Buondì.
Recently I asked for suggestions for our planned ‘How to’ series of brief articles, and one of the topics that many people mentioned they’d like help with was how to improve your accent when speaking Italian.
Now I’ll confess, right out of the box, that I’ve been told many times over the years that I have an instantly-recognizable British accent when speaking Italian, this not being intended as a compliment. I assume the same is true for my other languages, as anyone I speak to immediately asks me where I’m from and, when I tell them, nods as if they’d already guessed.
I further confess that I have absolutely no idea how I could speak Italian (Turkish, Spanish, French, Swedish) in a ‘less-British’ way, which you’d think would be a shameful thing to admit for a professional language teacher.
However, I’ve interacted with, what, many thousands of Italian native speakers over the years (and a not-insignificant number of native speakers of the other languages I’m learning), and you know what?
Apart from occasionally mentioning that I have a strong accent when I speak their language, NOT A SINGLE ONE OF THEM has actually given me any useful tips about how I could improve. Typically the conversation will go something like this:
“Ah! You pronounced that wrongly, did you know? ‘Sj’ in Swedish is pronounced like this (the helpful person contorts their mouth while making an alien sound, a little like gas escaping). Oh, and there’s a word no foreigner can ever say: ‘sjuksköterska’ (‘nurse’)! Listen, it has the ‘sj’ and later a ‘sk’ (the helpful person contorts their mouth again – two gas ejections in sequence). Now you give it a try, and I’ll giggle.”
That’s about as helpful as it gets when it comes to feedback from laypeople, that is to say non-professional language teachers. However, I employ four full-time professional Italian language teachers at our school (all currently furloughed), many of whom have known me for over a decade and have heard me speak Italian on many occasions during that time. And NOT ONCE has any of them sat me down and offered to teach me exactly how to sound less ‘horribly English’.
Ditto with my lady wife, also a qualified language teacher and proud possessor of a brain the size of a planet, as they used to say about Marvin the paranoid android. I presume she’s well-disposed towards me after twenty-three years, yet does she have any useful advice? No!
In fact, when she says that word, ‘No!’, it always sounds so emphatic, as if I’ve asked for something outrageous. She pronounces it like I would say ‘hot’ (and with the implication that she’d rather die.) When I say ‘No!’, in contrast, it sounds more like ‘woe’ (so a diphthong rather than a single vowel), which allows it to be both polite and regretful in equal measure.
“O mio dio!” (Oh my God!) sounds abrupt and conclusive in Italian, like shooting someone three times in the head and stepping over their body to go spend time with someone less inconsequential. Whereas when a Brit or an American says “O mio dio!”, it’s more of a wail of despair. The diphthongs (‘eu mieu dieu’) convey emotion, whether positive or negative. Without them, Italians can sound clipped and rushed to us, while we tend to sound rather hysterical to them.
Anyway, has my beloved, any of my devoted employees, or any of the many, many other Italian teachers I’ve known over the years, ever pointed that out?
They have not.
Yesterday evening, Daughter No.2 arrived back home from medical school in Florence (in Tuscany – supposed home of ‘proper’ Italian). She and Baby Son were joshing about his Bolognese accent. Having been away for a month or two, and deigned to return, she now notices how parochial her sibling sounds. Not her monther, she adds politely (my wife, being bilingual Italian/Swedish, speaks Italian with a fairly neutral accent). Though, on reflection, her Italian grandfather sounds ‘Romagnolo’, which is ‘better’ than Bolognese, apparently. Though not by much.
So people can NOTICE accents, and laugh about them, I think we’d all agree? And perhaps it’s that fear of being laughed at which motivates some people (not me, particularly) to want to slough off their usual way with vowels, consonants and so on, and learn to sing a sweeter song.
Given, though, that there may be few, or no, people around to help you improve your Italian accents (we’ll exclude the more-than-willing but less-than-ccompetent), it might be worth asking the question I pose in the title of this article – why bother?
Does it matter than my lovely son sounds ‘Bolognese’? Not to me, who doesn’t notice. And because everyone he knows at school sounds basically the same, I’d suppose not to him either.
Does it matter to his friends that they speak English with an Italian accent, then? Again, I’d imagine not. Everyone in Italy speaks English with an Italian accent, which is my bread and butter.
So why should you or I worry, if we sound British, or American, or Australian, or Irish, or South African, or Kiwi? Why should we BOTHER to eliminate, or reduce, our accents when speaking Italian?
Ponder that.
Next time I’ll write about ‘benchmarking’ your accent, so you know just how bad it is, and what the problems are, before you go about trying to improve it.
