LANGUAGE EXPLORER

Hello again. I’ve often wondered why so many people learning English want to have “near-native” accents. I discuss this phenomenon a little here… Transcript at: www.alanpalmer@blogspot.com See you in after the 3rd of June! Keep the messages coming…

Hello everyone
As I’m travelling to Germany this coming weekend, I am recording my chatcast today.
Today’s chatcast is about language learning and accents.
I think a lot of people who learn English have concerns about their accent. First and foremost, is it understandable to other people? Does it sound “right”? What do native speakers think when they hear it? Will it ever become like a “native speaker”?
Many questions like this come to mind. I have talked to many people over the years who are learning English and I often hear them say ” I would like to improve my English” and also ” I would like to improve my accent – to sound more “British” or “American”
I often wonder why this is. Why does it seem important to have a “near-native” accent? Maybe it is because it is a personal ambition to speak well, where people will appreciate the learner’s ability to speak naturally, without the need to explain “I am from this country or that country”
On the other hand, it can be a desire to lose the accent of the mother tongue, because maybe the learner don’t like their own language so much and would prefer to speak English – or even to live in an English-speaking country.
I get a bit concerned that some people would like to “hide” their accent and work very hard to sound exactly like a native speaker, because which accent should they copy? For instance in England there are many different accents and dialects that are not the “standard” accent – which in our country is called “received pronunciation”
More native speakers speak with a regional accent than speak “received pronunciation”
The important thing surely is communication? As a native English speaker I hear a lot of different accents when I travel around the country, on TV and radio and when I travel to other countries. I’m sure I speak for many of us native speakers when I say that for us accents matter less than good communication. In other words, a person speaking with a foreign accent is fine as long as we can understand what is being said. We are used to hearing many different English accents – not just across the country but from around the world. We don’t think it so important when we meet someone from another country who is learning English and we hear an accent.
In fact, very often many people from foreign countries speak more clearly and with better grammar than many native speakers.
My advice is to try to improve your accent if you want to or if you can, but don’t get too concerned about it if you feel you are not making progress.
Having said all this, I can give you some tips and hints for a more natural-sounding English.
First, relax! Try not to get stressed and anxious about speaking – most people are friendly and appreciate that you are speaking English. Some mistakes are acceptable.
Secondly. Take your time speaking – don’t rush to say all you want to say. Many non-natives try to speak too quickly when they speak English. Try listening to a few English native speakers and you’ll realise that not many speak very fast.
Thirdly. There is no need to apologise for example “I’m sorry my English isn’t so good” A better approach would be ” I keep trying to improve my English”
Fourthly. Take note of the stress that is put on words. This is very important in English for a good pronunciation – irrespective of what accent we have. To show you an example: the number 42 is pronounced FOURTY -two. If it said without stress on the first syllable “four-ty-two”, it could sound like “for tea too”
To give you an idea what I mean. See what you think about these words, the first pronunciation is correct
Confident – conFI-dent – Con-fi- DENT
Solution – SOL – u- tion - SoluTION

I hope you have a nice weekend
Bye for now

This is a new idea. I’m calling this “Alan’s Weekend Words”

I’m going to just chat about things I hope you find interesting

You can find the transcript on my blog: www.alanpalmer.blogspot.com

Let me know what you think!

Thanks

Alan

Hello everyone
Here is a new chatcast. I’m calling this “Alan’s weekend words”. I usually have a little time at the weekend to make a podcast and this weekend is no exception. I’m happy to know that you find my recordings interesting and I hope to keep on making them and hopefully keep your interest at the same time.
One of the reasons I decided to make these recordings was to create a small “language corner” where I can tell you some of the things I think are interesting and important about language. Also, whilst I think language lesson podcasts can be very good and helpful, I didn’t want to make mine into language lessons. Firstly, because I’m not a teacher and secondly (and more importantly in my opinion) because I think that people who are interested in languages, or are learning languages seriously need a way to hear that language spoken in a normal, everyday way. A podcast is one way of these people getting that opportunity.
I try to make my presentations like a “chat” and hopefully this will mean you will hear something different to language drills or situational dialogues and vocabulary or grammar tests in my recordings. I will try to just “chat” (inverted commas) in that, I will just talk about things that interest me or things that I have heard about that you might find interesting too.

In a week’s time, next Saturday, me and my wife will be going once more to Germany. We will be going with the Pendle/Kassel community exchange group. My wife is the leader of the English side of the group. This is a cultural exchange where a group of people from Pendle (the region in England where I live) will travel to Kassel in Germany to stay for a week. We will stay with families in the town.

This exchange has been in existence for 25 years and started as an educational exchange between a school in Pendle and a school in Kassel. This originally was for a group of students from each school to take part and visit their counterparts in either Germany or in England. The idea of the visit was to stay for a week with families, enjoying life with a family, and having excursions through the day to visit interesting places. Each year one school would host the visit and the other year they would be guests. This means that the visits took place annually – England one year and Germany the other year.

