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Is an American Accent Sexy? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Euphorion Hexaglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5341 days ago 106 posts - 147 votes  Speaks: Slovak*, Czech, EnglishC2, GermanC1, SpanishC2, French | Message 33 of 64 08 May 2010 at 12:10am | IP Logged | |||||
In fact I referred to the American accent in English :) The English accent in other languages can be cute, thats right. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Akao aka FailArtist Senior Member United States Joined 5337 days ago 315 posts - 347 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Mandarin, Toki Pona | Message 34 of 64 08 May 2010 at 12:31am | IP Logged | |||||
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Well, now I'm kind of self conscious about my accent. XD
I probably won't go around randomly speaking it without indicating that I'm learning it still until I get a nice accent in Mandarin that doesn't sound American. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Americano Senior Member Korea, South Joined 6847 days ago 101 posts - 120 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Korean | Message 35 of 64 09 May 2010 at 1:09pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Girls in Russia told me that I had a cute accent in Russian. I work very hard on proper pronunciation, and I think my Spanish accent is good enough that most Spanish speakers wouldn't be able to place me as an American. I saw a lot of other Americans who didn't work on their Spanish pronunciation at all and it was quite bad and annoying to listen to.
South African is my favorite English accent, followed by Standard American like you would find in the Upper Midwest. I am from Chicago and outside of some areas of the city and some of the closer more Southern suburbs the English is rather clear and concise as you would hear on a news broadcast. A lot of regional American accents, such as in the Northeast and the South annoy me quite a bit. Half of my family lives in Long Island, and their accent is not appealing to me in the least. I don't care for most British accents, and find many of them very annoying. I have to admit though that I love listening to a posh British accent. To the OP, why are the only two choices for an American accent are sounding sexy or stupid? I would never describe an American accent, or any English accents for that matter, as sexy. Outside of some of the more rural American accents I don't believe we sound uneducated either. Because of the amount of American English exposure people get through the media and America's global perception in general I do not find it surprising that people have strong feelings about our pronunciation. Edited by Americano on 09 May 2010 at 1:19pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Lucky Charms Diglot Senior Member Japan lapacifica.net Joined 6950 days ago 752 posts - 1711 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: German, Spanish | Message 36 of 64 09 May 2010 at 3:39pm | IP Logged | |||||
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English-accented Japanese (more specifically American-accented Japanese, although I'm not sure whether this makes much of a difference) is always made fun of in the Japanese media. When locals are talking to me for the first time, they invariably amuse themselves and people around them with imitations (for example, they'll speak to me like aNAta no naMAe wa NAN DE-soo KA?' with a huge beaming grin, and look around to their friends for approval). I can't help but find it extremely insulting, but then again, whenever I meet a native English-speaker or hear one speaking Japanese, odds are very high that they DO speak like that. Then a big, healthy chunk of my resentment is transferred from the people who make such jokes to the thick-skulled English-speakers who perpetuate these stereotypes.
I don't want to be mistaken for a self-hating expatriate, or someone with a superiority complex who berates newer learners. Really, it PAINS me to hear this bad Japanese coming out of the mouths of my fellow countrymen (and non-countrymen who are automatically assumed to be my fellow countrymen) and thus leaving us all open to ridicule. But these type of people are not really trying, so I can't really have any sympathy for them in the way of 'aww, they're just learning, I'll give them a break, after all, I know what it's like to be in their shoes'. That's because, honestly, I DON'T know what it's like to be so smug and clueless, and to radiate an air of 'I learned a whole 100 kanji and passed my second-year college Japanese class; I bet you don't meet many people like me!' These people will have god-awful accents and unnatural, laughable sentence constructions for as long as they study Japanese, because they are too busy speaking and speaking and speaking and being impressed with themselves... and NOT listening. That's the impression I get when I encounter most Westerners (particularly Western males) in Japan: what a shame, all that confidence, all that conversation practice, but they're not actually bothering to hear or learn anything. I imagine that English-speakers have similar reputations in other countries, and I imagine that this attitude in conjunction with the strong phonological peculiarities of English make the typical (as in, not the type to frequent this kind of forum) native English-speaker's pronunciation in other languages particularly bad. My students - all fans of American culture who are studying English - regularly burst out in exclamations of 'That sounds so COOL!' when I say things in English. They are also trying hard to make their English pronunciation sound more American. There's no question that American English is the epitome of 'cool' for them (though I've never heard 'sexy'). Yet, when I ask those same students how they feel about an English-speaker's pronunciation of Japanese, the polite ones will say 'pretty funny' and the ones I've become close friends with will say 'stupid', 'unintelligent'. As someone who is just beginning to be at the point where I can call myself fluent in Japanese, I also feel this intuitively to be true. And while I consider pronunciation/intonation to be a particularly weak point for me, even at my level people react with SHOCK that I don't sound comic or unintelligible. It makes me really, really sad that they have such low standards of English-speakers that 'not sounding like an idiot' warrants shock. I know I'm probably preaching to the choir here... actually, the thing is, I just met a dumb, showoffy American like this yesterday and my blood is still boiling, so please excuse my rant. :) 6 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| quendidil Diglot Senior Member Singapore Joined 6313 days ago 126 posts - 142 votes Speaks: Mandarin, English* Studies: Japanese | Message 37 of 64 09 May 2010 at 4:16pm | IP Logged | |||||
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American accents are regarded as "cool" by many younger people in Singapore and attempts to emulate it are common on the local media and among pretentious gits. Myself, I'd have rather any British accent (even Brummie) over most American accents any time.
Americanisms have penetrated to even the local creole of English even though it was based on British standards origianlly, such as "pants" for trousers, "soccer" for association football. I don't have much of an opinion on this, but Americans or pretentious gits who have a predilection for American media ignorant of British English correcting "errors" annoy me - examples of such "errors" include using "toilet" for the room rather than just the machine and one particular pet peeve using "maths" as an abbreviation of mathematics. Edited by quendidil on 09 May 2010 at 4:36pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Americano Senior Member Korea, South Joined 6847 days ago 101 posts - 120 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Korean | Message 38 of 64 09 May 2010 at 5:11pm | IP Logged | |||||
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In Asia it seems there is a strong preference for American/N.American English/pronunciation. In Korea it is much easier to get the competitive jobs if you have a N.American accent. There are some recruiters which have turned down some people I know because they were not North American. This has led to some non-North American's I know to intentionally try to adopt a more "American" accent while here, and that includes American English spelling as well.
1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| kmart Senior Member Australia Joined 6125 days ago 194 posts - 400 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian | Message 39 of 64 10 May 2010 at 2:01pm | IP Logged | |||||
Hmmm, I don't know any Americans who use the word "toilet" for the room - it's usually "bathroom" which can cause problems here in Australia (where we DO use "toilet" for both the apparatus and the room) when we direct them to the room containing the bath and handbasin rather than the smaller room containing what they really want! BTW, if you used the word "lavatory" here - we'd probably laugh in your face... ;-) 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| quendidil Diglot Senior Member Singapore Joined 6313 days ago 126 posts - 142 votes Speaks: Mandarin, English* Studies: Japanese | Message 40 of 64 10 May 2010 at 4:58pm | IP Logged | |||||
Yeah, I was referring to Commonwealth usage being "corrected" by Americans or American-wannabe locals; the original post got a bit ranty and twisted so that may not have been clear. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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