In the meantime, I’m planning to ask all my teachers and conversation partners these questions, starting with Turkish in just a few moments time:
1. Just how bad, on a scale from 1-10, is my accent when I speak your language?
2. What is it about the way I speak that makes me sound ‘English’?
3. How do you think I could improve my accent?
Let’s see what they say…
A lunedì, allora.
P.S.
Here’s a final reminder about this week’s Christmassy, half-price ‘eBook of the Week’, Natale a sorpresa. At level B2 (upper-intermediate), it’s ideal for anyone with a few years of Italian under their belts. Especially as this week it costs just £3.99, instead of the usual £7.99.
It’s December and Christmas is coming! Normally Matteo spends the festive season with his family, but this year they’re visiting relatives in Australia. So it looks as if he’ll be celebrating alone.
Natale a sorpresa | Free sample chapter (.pdf) | Catalog
P.P.S.
Don’t forget to read/listen to Thursday’s FREE bulletin of ‘easy’ Italian news – it’ll help improve your Italian accent, for free!
Isabel says
Why would I like to improve my Italian accent? Because …
1. I want to be understood
2. I’d rather not be laughed at too much (a little bit is fine) and I don’t want to sound so ugly in Italian that people screw up their faces
3. I’d love to blend in and be mistaken for a native (never going to happen ‘cos I can’t roll my ‘rs’)
Well of course, if we’re discussing accents, there are all those English accents that I can’t understand – the Geordie, the thick Scottish, the Appalachian and some other American accents. (I went down a sort of rabbit hole chasing accents I couldn’t understand and then of course there’s Shakespeare, more about the vocabulary in the end than the accent.)
This is quite funny …. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRo9d4Gxj3I
from the Graham Norton show … if you’re interested.
Strangely, I usually don’t have much of a problem understanding people for whom English is a second language – is that what you’re getting at when you say “why bother”?
Looking forward to Part 2 …
Daniel says
“I usually don’t have much of a problem understanding people for whom English is a second language – is that what you’re getting at when you say “why bother”?”
Well, in a sense. What I’m getting at is more that people would be well advised to consider the nature of the problem and their own motivation to tackle it before actually beginning.
You make an interesting point, though. Arguably it’s very, very rare for first generation migrants to learn the language of their new home ‘perfectly’. We’re all familiar with people from elsewhere who share our cities and lifestyle but may not manage to fully master our language, or even aspire to. That’s my own position too.
But the second generation do much better, usually. The children of migrants will often speak indistinguishably from peers whose families have been in a place and spoken the communal language much longer. That’s at least some consolation for those of us who live out our lives speaking imperfectly the language of the community we live in.
But second languages and foreign languages are a matter of different contexts. Many club members will be learning Italian as a foreign language, and it’s that which is mostly our focus here. For these people, living in the country permanently is unlikely to ever be an option, but they are still motivated to learn the language and to speak it as decently as possible.
The question is how to define ‘as decently as possible’. Answering it allows those few who are knowledgeable enough to be aware that they can spend their learning time working towards different goals, to prioritise what they do according to their desired outcome(s). You might want to ‘blend in’ as you put it, and better pronunciation would certainly help towards that, but it’s just one element, and perhaps not the most important one.
Why priortise pronunciation = Why NOT prioritise something else (grammar, listening skills, vocabulary, whatever…) On a course, the teacher makes those choices for you. But when teaching yourself, the decision-making is down to you.
Laury Burr says
Hmm, you raise some interesting points. Firstly, I’m wondering whether in part 2 you will tell us why we should bother, or indeed why we shouldn’t! But I’ll respond today with my thoughts on part 1 and await part 2 with curiosity!
OK, where do I stand on this? Well, as you may know from previous comments, my background is that of a very formal, old-school education, heavily grammar-based, and it’s only recently – encouraged partly by my wife (also learning Italian, but following a different path), partly by various on-line people (such as yourself, Manu of “Italy Made Easy”, Lucrezia Oddone, Davide of “Podcast Italiano” and Graziana of “Learn Amo”) and partly by a Russian polyglot friend of mine – that I’m now broadening my approach from purely grammar-centric to reading (firstly without a dictionary within reach) and listening. I believe there’s a place for all of these approaches while also acknowledging that different people feel more comfortable with approaches that others hate, so while it’s good for everyone to be aware of the different learning approaches – and to keep their minds open to alternatives – few people will know what’s best for, let’s say, Fred than Fred does himself. For example, I truly believe that I wouldn’t have made the progress I have with understanding and writing the language had I not found a teacher of the “old school” (yes, I confess – mi piace moltissimo il congiuntivo!) – but that I lack confidence in conversation and need now to focus more on listening! The reason for my lack of confidence? – I’m scared witless (or something that rhymes therewith…) at the prospect of being thought lacking in intelligence by getting it wrong! Hopefully I’ll resolve that without recourse to a therapist!!
