When I have trouble...

Hi Anon,
what Jim said makes a lot of sense, and we discussed it a little in another thread, I think.
The point was that teaching completely descriptively is impossible. The teacher would have to say: Mr X says this, Mr Y says that, and Mr Z says another thing. Now learn what they say and then decide what to do by yourself.
Every time a teacher gives advice or suggest something, they're being at least a little bit prescriptive.
So if you want a good teacher, you need a teacher who "prescribes" the most appropriate English for you.

Now, suppose I'm 17. The better you know English, the more it should sound like English spoken by native speakers (this should be true for every language). How can I be as similar to a native as possible? If am learning American English and I imagine I am a native speaker, I should imagine I am a 17-year-old American guy. If I found an American teenager to imitate, I would learn how to speak like my imaginary native clone.

So, why would a ESL student who is 17, listen to punk rock and don't care much about school and rules in society... why would he want to have a teacher who is 50, listen to classical music, and is a literature professor? Learning English from a punk like him is probably the best way to learn the best kind of English for him.

And as for females... sometimes girls talk a little differently. Vocabulary might be different, tipical topics in conversations are definitely different, and sometimes intonation might vary (example: uprising intonation).

Hi,

For most learners of English, the goal is to learn to speak English clearly i.e. in such a way that one will be understood by all kinds of speakers of the language. High acceptability and native-like performance is rarely needed. I personally think you should learn your English from someone whose accent you like. Rare indeed are learners who acquire the phonetic ability to make the distinctions between 'micro-pronunciations'.

Hi,

I certainly see your point, but I hope you see mine, too. If a language learner manages the phonology of the target-langauge to such an extent that speech is intelligible, then there is nothing that needs to be changed about the learner's speech production unless the learner himself or herself wants to. I think a 17-year-old Italian boy who learns his English from an American girl will be understood by English speakers, and he may not even end up sounding that strange either.

Hi,

So what would you advise Kooyeen with regard to the pronunciation of the words he asked about?

As far as specific lexical items are concerned, I would advise him to look them up in an American dictionary. More generally, I would suggest he spend time training his ear in order to recognise all the distinct sounds of the American accent he is aiming at (if he really wants to sound American, then he needs a very specific model). He would need to learn how to produce all the linguistically relevant sounds of this accent and some of their most important allophonic variants (e.g. t-voicing). He should then move on to practise American stress, intonation, and rhythm. Once all these aspects of American pronunciation are mastered, I would start thinking about subtler differences such as differences between male and female speakers of the language.

Hi everyone...

Anonymous, I understand that for most learners this would be too much... as long as you are understood, you're fine. But there are several different kinds of learners. I think we were talking about advanced learners who are interested in understanding English very well, almost like a native speaker (so you need to know about accents, slang, different registers, culture and society, etc.). So finding a model to imitate or comparing different native models is something for more advanced learners who are really interested in English, not for people who are only going to use English for business and with non-native speakers, for example.

Hey Hummingbird,
yes, listening to the radio is a good way to train our ear and learn vocabulary... I know I should listen to it more often... it's just sometimes I find it a little bit boring, LOL. But I know a few talk shows that are not boring...

Anyway, my problem was not about sounding American or anything, it was just about those words that are supposed to have more than one pronounciation, according to the dictionaries. I can't solve this problem completely though, even if I listened to the radio all day long. A little example: take the word "with". It can be pronounced too ways, th as in think, or th as in there. Which one do I have to choose? I used to say it with th as in there, always. Then I realized, listening to the radio, that most people say th as in think. So I changed my pronunciation and now I say it that way. In that case, listening was helpful. That word, "with" is very common, and you can hear it on the radio. But take "basil". My dictionaries list several possible pronunciations. And what do I have to do? I don't think you're going to hear "basil" much on the radio or on TV. Unless you look for a program about food... but I don't care about those programs, lol, I'm not going to look for them just to hear "basil". That was another little example... but what about "hydrocarbon", "pythagorean", etc.? I'm definitely not going to hear them... Whatever, lol.

Hummingbird wrote:

Good luck to you

Thanks!

PS: I just remembered that there's a channel (free, and online) where I might hear a lot of those weird words... The Research Channel!