The Impact of Alcohol on L1 versus L2.

The speakers were adults recruited at a music festival, not patients, and only 80 of 137 adult speakers were analysed. Speakers with blood alcohol higher than 0.8 were excluded, and the mean level among analysed speakers was 0.14. Dutch speech was rated for intelligibility and English speech was rated for how native it sounded, and these are not the same construct. The speech samples were read sentences, not spontaneous conversation, so the findings may not apply to everyday speech. The study tested pronunciation ratings, not a therapy or clinical diagnosis. Festival participants may have been tired or may have used substances not reported, though including those who reported drug use yielded similar results. The English accent finding was a nonsignificant positive trend, not evidence of improvement.

The authors report support from the University of Groningen, the Young Academy Groningen, and the Groningen University Fund (grant 2018/083).

Do not conclude that alcohol improves second-language pronunciation. The English accent ratings did not show a significant rise with blood alcohol level (p > 0.69), and the study did not test whether accent ratings can identify intoxication.