Sunshine Language School

A reader commented that as far as he was concerned he was not bothered about what kind of accent he had when he was speaking French. Our recent blog page commented on the Michel Thomas Learning French course, and that Mr Thomas’s accent was a Polish one and certainly not a French accent.

“I am English, I am proud of it, and I don’t want to sound French with those screwy facial movements that they make! Let alone all those hand movements.” 

I was interested to hear the comment of the chap that made it, and of course if one is just wanting to know how to order some food in a restaurant then such a student is not going to be too bothered about grammar and such like. Just some common phrases.

And while one may not perfect the accent of the language being learned, the closer one can imitate it the more likely is one going to be understood.

 Nevertheless I personally like to get the accent as right as possible, and can think of the difficulties one has when speaking English to English speakers in various countries.

I remember being in Los Angeles and with my Antipodean accent ordered a ‘burger’. Well the English and Antipodeans have a soft ‘r’, so it sounds like ‘beuh-ga’ rather than the American burr-gerr.

“I’d like a beuh-ga please.”

“Huh??!!” was the reply from the American server.

“A BEUH-GA please.”

“HUH??!”

After a few more goes using ‘beuh-ga’ and a few more HUH’s, each one progressively more loud than the previous I tried to Americanize my accent.

“A BURRGERR please!”

“Oh you want a burrgerr!” No problem! You want fries with that?”

As they say the UK and USA are two countries separated by a common language. The above was a conversation between two native English speakers, but because of our different accents, we were not communicating. Or more accurately we were miscommunicating.

So if you are learning a new language there is a reason to try and get the accent as close s possible to that of the people with whom you are trying to communicate! So that you can be understood.

Put this now in the context of the Michel Thomas French course where the French language is being taught by a Pole with a heavy Polish accent, and the language course is being learned by an English student. Anglophones are not great at picking up other languages compared to say the Dutch, Swedes and other Scandinavians. And this student of French actually did not want to sound French !!

 The chances of this chap being misunderstood would be so high, with his English accent learned from a Pole trying to speak French in a Polish accent.

The moral of the story is that trying to get your accent right will help your chances of being understood