Which brings me to accents, pronunciation etc etc. I thought my accent wasn’t too bad – I bite my tongue when a member of my small conversation group sounds the “h” of “ho”, or another – who holidays annually in Bologna with Italian friends – pronounces “per” as if imitating the sound made by a happy pussycat… (As well as still mispronouncing “sch” and “sce” etc…) But I was brought firmly back to earth a few days ago when visiting an Italian deli that I’d just been told about. On entering I was, as I’d expected, greeted in Italian:
– Buongiorno signore!
– Buongiorno!
– Come sta?
– Sto bene, grazie! E Lei?
– Sì, anche bene. Now, how can I help you?
Rumbled. Obviously English!
But what about the perfect Italian accent? Where is it found? Well, the impression I have is that it’s not really certain if it exists at all. I read that the basis for modern Italian is the Tuscan language of the 17th century, formally codified by the Accademia della Crusca in 1612, but that it was only declared the national language after unification in the 19th century – and only adopted by significant numbers of Italians from about the 1960s onwards thanks mainly to television. (Modern Tuscan, of course, has continued to change since 1612.) But pronunciation? Apparently the first official guide to that was published in… 1969! Based largely on elements of Tuscan and elements of Roman pronunciation but – for example – omitting the “gorgia Toscana” (where “t” sounds more like a hard English “th”). And even now, so I’ve read, most Italians’ pronunciation reflects local languages & dialects, which vary quite a lot. (By the way, much of this I’ve gleaned from youtubes by the aforementioned Davide and Graziana.)
Now, where that leaves me I really have no idea! I want to sound like an Italian – any Italian from anywhere in Italy! Maybe the people you ask are aware that – to all intents & purposes – there is no “received pronunciation”, and therefore are nervous about insisting that you pronounce everything their way; but if they joke about your pronunciation they could perhaps be more forthcoming about how and why your pronunciation sounds so English, so you have some idea about how to change should you want to!
Blimey, I didn’t intend to go on at such length.
Daniel says
“few people will know what’s best for, let’s say, Fred than Fred does himself”
Sadly, I think that’s far, far from being the case, Laury. The opposite, in fact. State schools around the world teach foreign languages, but few of them teach anything about the learning process or offer choices about learning styles or approaches.
In the world of adult learning, modern materials, for example in the ELT industry, invariably do include sections on ‘how to learn’, and in the English teaching world pronunciation is an integral part of most course books, though often done badly.
Away in the cynical and exploitative self-teaching industry, magic methods are still all the rage, this because they are easy to fake and easier to sell, with silly promises which are rarely if ever met.
Hence the existence of professional language schools, for people who really need to learn and have the cash to pay, and the trained and sometimes vastly experienced staff who work in them. No one school or teacher is perfect, but ask any one of us and we’ll tell you that the vast majority of Freds we encounter have not the faintest idea of how to proceed with language learning, nor what approach might be best for them.
If only!
Chris Jolley says
I won’t be able to match Laury for intelligent comment in his witty reply, but I would say that there is no such thing as a perfect accent, drive to Newcastle, Liverpool or Birmingham and listen to English spoken! Who cares if the Italian person you are speaking to recognises you as English? He probably would in an instant with a look at the clothes you are wearing anyway (esp the shoes) .
Surely the point of learning a language is to communicate in the other person’s tongue, to either get something you want `(in a shop or wherever) or merely an intellectual transfer of ideas?
Personally I like the challenge to imitate an Italian accent as best my 68 year old English mouth and tongue can. Not that well, but I will have a go.
Just one final point Daniel, I put “nurse” in Swedish in Google Translate and tried to copy saying it!!!!!!! You can giggle! Heaven help a Swedish person in hospital shouting repeatedly for the nurse, they would suffocate to death before the nurse got there.
Chris
John Holden says
Having lived and worked in parts of England with very different dialects, I was pretty sure that I’d lost – or at least toned down – my childhood accent, and I think I did acquire the local accent to some extent, even to the extent that some cockneys thought I was taking the micky! It was only when I heard a recording of my voice recently that I learned the truth! Having been retired for some years and no longer interacting with other dialects for eight hours a day, my childhood black country accent had returned! So, if you want to speak Italian with an Italian accent, I would say, spend as much time as possible talking to Italians; and for a reality check, record your own voice to find out what you really sound like.