After a few years of successful student annual visits, some of the students’ parents were interested in taking part and they also enjoyed visiting and staying with families. These days, anyone can join at any age. We have members as young as 12 and as old as 78. This is a good opportunity for older and younger people to do things together, although of course not all the activities we do are for everyone. For example maybe the adults would visit a museum and the younger people would go swimming.

I like this exchange visit very much. It also gives me a chance to speak German and see more of the country and culture. My wife does not speak German, but she is fine because some people in the group can speak English and often language problems can be overcome easily by taking a bit of time to speak slowly. If necessary, we can always use a dictionary or phrase book or even make a sign of what we want to say.

I think these sort of exchanges between people from different countries can work very well and I’m looking forward to going and telling you about it afterwards.

As I am just chatting using my normal way of speaking, if you find some of the vocabulary difficult, please let me know and I’ll explain it more next time I make a podcast.
Don’t forget that you can read the transcription at my blog: www.alanpalmer.blogspot.com

Bye for now
Tschuess
A la prochaine
Zaijian!

Les Champs-Elysées

Je m’baladais sur l’avenue le cœur ouvert à l’inconnu, J’avais envie de dire bonjour à n’importe qui

N’importe qui et ce fut toi, je t’ai dit n’importe quoi. Il suffisait de te parler, pour t’apprivoiser

Aux Champs-Elysées, aux Champs-Elysées Au soleil, sous la pluie, à midi ou à minuit

Il y a tout ce que vous voulez aux Champs-Elysées

I was strolling down the avenue wondering what I should do. I felt the need to say “bonjour” to everyone

Then suddenly you came to view. I came right up to talk to you

And everything felt right there on the Champs Elysees

Oh Champs Elysees, Oh Champs Elysees. In the rain or in the sun - from morning till the day is done - There’s all that you could need there on the Champs Elysees

Tu m’as dit “J’ai rendez-vous dans un sous-sol avec des fous, qui vivent la guitare à la main, du soir au matin”

Alors je t’ai accompagnée, on a chanté, on a dansé et l’on n’a même pas pensé à s’embrasser

You told me that you’d a rendez-vous -at a café bar where there are people who
Like to party through the night - until daylight
So I came along and we danced and sang - to the sweet music of the band
Didn’t even stop to kiss there on the Champs-Elysees

Aux Champs-Elysées, aux Champs-Elysées Au soleil, sous la pluie, à midi ou à minuit
Il y a tout ce que vous voulez aux Champs-Elysées

Hier soir deux inconnus et ce matin sur l’avenue - deux amoureux tout étourdis par la longue nuit
Et de l’Étoile à la Concorde, un orchestre à mille cordes - tous les oiseaux du point du jour chantent l’amour

Aux Champs-Elysées, aux Champs-Elysées - yesterday two strangers who, this morning on the avenue
Are lovers weary from that long and special night. And in this new Parisian scene
We’ve just begun to live our dream - and sing our song of love there on the Champs Elysees

Aux Champs-Elysées, aux Champs-Elysées Au soleil, sous la pluie, à midi ou à minuit
Il y a tout ce que vous voulez aux Champs-Elysées

Oh Champs Elysees, Oh Champs Elysees. In the rain or in the sun - from morning till the day is done - There’s all that you could need there on the Champs Elysees

This song is very well known in France. It is called “Les Champs Elysees”. It was sung by Joe Dassin, who was born in America - but sang many songs in French.

I wrote the English words - which is a translation from the French with my own style added. So, my version here is in both languages and I hope you like my version.

