English From Economists
Why you have an accent in a foreign language?
It is because pronunciation, stress and rhythm are rarely taught well
Open a textbook for a foreign language, and one of the first things you see is an alphabet, enumerating the letters used in the writing system and the sounds they represent. This is obviously crucial for unfamiliar systems, say those of Greek or Russian. But even for languages that rely on the Latin alphabet, the guide will explain how diacritics such as accent marks change a letter’s pronunciation, and quirks such as the -ch- in German or -gl- in Italian. (The first often sounds like the ch in Scottish loch, the second like the -ll- in million.)
And with that, it’s off to master greetings, vocabulary and so on, with little further thought for pronunciation. This is a shame. There is much more to learning a foreign accent than the sounds that the letters on the page represent. To begin with, the rough equivalents given in English are often quite rough indeed. In French, the p in Paris sounds rather different from the p in English, a contrast often neglected in textbooks: the French version lacks the strong puff of air of the English one. (Hold your palm in front of your mouth and say “Paris” in English. Then try making the p without the puff, and you’ll get the French kind.)
Even when textbooks or instructors mention this sort of nuance, the next step is often missing. As with chemistry, the important thing is not just how the elements behave in isolation, but how they come together. Each language has rules for these combinations, which native speakers (and many teachers) generally grasp but don’t or can’t explain.
Consider an easy example. All French words are stressed on the final syllable, a rule typically explained in textbooks. But the importance of the rule is often underplayed. It applies not only to French words but to any foreign name: French-speakers are acquainted with a Texan city called yoos-TON, not the English HYOO-ston. The final stress is quite emphatic, usually involving a higher pitch and greater volume. Meanwhile, English words often have a secondary as well as a primary stress: in “civilisation” the primary stress is on the fourth syllable and the secondary stress is on the first. In French, the final-syllable stress is so strong as to leave little room for any other.
Next, languages differ in what linguists call phonotactics—in effect, what is a permissible syllable and what isn’t. The p in psychology and pterodactyl is silent because English phonotactic rules do not allow native words to begin with pt- or ps- sounds. English does let these consonants join in the middle of words, like uptown and upside, so English-speakers can certainly pronounce them. But the rule about beginnings means that even if you encourage them to pronounce the p in psychotic, they tend to insert an extra vowel to make it fit the template, and say puh-sychotic. Anglophone commentators discussing Kylian Mbappé, a French footballer, find themselves compelled to add a third syllable, calling him Em-bap-ay.
A similar befuddlement affects many foreigners learning English, perhaps even more so. The reason a Spaniard might say he is from Espain when speaking English is that sp-, st- and other consonant combinations are forbidden at the beginning of Spanish words, which is why the capital of Sweden is Estocolmo. That is just one example. English is unusually rich in consonant clusters that are, in practice, not allowed in other languages. Google a video of foreigners trying to say squirrel for another case study. The word combines an unusual skw- at the beginning, an odd vowel sound in the middle that most languages lack, and the tricky -rl at the end.
Another reason people are betrayed by their accents in other tongues, even if they are otherwise proficient, is that a language’s rhythm can be hard to pin down. They differ in how they space the syllables in a sentence. Cantonese and Italian, for instance, are “syllable-timed”: every syllable has roughly similar duration. Read this sentence aloud and try to pronounce every syllable this way, and you may find yourself halfway to mimicking an Italian. English is “stress-timed” (though less strictly), meaning that stressed syllables occur at roughly regular intervals, the remainder tending to be less distinctly pronounced. This is how you could distinguish Italian from English being spoken through a wall, even without being able to make out any individual sounds or words.
English-speaking tourists sometimes find themselves speaking English with a weird hybrid accent when they go abroad. Linguistic rhythm is infectious. But as with drumming or dancing, a little explicit teaching never hurts.
