as most of us here r adults,and that makes it a little difficult to speak a language as decent as a native speaker, but i think it's still necessary for the teacher to show the right way of pronunciation. so i argued with someone this morning while he thought we dont need to point out the exactly way to foreign learners,just the similar stuff would be enough .because he thought it would be enough to teach u like that as u cant get a high lever as an adult student.
so could u guys who r studying chinese here show me ur opinions ? :)
Well I would always prefer to be taught the exact way to pronounce the Chinese words, but I admit that I will probably never be able to speak Chinese as fluently as a native because I have a Danish accent.
So I want to pronounce it 100% correct, although it will sound differently than a native because I don't have a Chinese accent.
I will be tickled pink if one day I can have the simplest conversation with someone actually understanding what I'm trying to say. :D
From experience, I would judge depending on the time I have, how much effort my tutee would put in, and how much potential does my tutee has.
Especially the fact that many people will have their own accent, no matter how we teach them. Even in China, not everyone will share the same accent. I would argue that accent doesn't only mean the pronunciations of each word, but also the way you talk and stop.
Some of my students ask for perfection, whereas some of them only wanted a pass.
I am learning to speak Mandarin. Ultimately, I hope to achieve about 80% of the fluency of a native speaker. That should be enough for both native and non-native speakers to understand me. There's no functional benefit to achieving 100% of the fluency of a native speaker. While it would be impressive, it would take an unnecessary amount of time and effort to achieve that last 20%. That time would be better spent learning about Chinese culture and history, learning another language, or learning another skill (such as playing a musical instrument).
To put this another way, I feel that it is important that I listen to my teacher's pronunciation, and try to mimic it as closely as possible. I won't achieve 100% pronunciation, but if I listen closely and repeat the pronunciation carefully, I might arrive at 80% accuracy.
