getting rid of Finnish accent

[kalmisto]

Samuli Edelmann´s pronunciation of English words is much better that I thought it would be:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wibNEdKwt_A

Edelmann´s pronunciation of "villain" is peculiar.

He still has a long way to go if he wants to learn to speak like an American. A private teacher and a lot of practice should make that possible. The Dutch actor Rutger Hauer hired the well-known dialogue coach Dr Robert Easton to rid him of his Dutch accent so that he could play Americans in American movies.

We Finns are the worst English speakers in the Nordic countries. ( There are of course exceptions but most of us sound very bad. )

Here is Matti Vanhanen speaking English:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qyJgMujr ... re=related

Accents on the Wrong Syl-LA-ble: http://www.languagesuccesspress.com/our ... rticle.pdf

[Rob A.]

Samuli Edelmann´s pronunciation of English words is much better that I thought it would be:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wibNEdKwt_A

Edelmann´s pronunciation of "villain" is peculiar.

He still has a long way to go if he wants to learn to speak like an American. A private teacher and a lot of practice should make that possible. The Dutch actor Rutger Hauer hired the well-known dialogue coach Dr Robert Easton to rid him of his Dutch accent so that he could play Americans in American movies.

Which reminds me of Frederik de Groot....apparently best known in Canada as a spokesman for a Dutch bank.... The story... urban myth?.. is that he speaks flawless, accentless English....but in the bank commericals he speaks with a heavy Dutch accent. I guess the Dutch are viewed as trustworthy people in Canada...



...and I see from the wiki article he also speaks French...for the French commercials...presumably with Dutch-accented French...

We Finns are the worst English speakers in the Nordic countries. ( There are of course exceptions but most of us sound very bad. )

Oh...I don't know about that....Swedish accents seem to take a bit of getting used to....and Danes seem to mumble everything ...

But getting rid of an accent is tough work.....although I suspect most English-speakers speaking French don't realise it, the French "d" and the English "d", although close, are slightly different....different enough that it is detectable....

I think speaking with an accent is kind of charming actually, as long as you speak clearly and give the listener a chance to "calibrate" your accent...

[AldenG]

I've heard a lot of Finns who have lived in the U.S. and have a pretty good North American accent. Then of course there are those who don't.

A lot of the problem is probably working too hard on pronunciation at too young an age with a Finnish teacher who also has that distinctive Finnish pronunciation. Kids seem to work very hard at learning the wrong sounds. And there's remarkable consistency among Finns who have worked the hardest on pronunciation. They frequently sound like the same unsuccessful attempt at some imagined British pronunciation. Unfortunately, the real thing is a very difficult pronunciation for a non-native speaker of English to learn. And they're all listening to and often modeling themselves after other EU luminaries with non-native English.

As for learning to sound more British OR more American without a coach, I suspect it may be best to try and forget rules about how individual vowels are pronounced and instead closely imitate entire words from a recorded native source, emphasizing one sound group at a time.

I don't mind the "received Finnish-English mispronunciation," which sounds rather mellifluous to me. But if people really want to get rid of it, they have to stop trying so hard at the wrong thing and adopt a different approach. And a good place to start is saying 'ä' instead of 'a' in words that expect it. Offhand I'd say that's the closest shared sound among the three languages. The hardest sound seems to be 'uh'. But if you just start with 'ah' and widen your throat, you're going to have to end up with 'uh.'

It's not too hard to teach a reasonable American accent to a Finn who is willing to work on it a bit. Unfortunately it's quite a bit harder to teach a plausible British accent, though that, too, is possible. But remember, England has centuries of perfecting pronunciation as a deliberately exclusionary tool. British English is the way it is not only for the beauty of the sounds but also to make them as difficult as possible for outsiders to imitate, even (especially) outsiders born into the realm. And that applies both up and down the socioeconomic scale.

[Rob A.]

I've heard a lot of Finns who have lived in the U.S. and have a pretty good North American accent. Then of course there are those who don't.

I suppose the North American standard would be what seems to be called, "General American"....the kind of accent generally found in the mid-sized urban areas of the US Midwest....but not Chicago and, I guess in western areas, such as California, Oregon, Washington....and from what I can tell places like Nevada, "urban" Montana and Idaho, etc. ...and it seems to include much of English speaking Canada.

