[MW Forums]

Berlitz Premier language learning software packs let you learn French, German and Italian on your Mac or your iPod. more

[veggiedude]

"advanced speech analysis that records, plays back and compares you to improve your accent and pronunciation"
That's great, but I've always been perplexed as to why Americans go through great lengths to sound french, german or chinese. If they are happy to speak english as Americans, then why not the same with other languages?
/forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

[Peter Cohen]

Probably for the same reason some of us have taken to sewing Canadian flags on our backpacks when we travel abroad...

[MacTechAspen]

In reply to:

---

I've always been perplexed as to why Americans go through great lengths to sound french, german or chinese.

---

Without disputing your assertion that Americans go to any lengths when speaking a foreign language, I can answer your query.
Nuances in accent can change meaning in any language. Words that are not apparent homonyms will become so when pronounced badly and can completely change your meaning. An example from English would be the words Horse and a word the filter will not let me use but refers to the oldest profession.
For the Chinese languages as with most other Asian languages, tonal inflection can completely change the meaning. Every word in Chinese (Mandarin at least) has many homonyms because of the 4) different tones you may employ. To further confuse the non native speaker of Mandarin, the sentence tone itself does not change for questions as it does in English. Instead certain words are stressed. Trying to be understood in Mandarin is tough, but almost impossible if you don't really work on the accent.
It can be very difficult to be understood if you do not attempt to reproduce the sound of any language. Copy the way someone speaks English, and you will be that much closer to reproducing their native language intelligibly. Accent counts for a lot.