How to Master Successfully Any Language of the World 33
Accent – Even More Important
In order to sound “natural” while speaking a language, you should care for the following:
1. Proper articulation – sounds are pronounced, the way natives do
2. Proper intonations – stresses, music of language and its pace
Out of the two above, intonations are more important.
Articulation is often determined genetically. Tongues, cheeks and palates differ slightly
from one person to another. Voices are different.
Yet, intonations are purely ACQUIRED. They are learnt through childhood. They may
change slightly in the society, when popular culture provides a catchy novelty. Still, they
will be common to the society as a whole.
One who speaks a language with proper articulation but wrong intonations will be
regarded as alien. Or an unsuccessful learner. Yet, one, who speaks with proper
intonations but has some faults in articulation, will be regarded as a native speaker, with
“that specific manner of speaking”. Or “having some speech difficulties” at worst.
Let’s divide intonations learning into three parts:
1. Music of language
2. Stresses
3. Pace
These three are equally important. Let’s consider them one by one.
Music of language deals with the pitch. I mean relative acoustical pitch of a syllable you
are pronouncing. It’s not about the pitch of your voice; you may have a high voice or a
low voice. The important thing is the relative pitch. You say one syllable in the word
higher or lower than another. You pronounce that word higher or lower than one before.
You say it slightly higher or much higher. Or lower.
A syllable may have a rising intonation, when the beginning of the syllable is pronounced
with lower pitch than the end. There may be a high rise, a low rise, a rise from rather low
pitch to somewhat higher, or from high pitch to even higher. Falling intonation is similar;
the only difference is that the beginning of a syllable has a higher pitch than its end. In
some cases there may be rather complex pattern, when you may need to rise, fall and
half-rise again – all within one single syllable.
Stresses may be of two types. You may stress a syllable, by making it a) STRONGER or
b) LONGER than other syllables in the word or even in a sentence. Stresses may be
Copyright © 2012 Dmitry Slomov. All rights reserved.
Dmitry Slomov is a language learning consultant, a tutor and the author of the Russian Language Course – Lessons with Dmitry
Contact Dmitry at: http://www.courseofrussian.com/en/contact.html