That is not to say the accent is 100% uniform, but fairly close. Within these areas....less so in Canada.. there seems to be a rural-urban divide, a socio-economic divide, and a "black"/"white" divide. Probably the US accent that is closest to a type of English (England) accent must be the New England accent. The Boston accent is interesting....and it seems to be a bit like that sort of "posh" southern England accent that, I understand, arose in southern England only in the mid-1800s. Which leaves me wondering when the Boston accent first made its appearance.

Interesting stuff...and very complicated. People with a good ear for this stuff can pinpoint accents, syntax, choice of words, etc., to extremely narrow confines. Also some of the accents can be so difficult for other English speakers that it's not unusual to see subtitles for English language speakers, even though the person is actually speaking English. Scottish accents, despite once having been quite common in Canada, are now getting so rare that some of the locals have difficulties with them.

As I said above, I tend to think accents aren't all that important, as long as the person speaks clearly, but for those who insist I suppose the best approach is to pick the accent they wish to emulate, then just practice, practice, practice with movies, etc., until they get close. It's all in the shape of the mouth, tongue placement, lip placement and how forcefully you enunciate the letters. Probably for Finnish speakers pronouncing consonants a little more sharply will be part of it. Vowels though are probably where the big differences occur in regional English accents.

I remember some years ago while renting a car in Frankfurt...at the airport, IIRC, speaking with two young women (German-speakers, of course). One spoke with a decided British pronunciation, the other American. I told them both how they had probably learned their English. They were surprised I could pick out the differences. Heck, it was a "no-brainer"....

[Edit: Of course, there's Professor Higgins approach...you know Professor 'Enry 'Iggins and Eliza Doolittle. "The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain.".. ]

[AldenG]

This guy is really fun:

The English Language in 24 Accents

Here are a couple of similar ones from the sidebar for that one:

32 Accents of the English Language

21 Accents

And here's Hugh Laurie comparing idioms with Ellen DeGeneres:

Hugh Laurie with Ellen DeGeneres

One of the most amazing things to me is how there can be such huge variety among accents in one country, and yet most listeners IMMEDIATELY recognize the difference between unspecified foreign and unspecified regional. A Finn can have just a few little telltale sounds remaining and yet most lcoals will know they're foreign while someone with an almost unintelligible accent from elsewhere in their own country is not.

[onkko]

One of the most amazing things to me is how there can be such huge variety among accents in one country, and yet most listeners IMMEDIATELY recognize the difference between unspecified foreign and unspecified regional. A Finn can have just a few little telltale sounds remaining and yet most lcoals will know they're foreign while someone with an almost unintelligible accent from elsewhere in their own country is not.

According to studies language is one major "starter of alarm", even skincolor or other features dont come close when compared to that.
"wrong" accent or language launches our most primitive alarm systems and causes high state of "fight or run", it is parts of seconds before our conscious mind takes over but its there and can be measured. Who knows how we really know if one is local or foreign but thats skill what evolution gave for us, maybe for reason

[Rob A.]

And here's Hugh Laurie comparing idioms with Ellen DeGeneres:

Hugh Laurie with Ellen DeGeneres

So "chin wag" isn't used in the USA? That surprises me...It's certainly understandable up here...I'll have to be careful not to use that next time I'm in Seattle... Or maybe I misunderstood the exchange in the video...

Although I couldn't really relate to the supposed Canadian accents....maybe someone else has to judge that...

The "hoser" accent is a bit of cliche...there are people who talk like that, though it is kind of rural and low-brow...though I probably still utter the occasional "Eh".

One of the most amazing things to me is how there can be such huge variety among accents in one country, and yet most listeners IMMEDIATELY recognize the difference between unspecified foreign and unspecified regional. A Finn can have just a few little telltale sounds remaining and yet most locals will know they're foreign while someone with an almost unintelligible accent from elsewhere in their own country is not.

Yes...and surprising how consistent the accents can be within an area. Almost like humans are similar to trained parrots.... Which actually probably is the case...it probably all gets picked up subconsciously at a very young age. And interesting that kids even though their parents may have accents seem...except in cases of extreme isolation...to sound more like their neighbours than their parents. Although it's not really totally reliable, I can often tell whether someone was brought up in Vancouver, Victoria, the interior of British Columbia...and even northern Alberta... [the rest of Alberta is actually a "no-brainer" they sound an act like western Americans...well, not quite but getting there... ]

[Rob A.]

One of the most amazing things to me is how there can be such huge variety among accents in one country, and yet most listeners IMMEDIATELY recognize the difference between unspecified foreign and unspecified regional. A Finn can have just a few little telltale sounds remaining and yet most lcoals will know they're foreign while someone with an almost unintelligible accent from elsewhere in their own country is not.

