More specifically, i'm talking about when somebody learns second languages as an adult. Children seem to be pretty good with accents, but adult learners seem to usually not be able to shake the foreign accent.
It's just something i've noticed, i (sadly..) only speak one language.
I've honestly no idea, but I think the OP begs the question of whether acquiring a native accent when learning a foreign language is desirable in the first place.
I agree that children are comparatively better at learning accents than adults, yet on the other hand they're also more vulnerable to poor or inadequate teaching. Myself, having originally started learning English in Norway as a ten-year-old around 1990, I think I'm a case in point.
In the first couple years, there was a huge emphasis on pronunciation (at the expense of, for example, acquiring a decent vocabulary): the ideal at the time was RP - as if we were all going to be news presenters for the BBC when we grew up - however after school we'd go home and watch hour after hour of hip hop videos and Hollywood action films, with the result that most of us eventually sounded like an absurd cross-breed between 2Pac and the Prince of Wales. As an adult, I developed a slightly bland, but useful transatlantic accent which seems to work in most Anglophone nations (although no native speaker of English would take me for one).
I also have some experience in teaching Norwegian to adult immigrants, in which case my fellow teachers and I paid as little attention to accent as practically possible, at least in the beginner's class. Of course, if someone is incapable of coherent pronunciation you have to work on it, but fact is, as you say, that most will be incapable of shaking the foreign accent in any case. To complicate the issue further, Norwegian has very strong regional accents, so it would be a question of which to teach them: in effect, therefore, we made them concentrate their efforts on fluency, vocabulary and idioms, and I generally still think that's the best approach.
W.
I have no medical or scientific background to back this up, but I have always thought there was also a physical reason. Surely the muscles in our mouths and vocal cords take on specific characteristics if we speak only one language as children, hence the difficulty for adults. Whereas children as still developing physically, so their "sound producing elements" are more flexible. I had always been told the cut-off date was around age 11, although there are adults who manage to reproduce accents better than others, and I dare say, there are languages whose native speakers find pronunciation of other languages easier.
#2 I dare say, there are languages whose native speakers find pronunciation of other languages easier.
That's a very interesting claim. Would you care to mention the languages in question?
W.
I agree with #2 and don't think that there are only certain language pairs to which this happens. If a phoneme exists in one language that is absent in the other, it will be more difficult to pronounce those sounds for speakers of said language.
As to your view on accents walkingmzungu, I found that focusing on my accent in Spanish helped me to master that language months before anyone else in my group at my level. It is human nature for bilinguals to switch into the others language when that person is butchering their language. While studying in Spain, I would concentrate on how to produce the sounds I'd heard. In short time, people assumed I knew more than I actually did and would therefore carry on talking to me for bigger periods of time - thus allowing me to practice it more. Had I had a thick accent, many would have switched into English as I noticed happened often with classmates.
I also think that another reason why we don't pick up native accents as much when a language is acquired later on in life is perception. I couldn't converse in Spanish until I was about 21. Now, when I travel in Spanish speaking countries and people ask me where I'm from, they will often guess Argentina or Spain because I am White. I in 100 guesses that I am not a native. BUT, here in Florida, where there are millions of Spanish speakers, it is not uncommon for one to compliment me on my skills with the language with the caveat that they could tell I"m not native.
I find it a funny scenario: hear me speak Spanish first and you think I'm a native, hear me speak English first and you don't think I'm a native. It has to be perception.
Excellent point. I was with a young relative of mine in Bulgaria awhile back. She is 7. We flew into Sofia, then drove to Varna. We were in Sofia for three days and in that time she learnt quite a few phrases (she already speaks excellent French. We're both English by birth and live there). We then drove to Veliko Tarnovo, the old capital of Bulgaria, where it is said that the most purest of Bulgarian is spoken - and she noticed that 'Thank you' was said with a different accent, to that in Sofia. The same happened again in Varna. When we got to the little village where my house is, only 60km from Varna, 'Thank you' was now vastly varied from that in Varna.
By the way, she told me this - I hadn't noticed at all, even though I speak quite good Bulgarian. The original poster's point - to perfection.
Wmzungu, personally, I find that many Slavs manage to pronounce other Indo-European languages fairly well. And, on the contrary, the French, with their very specific "r" and English-speakers often have trouble and are immediately recognizable by their vowels. Maybe it's linked to the number of sounds in a given language? I don't know.
Of course,I can't claim this for non-Indo-European languages since I don't speak any.
#4 Interesting views, however personally I frequently experience the exact opposite. My German pronunciation is (beats chest) quite good, mainly due to the proximity between that language and my mother tongue (and specifically my regional accent: having lived my whole life on the West Coast, I find German pronunciation easy, but I know several Eastern Norwegians who regard it an absolute tongue-breaker). My vocabulary, on the other hand, is sadly inadequate, and as most native speakers of German also have decent knowledge of English, I find they tend to switch all too often to ease the conversation. Also, with respect, comparatively few Spaniards have good English, so maybe part of the reason they didn't switch was that they didn't have the option?
W.
QUOTE
Why is it so difficult to learn the proper accent in multiple languages? ... adult learners seem to usually not be able to shake the foreign accent.
UNQUOTE
It is possible for adults to learn the proper accent in multiple languages, but it depends on how hard you work at it or how much you are exposed to the multiple foreign languages. I learnt three non - IndoEuropean foreign languages as an adult and have been complimented on my accent in two of them. For the third language, although I am understood, sadly I have a poor accent.
I've posted this anecdotal information before:
I am an auditory learner. I pick up pronunciation and accents almost immediately. I may only know six words in some language, but boy is my pronunciation impeccable. I probably would notice those variants in Bulgarian as easily as battybilly's relative.
Some people really do not "hear" their own accent. I once tried to help someone learn how to order his coffee in Turkish. He liked it with sugar--şekerli. It is pronounced more or less "sheh-CARE-lee." He was saying "SHEK-er-lee." I tried to show him the difference in pronunciations, but he could not hear it---neither the vowel difference nor the accented syllable difference. Even if I said "sheh-CARE-lee," he responded "SHEK-er-lee" and insisted he was saying the same thing.
He also could not hear the difference between u and ü.
So I think a lot of accent acquisition is innate. Some people get it o their own. Some people may need intensive coaching. Some people, like the Turkish traveler, may never improve much.
I have also read that retention of a "foreign" accent by an expat may be partly psychological. It's a way of saying that "Even if I am an expat, in my heart I'm still a Home Country person." I have a relative who moved from the US to London about 30 years ago. Except for the odd "tomahto" now & then, her accent is still as American as it gets. Me, I'd sound like the Queen after 30 years.