You must be joking?

It’s interesting really, when you think about it. I think the importance of communication is often underplayed. Take a joke for example. A joke has the power to make people fall down in tears of laughter. It has the power to bring amazing happiness to those people that hear it, and we have such a fascination with jokes and laughter that we spend hours and hours of our lives watching comedy films and going to see stand up comedians- a good sense of humour is even something most people look for in a partner.
Yet, on the other side of the coin- jokes can often be misunderstood. People can be hurt, offended and even feel bullied by not understanding a joke. Interestingly, humour is something that a lot of people find very difficult to translate into a different language. This is because the things we find funny are not just the words themselves, but the common associations we have with them.
I suppose, in theory, it is possible to learn a language from a text book. I suppose that all a language really is, is a series of words in specific patterns and structures that could quite easily be portrayed in a book or on a website. How hard would it be to learn what to say? Then again, I think the skill lies in how to say it. Nothing compares to learning a language from a real breathing human being. Human beings possess all the appropriate word associations and feelings, not just to say the right things, but to make sense.
For example, if you found someone attractive, you could say “Your face is aesthetically adequate” and you never know, it may be well received- but I personally feel that a phrase like “your very pretty” would go down with more success.
Do not settle for merely being heard. Aim to be understood.

Its all in the accent

When attempting to perfect a new language, the pinnacle achievement is that of acquiring a genuine accent to go with it. Some accents, like the Australian for example, stand out quite significantly where as other accents, like a softly flowing Irish accent- are more subtle and harder to detect by those who do not know how. In truth, there are a vast amount of different accents, in every language. I can think of at least 9 different types of French accent, just of the top of my head.
Let us take a quick look at the British and American accents. Both are English (although there are those that disagree) but they sound drastically different. The reason for this is that they are spoken using different areas of the mouth. Americans don’t distinguish so much between different sounds and speak with the back of the mouth and the nose, where as the Brits speak with the front part of the mouth and the tongue, carefully articulating each sound.
It is really very normal to have an accent, as an accent is merely the way in which we use our mouths to pronounce words. The best way to pick up an accent is to “reverse engineer” it. Listen to a native speaker speaking your language and listen to the accent they have. For example- When English is your native language and you wish to learn how to speak German- listen to how a German person speaks English. You will notice that they speak very much with their breath- paying particular attention to letters “s” and “z”- When next speaking German, do the same and you shall find your accent improved.
The best way to pick up a genuine accent is to learn from a native speaker. Get in touch with Just Languages and give it a try.