According to studies language is one major "starter of alarm", even skincolor or other features dont come close when compared to that.
"wrong" accent or language launches our most primitive alarm systems and causes high state of "fight or run", it is parts of seconds before our conscious mind takes over but its there and can be measured. Who knows how we really know if one is local or foreign but thats skill what evolution gave for us, maybe for reason

...yes and then through your own experiences, or I guess through your country's experience, you gradually figure out which "accents" can be trusted and which mean trouble...

[kalmisto]

Around the World with Sean Connery´s accent:
http://www.dangerousminds.net/comments/ ... rys_accent

[Rob A.]

According to studies language is one major "starter of alarm", even skincolor or other features dont come close when compared to that.
"wrong" accent or language launches our most primitive alarm systems and causes high state of "fight or run", it is parts of seconds before our conscious mind takes over but its there and can be measured. Who knows how we really know if one is local or foreign but thats skill what evolution gave for us, maybe for reason

And further to what I said above, I found this..

http://www.scientificamerican.com/artic ... bts-accent

I guess I live in my own bubble....foreign accents themselves don't seem to bother me...but apparently they do bother others.

For me if the accent is accompanied by a poor knowledge of the language and not speaking clearly and more slowly, then, yes, it can get a bit tedious.

In the link there is some discussion of a test question involving giraffes and camels... Well, I don't know about you, but when it come to camels I'm more likely to believe an "Arabic accent", than a "Bostonian accent"...

But it's the language ability, not so much the accent, that can cause problems. I remember well the lab assistant in a biochemistry class. A rather thick East Indian accent, he was constantly asked to repeat what he was saying...but again he kind of mumbled and didn't speak clearly...maybe a lack of confidence ..??....

But I kind of felt sorry for him....he was a sad looking person.... Maybe because the professor was really quite eccentric....an old guy... probably driven over the edge after years of contemplating apical meristems and the citric acid cycle ...

Oh yes...and how about quantum mechanics?? Is any lecture on that subject comprehensible if it isn't delivered with a heavy German accent?!?...

[onkko]

I guess I live in my own bubble....foreign accents themselves don't seem to bother me...but apparently they do bother others.

Now youre wrong, you dont know that your brain hits "alert alert" button. Its tuned down when consicious mind comes in but it does alarm you. We are now talking about basic instincs what instantly alert you and not something what bothers you
Its like that you breath withouth thinking about it, it just is.

[Rob A.]

I guess I live in my own bubble....foreign accents themselves don't seem to bother me...but apparently they do bother others.

Now youre wrong, you dont know that your brain hits "alert alert" button. Its tuned down when consicious mind comes in but it does alarm you. We are now talking about basic instincs what instantly alert you and not something what bothers you
Its like that you breath withouth thinking about it, it just is.

Yes...I get your point....if I hear a Russian accent....I immediately have to determine whether or not this is going to be a "problem person", or just a decent regular immigrant living a reasonable life....

Of course this doesn't just apply to foreigners, I have to make the same mental calculation with locals who speak in certain ways...vocabulary, syntax, and sometimes even accents...French Canadian, Newfoundland, etc....

[Upphew]

But I kind of felt sorry for him....he was a sad looking person.... Maybe because the professor was really quite eccentric....an old guy... probably driven over the edge after years of contemplating apical meristems and the citric acid cycle ...

Hmm, he seems quite regular compared to this guy's prof: http://ircquotes.fi/?140361

[Rob A.]

But I kind of felt sorry for him....he was a sad looking person.... Maybe because the professor was really quite eccentric....an old guy... probably driven over the edge after years of contemplating apical meristems and the citric acid cycle ...

Hmm, he seems quite regular compared to this guy's prof: http://ircquotes.fi/?140361

Now, perchance, the prof wasn't this guy, was he? ...Or was he???




Rather gross I would say...but while looking for that image, I came across this much more appealing "use" of spandex... Some would say spandex as it was meant to be used...



So, of course, the issue isn't the spandex, it's just who is wearing it...

[Aside: thanks for the practice with puhukieli...it was a bit tough, but I think I figured it out properly.... ]

[Edit: So what does naamavetskari actually mean?...I kind of guessed a little bit what it might mean]

[kalmisto]

Oskari Katajisto ( a Finnish actor ) in The Noriko Show : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dyc_AiLTNZc

Outi Mäenpää´s faked Japanese accent would certainly have fooled ME.