打開一本外語教科書，你首先看到的就是一個字母表，列舉了書寫系統中使用的字母以及它們所代表的聲音。這對於不熟悉的系統（例如希臘或俄羅斯的系統）顯然至關重要。但即使對於依賴拉丁字母的語言，該指南也會解釋重音符號等變音符號如何改變字母的發音，以及德語中的 -ch- 或意大利語中的 -gl- 等怪癖。 （第一個通常聽起來像蘇格蘭湖中的 ch，第二個聽起來像百萬中的 -ll-。）
這樣，就可以開始掌握問候語、詞彙等，而無需進一步考慮發音。這是一種恥辱。學習外國口音不僅僅是學習頁面上的字母所代表的聲音。首先，英語中給出的粗略對應詞通常確實非常粗略。在法語中，巴黎的 p 聽起來與英語中的 p 發音相當不同，這一對比在教科書中經常被忽視：法語版本缺乏英語版本的強烈氣息。 （將手掌放在嘴前，用英語說“Paris”。然後嘗試在不使用泡芙的情況下製作 p，你會得到法式的。）
即使教科書或講師提到這種細微差別，也常常忽略下一步。與化學一樣，重要的不僅是元素如何單獨表現，還在於它們如何結合在一起。每種語言都有這些組合的規則，母語人士（和許多老師）通常掌握這些規則，但沒有或無法解釋。
考慮一個簡單的例子。所有法語單字的重音都在最後一個音節上，這是教科書上通常解釋的規則。但該規則的重要性常常被低估。它不僅適用於法語單詞，也適用於任何外國名稱：講法語的人熟悉德克薩斯州的城市，稱為 yoos-TON，而不是英語中的 HYOO-ston。最後的重音非常強調，通常涉及更高的音調和更大的音量。同時，英語單字通常有次重音和主重音：在「civilization」中，主重音在第四個音節，次重音在第一個音節。在法語中，最後一個音節的重音非常強烈，幾乎沒有給其他音節留下任何空間。
其次，語言在語言學家所說的音韻學上有所不同——實際上，什麼是允許的音節，什麼不是。心理學和翼手龍中的 p 是不發音的，因為英語語音規則不允許母語單字以 pt- 或 ps- 聲音開頭。英語確實讓這些子音加入單字中間，例如 uptown 和 upside，所以說英語的人當然可以發音。但關於開頭的規則意味著，即使你鼓勵他們在“psychotic”中發音“p”，他們也傾向於插入一個額外的元音以使其符合模板，並說“puh-sychotic”。英語評論員在討論法國足球員凱利安·姆巴佩時，發現自己必須添加第三個音節，稱他為 Em-bap-ay。
類似的困惑影響許多學習英語的外國人，甚至可能更嚴重。西班牙人在說英語時可能會說自己來自Espain，因為西班牙語單字的開頭禁止使用sp、st和其他輔音組合，這就是為什麼瑞典的首都是Estocolmo。這只是一個例子。英語中的輔音簇異常豐富，而這在其他語言中實際上是不允許的。谷歌搜尋一段外國人試圖說「松鼠」的影片來進行另一個案例研究。這個字的開頭有一個不尋常的 skw-，中間有一個大多數語言都沒有的奇怪的元音，最後還有一個棘手的 -rl。
人們被其他語言的口音出賣的另一個原因是，即使他們在其他方面很熟練，語言的節奏也很難確定。它們的不同之處在於如何在句子中間隔音節。例如，粵語和義大利語是「音節計時」的：每個音節的持續時間大致相似。大聲讀這句話，並嘗試用這種方式發音每個音節，你可能會發現自己已經在模仿義大利語了。英語是「重音計時」的（儘管不太嚴格），這意味著重音音節大致以規則的間隔出現，其餘的發音往往不太明顯。這就是你如何區分義大利語和隔著牆說的英語，即使無法辨別任何單獨的聲音或單字。
說英語的遊客有時會發現自己在出國時說的英語帶有奇怪的混合口音。語言節奏具有感染力。但就像打鼓或跳舞一樣，一點明確的教學永遠不會有壞處。
