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Bilinguals and their accents | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| ehabsa Diglot Newbie United States languagecurrent.com Joined 5344 days ago 22 posts - 26 votes Speaks: Arabic (Levantine)*, Modern Hebrew Studies: Persian | Message 17 of 26 09 April 2010 at 3:58pm | IP Logged | ||
My experience is that people are intrigued when they meet other people who speak their language. I never considered an American speaking Arabic with strong accent to be an idiot. It is rarely that I have heard an American speak Arabic without an accent. Edited by ehabsa on 09 April 2010 at 4:11pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| ehabsa Diglot Newbie United States languagecurrent.com Joined 5344 days ago 22 posts - 26 votes Speaks: Arabic (Levantine)*, Modern Hebrew Studies: Persian | Message 18 of 26 09 April 2010 at 4:06pm | IP Logged | ||
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There are many psychological studies that show that speaking with an accent has strong
psychological and social influences, and it is likely the speaker is not aware of most of these reasons. I grow up as Israeli Arab and learned Hebrew in Israel, later on I moved to the United States. When I go back to Israel and speak Hebrew, people think I am American because my accent sounds American. Makes no sense to me since Arabic and Hebrew share some difficult sounds that many modern Hebrew speakers don't even sound specially Americans). But that what they tell me. I think that your desire to speak perfectly in a different language might not be shared by those who do not want to "hide" their own accents. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| original501 Triglot Newbie United States Joined 5639 days ago 23 posts - 24 votes Speaks: English, Spanish*, Portuguese Studies: French, Arabic (Written) | Message 19 of 26 10 April 2010 at 1:58am | IP Logged | ||
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Interesting. I've been speaking Spanish all my life, and began learning American English at age six. From experiences, I think that people's accents vary depending on their respective environment. For expample, I notice that whenever I'm in my ghetto hometown, I tend to speak in a ghetto Latino accent, which I think is something that happens subconsciously, because whenever I'm in a more "affluent" environment, my ghetto Latino accent vanishes, and people have no idea that I'm a native speaker of Spanish.
Same thing when I speak Spanish: Whenever I travel to Latin America, I have to make a conscious effort to disguise my "white-washed" accent. But within time, say a couple of hours, maybe even days, the local accent tends to "stick" to me, sometimes to the point where I can pass off as a local. As to whether being bilingual helps in other languages, my Moroccan French teacher says my French accent is almost native. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Johntm Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5422 days ago 616 posts - 725 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 20 of 26 10 April 2010 at 8:07am | IP Logged | ||
I get so mad when the male student in MT says "pokay" for "porque" and he doesn't pronounces r's at the end of words so hablar sounds like habla when he speaks. He never gets anything right either. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| apatch3 Diglot Groupie United Kingdom Joined 6185 days ago 80 posts - 99 votes Speaks: Pashto, English* Studies: Japanese, FrenchA2 | Message 21 of 26 10 April 2010 at 8:44am | IP Logged | ||
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below is an extract from the much needed
PRONUNCIATION PURGATORY ACT 2010 "The corrective squad will proceed to slap the offender 3 times in quick succession and ask him to repeat what he just said this process will be repeated 3 times until he/she gets it right. In the circumstance of complete failure in every trial the offender is then dragged out of the language class and taken to a speech therapist in the event that modern therapeutic techniques happen to be unsuccessful the offender is to be blacklisted from all language classes electro convulsive therapy is the only other option. " *slap: an incident involving high velocity contact between the palm of one squad members hand and the cheek of the offender 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5334 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 22 of 26 21 April 2010 at 8:15pm | IP Logged | ||
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When I started my University studies in English, I had spent so much time living in Spain and studying Spanish that I actually spoke English with a Spanish accent. And you can just imagine how fun the others thought that was, coming from a blonde, blue eyed girl who can trace her roots back to the Viking king that united Norway, Harald Hårfagre.
And of course mine was the only accent that stuck out, as theirs were all Norwegian. And I would think you who have English and Spanish as your native languages would have less of an accent, simply because your tongue is used to more sounds, and can more easily get used to new languages. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| omuraisu Newbie United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5396 days ago 7 posts - 19 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Japanese | Message 23 of 26 21 April 2010 at 10:52pm | IP Logged | ||
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I wonder if a good accent is so easily attained. My dad is an immigrant from Korea who still speaks with a heavy accent, and it's not for lack of trying. As a kid, I used to wonder why he just couldn't seem to be able to pronounce his "F" or his "R" correctly, and I would demonstrate how to do it. He still kept doing it his old way. Even when I repeat sentences or words for him to say correctly, the sounds seem to reach him in Hangeul. No matter what we try, he just... sounds like a middle-aged Korean man. :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| cordelia0507 Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5838 days ago 1473 posts - 2176 votes Speaks: Swedish* Studies: German, Russian | Message 24 of 26 22 April 2010 at 9:48pm | IP Logged | ||
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Some foreign accents are generally considered "chic" or interesting, other foreign accents are looked down upon and can be a disadvantage. That is the sad truth.
This is true in both social and work situation. But the extent to which this matters; and the status of different accents vary from country to country. Everyone in Europe knows what I am talking about, and probably people in the US too. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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