Songwords here: www.alanpalmer.blogspot.com

I’m just “chatting” about language here today

Transcript at my blog: alanpalmer.blogspot.com

Hello
Welcome to my 4th podcast
This time I wanted to carry on the theme of making my podcasts more like a Chat. When we learn languages, it’s often quite difficult to get the chance to actually hear someone speaking in a casual way, as we do in a conversation, I am hoping to do this today a little with my podcast.
I think it’s a good way to see how everyday speech sounds. I know it’s a little difficult to have a “chat” as I’m speaking on my own, but on the other hand I am so used to using text chat in Paltalk and other chat programs, that I thought I could just talk and write down what I said and hopefully it will sound like we are having a conversation – you and me.
I was very grateful to Alba, from Paltalk for telling me about the Podcast website, because it means that I can easily post (as it is called) a podcast to the site when I have made them.
I’ll put the text on my blog.
It is interesting how words are created. Computer and Internet terms are springing up all the time and the two words “blog” for “weblog” or web diary and podcast from “I-pod and broadcast” are two quire recent words which are now well known in Internet circles.
The English language is always expanding. It’s interesting to think how many words have come into the language since I was a child. Also words become old-fashioned and disappear from use. This makes English one of the biggest languages in terms of vocabulary as well as number of people who speak it.
In Britain there are many accents. I speak with a Northern English accent, or more precisely with a Lancashire accent, but even in Lancashire there are quite a number of slightly different sounding accents. So I could say that I speak with a East Lancashire accent. Even then, I could say that some words and vowel sounds are a little different between the town where I live and the next town nearby.
These differences are quite small and you would probably have to have been brought up in the region to hear it. In fact accents are changing quite a lot in my country. Most people used to speak with a pronounced (or strong) regional or local accent, and many still do, but a lot of the accents are not as strong as they used to be and this is because people move around the country more than they used to in the past. Also, TV and films have a big influence and people modify their speech to make themselves more understandable to others.
Some of the more noticeable differences are the short open vowels in the North such as “bath” where in the south it would sound more like “bath” (long a)
In the North people often shorten the word where the “th” in the word “the” sometimes is shortened to “t” - walking t’dog instead of “walking the dog”. A recent Northern pronunciation which sounds quite funny is ” t’Internet” instead of “the Internet”
I’ll talk more about accents another time.
If you find that some of the words or phrases a little difficult to understand, then please leave me a comment and I’ll try to explain it.
I’ve started to use podcasts myself for learning languages. I love Chinesepod.com for listening to Mandarin chinese. The podcasts are really interesting and helpful. I’ve also found some useful French podcasts and Alba’s Spanish podcasts here in this site are really great.
It’s great that we can listen to interesting presentations so easily these days. I remember when I was young I used to have a short wave transistor radio and I used to try an listen to other languages but the quality was always poor and the radio stations I did find were very faint and the language and country seemed so far away. Nowadays it is so easy to contact people and speak with them around the world. I think it is really fantastic that the technology exists that allows this to happen. It makes you wonder how this will develop in the future.

I hope you like the guitar tune introduction that I play on my podcasts. Although I play a few different styles, I thought this folky tune would suit my style – a relaxed style. Some of you have remarked that you like my style of presenting and I’m glad about that – as it is my preferred style and I wouldn’t want you to be bored listening.
If you have any suggestions for my chatcasts (as I prefer to call them) let me know. For the moment, I am just talking about things that interest me in the hope that you find it interesting too.
Here are some different ways to say goodbye in English
Bye for now
See you!
Ta ta for now
Byee
See you later
See you in a bit
So long
Cheerio
Toodle-oo
See you next time

San Francisco
Paroles et Musique: Maxime Le Forestier 1973
C’est une maison bleue
It’s a blue house
Adossée à la colline
Which backs on to a hill
On y vient à pied, on ne frappe pas
You go there by foot, you don’t knock
Ceux qui vivent là, ont jeté la clé
Those who live there have thrown the key away
On se retrouve ensemble
We meet up together
Après des années de route
After years on the road
Et l’on vient s’asseoir autour du repas
And we all sit together to eat
Tout le monde est là, à cinq heures du soir
Everyone is there until 5am
CHORUS
San Francisco s’embrume
San Francisco is in the haze
San Francisco s’allume
San Francisco is lighting up
San Francisco, où êtes vous
San Francisco, where are you?
Liza et Luc, Sylvia, attendez-moi
Liza and Luc, Sylvia – wait for me

Nageant dans le brouillard
Swimming in the fog
Enlacés, roulant dans l’herbe
Rolling on the grass
On écoutera Tom à la guitare
You can hear Tom on the guitar
Phil à la kena, jusqu’à la nuit noire
Phil on the Ken flute until night falls
Un autre arrivera
Another is coming
Pour nous dire des nouvelles
To tell us the news
D’un qui reviendra dans un an ou deux
Of someone who’s coming in a year or two
Puisqu’il est heureux, on s’endormira
Since he is happy, we’ll sleep easy
CHORUS
San Francisco se lève
San Francisco is rising
San Francisco se lève
San Francisco is rising
San Francisco ! où êtes vous
San Francisco, where are you?
Liza et Luc, Sylvia, attendez-moi
Liza and Luc, Sylvia – wait for me

C’est une maison bleue.
It’s a blue house
Accrochée à ma mémoire
Hooked onto my memory
On y vient à pied, on ne frappe pas
You go there by foot, you don’t knock
Ceux qui vivent là, ont jeté la clef
Those who live there have thrown
the key away
Peuplée de cheveux longs
Populated with the long hairs
De grands lits et de musique
Big beds and music
Peuplée de lumière, et peuplée de foules
Populated with light and crowds
Elle sera dernière à rester debout
She will be the last one standing
CHORUS
Si San Francisco s’effondre
If San Francisco falls apart
Si San Francisco s’effondre
If San Francisco falls apart
San Francisco ! Où êtes vous
San Francisco – where are you?
Liza et Luc, Sylvia, attendez-moi
Liza and Luc, Sylvia – wait for me

This podcast is my version of the song “San Francisco” in French

I translated the lyrics into English - it’s a difficult but rewarding exercise! These lyrics, along with the French lyrics are on my blog (Podcast #3 supplementary)

(The original singer was Maxime le Forestier - the song is circa 1973)

You can see Maxime singing here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZxCAZ6ZT2qg