Here Today... Gone To Hell!

Posted: Sat Apr 21, 2007 9:25 pm    Post subject: Speech dilemna     

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I was raised in france by en english mother and a french dad, in the french language.

I did not start speaking english until i was 14 years old.

At 17, when i was accepted into drama school, a huge challenge was not only to loose my french accent but to speak " the Queen's English".

I did succeed.

At the same timen in my private life, a lot of friends happened to be musicians and they kept taking the piss, telling me i spoke too posh and asking me to be a bit more " streetwise".

I did succeed at this too.

I handled Standard English and proper Streatham.

After 5 years in england, i had to go back to France and rarely spoke English.

It's now been 10 years.

I have lost a lot of vocab and when i speak, i more readily use slang rather than good vocabulary and my accent is " n'importe quoi" ( anything and everything).

I am very disappointed in myself.

How can i go back to speaking properly, knowing i live in France, that i don't have any British friends here and knowing i want to speak proper English, Standard English ?
 

Books. Any books, fiction or non-fiction, in English. Alternatively, the English broadsheet newspapers have websites and shouldn't be too prone to slang.

I do read a lot in english lately, problem is, how do i do to get my accent back to proper english ? speaking wise.

I don't know that ANY books will do.  I'd avoid anything where the author uses a strong vernacular (Irvine Welsh and Mark Twain come to mind). 

19th century British literature has more formal tone, though some words might be antiquated.  Other than that, the best advice is to think before you speak. 

A lot of people can speak formally and appropriately when necessary (in a job interview, for example) or in slang when it's unnecessary to be proper (among friends, etc.), so don't feel that you have to choose between them.

Good luck! 

Why don't you try searching out other Britishers, join some club / group or something? Meet on weekends and do something fun. Just speaking English will bring back the fluency automatically. Reading books may help your grammar and vocabulary, but you need to speak to improve / change your accent.

if your speaking english and using more slang than 'proper english' then you are in fact speaking it properly!  I dont think any of us Brits speak proper english!

Jessica....french people have the sexiest accents  :drool:

Do you have a sexy french accent ?  ;D

well, no, not really, i was told it sounds germany-swedishy something, not french as one understands a french accent...

As for my voice, since it's a mix of two languages, it is usually lowish with a tendency to go higher on some words and this was brought directly from english....

But since i want to speak english to my son, i have to speak it properly, it is vital.

My opinion is how you speak a language identifies the person. Here in the US, someone from New York speaks English differently than someone from Alabama.

Then there is Florida - where everyone is from somewhere else, one big mix.

I would speak in an accent which comes naturally to you, it adds to your character.

I would never want to speak textbook English- how boring!

It's better to start speaking a language using " texbook" and then go to your own rather than speaking your own first.

I don't know what life my son will want for himself, but it wouldn't be a present if i didn't give him the best first.

find audio or video of how you want to speak, listen to them and just repeat what they say.
that's how sidney poitier lost his bahamian accent.? he found a voice that he liked, of a british
radio personality, and repeated everything that he said.