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Foreign accents in your native language? | ||
Tags: Native Language | Accent | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| I'm With Stupid Senior Member Vietnam Joined 4171 days ago 165 posts - 349 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: German, Vietnamese | Message 33 of 51 11 October 2013 at 8:04am | IP Logged | ||
Reminds me of this. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| eyðimörk Triglot Senior Member France goo.gl/aT4FY7 Joined 4097 days ago 490 posts - 1158 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French Studies: Breton, Italian | Message 34 of 51 11 October 2013 at 11:13am | IP Logged | ||
I'm going to disagree. I actually think that a lot of the time it is about tolerance and patience. I'm not saying that experience doesn't help with accent comprehension, but when you're not interested in understanding you're not going to get better at it just because you get experience. A lot of people just aren't interested. I see this in my own family, unfortunately, and the more xenophobia that is present in the family member, the less they claim to understand foreigners, and the more reasons they have not to ("Swedish is such a musical language foreigners get it incomprehensibly wrong", "Swedish has so many compound words and no foreigner can ever figure out how to break them up"). Lack of interest also seems to affect people's ability to differentiate between accents (since this is a thread about different accents after all). The locals where I live are very used to hearing accented French, but they are so very disinterested that "it's all the same" and they seem to judge the origin of the accent mostly on the speaker's skin tone. Meanwhile, I, with virtually no experience, have found myself able to differentiate between several European accents in French on radio and TV. I can tell you that I do not sound remotely English when I speak French, but every "white" accent here is always English. Some people, even after I tell them in French that I'm Swedish, instantly forget and keep referring to me as English and asking politely about my homeland, England. 8 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| zografialep Hexaglot Groupie GreeceRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4137 days ago 41 posts - 71 votes Speaks: Ancient Greek, Greek*, EnglishC2, GermanB2, Spanish, Latin Studies: Russian | Message 35 of 51 12 October 2013 at 8:35am | IP Logged | ||
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In my native language, greek, I dont mean to harsh but no other accent is pleasant to the
ear. I think it's because we are kind of secluded, our language is very hard and rarely do people try to learn it, much less have the local accent. Greeks can instantly tell if someone is a foreigner, because no one can get the accent right. Plus, we're not used to foreigners speaking greek, except for a small amount of immigrants, so we instantly notice when something doesn't sound correct. I dont mean to discourage people from speaking my language though! If you ever come, make sure to make use of the language, the people would be glad to see you try. :) 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| liammcg Senior Member Ireland Joined 4602 days ago 269 posts - 397 votes Speaks: English* | Message 36 of 51 12 October 2013 at 2:16pm | IP Logged | ||
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I love the English spoken in the outer Hebrides, which has a lilt that mainland Scottish
English doesn't have (to my ears). Here's an example of a native Gaelic speaker speaking English: http://www.youtube.com/watch? v=JIF1xSacEgc 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| JoeMcC Pentaglot Newbie United States joe185.wordpress.com Joined 5562 days ago 17 posts - 18 votes Speaks: English*, Irish, Spanish, Mandarin, French Studies: Scottish Gaelic, German, Catalan, Breton | Message 37 of 51 13 October 2013 at 6:11am | IP Logged | ||
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Eyðimörk said "I can tell you that I do not sound remotely English when I speak French, but every "white" accent here is always English. Some people, even after I tell them in French that I'm Swedish, instantly forget and keep referring to me as English and asking politely about my homeland, England."[/QUOTE]
I was talking in French to two young ladies at a counter at the airport in Dorval, outside Montreal. One of them said something that I couldn't get even when she repeated it and she said "Oh! You are English!" I said, "Actually, I'm American." (Even worse for an Irish-American to be told he is "English", but of course I didn't get into that.) She shrugged and said "It's the same thing." As for my favorite accent in English, maybe when I hear the right Spanish or Italian speakers. But "just the right ... speaker" betrays my tendency to react to the features of each individual's voice. Edited by JoeMcC on 13 October 2013 at 6:20am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| renaissancemedi Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Greece Joined 4356 days ago 941 posts - 1309 votes Speaks: Greek*, Ancient Greek*, EnglishC2 Studies: French, Russian, Turkish, Modern Hebrew | Message 38 of 51 13 October 2013 at 11:08am | IP Logged | ||
I like accents, I don't mind them. I guess it's a matter of taste! 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| beano Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4620 days ago 1049 posts - 2152 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Russian, Serbian, Hungarian | Message 39 of 51 13 October 2013 at 1:34pm | IP Logged | ||
I wish I had a pound for every time I heard a native speaker insist that their language is the one of the "hardest" 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Via Diva Diglot Senior Member Russian Federation last.fm/user/viadivaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4232 days ago 1109 posts - 1427 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: German, Italian, French, Swedish, Esperanto, Czech, Greek | Message 40 of 51 13 October 2013 at 1:54pm | IP Logged | ||
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I don't like foreign accents in Russian at all. Well, to be honest, I haven't heard much, so it's more of a prejudice, but it is as it is. And I will not claim that this is because Russian is the hardest language, it's just because I easily can catch accents and feel its falseness. But I repeat, I haven't heard much.
P.S. Some accents of English truly annoy me. I tend to say r and th as more English as I only can, and this has its effect with German (in case of r - and I don't think that this is good), so I'm actually thrilled when I hear someone talking with rolled r or brand French version of th. Especially angry because of it I become if I hear that in movies. It's actors job to talk with normal/ standard English, but when they roll r, I'm ready to shout "Why these teachers and books were fooling me if they can talk like I wanted to and everyone can perfectly understand them?!"... Edited by Via Diva on 13 October 2013 at 2:10pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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