Speaking A Foreign Language With A Native Accent | Lamont (Days And Words) & Loïs Talagrand

[@daysandwords]

This is a good little clip that you've singled out! BTW, I don't know if it came up in the longer conversation, but yeah I don't think that I would ever think you were not native in English... Having said that, I'm not American so I can't always hear the most subtle things. But you're definitely a very good example of reaching an extremely high level in your non-native language. 😎

[@basumner6989]

To my Virginia ear, Loïs' accent is superb, 99.5% native-born USA, with occasional micro-tells which are perceptible only if you listen hard. He makes fewer grammatical and pronunciation mistakes than most Americans, who frequently drop consonants, bend vowels, or have regional burrs. I feel encouraged hearing him, because I work continually to get my pronunciation as close to native French as possible and his achievement is an example of what's possible.

[@loistalagrand]

Thanks for your comment!

[@jeremiahreilly9739]

Fascinating discussion. Merci. As a native English speaker from the USA, living in German speaking Switzerland, knowing German, French, Italian, and modern Greek, I've thought a lot about accented speaking. Loïs, your pronunciation in this short clip is flawless and indistinguishable from a native American speaker. Lamont has a much more noticeable Australian accent. I think there are 4 levels of accented speech (assuming the speaker is otherwise competent): 1. unintelligible, 2. difficult to understand, 3. accented but intelligible, 4. accent-free. I've met English learners who can write and read English well, but I can't understand a word they are saying (and I am not talking about folks from western Scotland). I've also met a few English learners who speak exquisitely beautiful English, including you, Loïs. Me personally, I strive to speak other languages without an accent and come close. Why not? I don't think ego has anything to do with it. For me, speaking a foreign language is like learning any other skill. I want to do as best as I can do.

[@rob9665]

A voice cannot be accentless. Do you mean a native accent?

[@jeremiahreilly9739]

@@rob9665 Excellent question. Thank you. Let's take my mother tongue, English. When I hear someone speak English *with the same accent with which I speak English,* I don't hear an accent. It sounds neutral or normal to me. As a child, I spoke with a strong Bronx accent. As an adult I speak with a broadly neutral, mid-Atlantic, highly educated accent, the US equivalent to the British Received Pronunication. When I hear another native speaker of English who does not share my *neutral* accent, I certainly hear an accent, whether it is Appalachian, Texan, British, Brooklyn or Boston. So, my 4th category should have been: "speaking a language with an accent indistinguishable from the language spoken by a given group of native speakers." Boy, that's a mouthful. So, in this video clip, Loïs speaks the same "dialect" of English which I speak, hence, I hear no accent. Lamont speaks moderately accented English to my ears, which once in a while I can't understand without subtitles. I speak German well enough that I can place many regional accents and can hear when someone speaks German with a Swiss-German, English, French, Arabic, or Russian accent. Thanks again for a great question.

[@ryanpmcguire]

I would say the accent is native but with a VERY slight foreign influence. I hear similar accents from friends who grew up in both America and another country, and they always have perfect native accents but with a hint of an external influence.

[@lindas215]

I think he sounds very close to native. Another reason to want to achieve a native accent is, like for me, I’m hispanic but did not grow up speaking Spanish. Now that I’m older I want to learn and you will find greater acceptance from your own people if you speak more like a native.

[@6Uncles]

In case anyone was wondering, Lois has a near native accent. Some of the specific things that are not native is that he pronounces "th" in a French way, like with a "d" sound.

[@Wawruto]

In which word for example in this video?

[@Reflekt0r]

I think what is important here is that the levels of the various language layers match. There is this one language learning guy on KZbin who sounds super fluent but at the same time slurrs the words too much so the accent is really strong, which creates a weird mismatch. On the other hand, if your pronunciation is perfect but everything else is not, this is also weird.

[@ExpatParaguay]

J'avoue que ton anglais est vraiment bon. Je dirais tu as quasiment un niveau C2 c'est une belle realisation 👏👏

[@ScatterheartAnna]

Love that rooster cockadoodledooing in the background

[@thesmokecriminal5395]

At what age did you start working on your accent? How do you work on it?

[@oskarmendoza3484]

Ey my buddy thanks for sharing . I want to ask you something about listening do you have a few recommendations of podcasts I know you mentioned Joe Rogan but I would like to know if you have others? Thanks

[@loistalagrand]

Tim Ferriss, Chris Williamson, Peter Attia and Andrew Huberman are the main ones I listen to right now.

[@KodokunaYume]

Don't believe anyone that tells you that you have an accent in English. You don't. Your accent is pretty much 100% perfect. There are native speakers of English who sound worse than you.

[@eleganthavoc]

Good pronunciation/ accent helps you to be understood. It also allows native speakers to focus on the content of what you are saying rather than the manner. I would say Loïs accent doesn't quite sound native but sounds very neutralised with a strong North American influence

[@lenerdkawhy7702]

Can't help noticing how you seem to be more self-conscious about mimicing a native-like accent than actually constructing your speech in a more articulate way. Working on losing the habit of starting every other sentence with "I feel like" and using fillers like "like", "but um...", "so um..." excessively would work wonders for you as a learner of the language that aspires to be the best communictor you can be. Having an accent, as you briefly mentioned in the video, can even be a cherry on top, assuming the ideas and the manner in which they are delivered in your speech measure up to those of your peers that speak the laguange as their native tongue. I'd rather listen to someone that talks his age with the thickest foreign accent imaginable than an adult with somewhat native-like accent who in essence talks like a 14 year old kid. But that's just me. Keep up the good work.

[@thesmokecriminal5395]

Bruh there's literally Americans who talk like that, that's how regular ass ppl talk, why do u want him to sound like a scholar

[@eduardoaraujo6504]

Why would anyone want to sound 'like a native speaker' anyway? And which native speaker are we talking about? Someone from South Africa, Kenya, Jamaica, Nigeria, or Singapore-or, let me guess, the US or the UK? And even then, which part of the US or UK? African American English from East NYC or a rural Irish accent? Because those are native accents, too, right? I really appreciate the content on this channel, I do, but I think time is better spent focusing on being intelligible. Honestly, I like to joke that the only people who need to sound like a native speaker in any language are actors or spies.

[@durangoelmango]

Lois, your accent is great, but there is one word you consistently mispronounce: motivation. In several of your videos I’ve heard you say it in a way that was surprising. It only stands out because your accent is so good that a consistent mistake like that becomes more noticeable.

[@Daviddaze]

Its not about his ego yet its like an eggshell if he gets criticism. 😮cracked.