply the need to correct an accent: she had to change the way she was communicating and allow herself to express her thoughts differently. I concluded with a reassuring statement about Joseph Conrad who became a well-appreciated classic English writer even though he came from Poland. Writing and speaking are not the same but she got the idea. Some people never completely lose their accents but they can become commanding and respected speakers like David Suzuki.