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New accent in L1 after moving abroad? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Melisse Triglot Newbie Sweden Joined 4671 days ago 19 posts - 36 votes Speaks: English*, SwedishC1, French Studies: Dutch, Russian, Modern Hebrew | Message 1 of 13 29 November 2011 at 2:51pm | IP Logged | ||
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Hello all,
I’m curious about your thoughts on people who leave their home country and move to another country or region with the same official language and start using the accent of the new country. For example, an American who moves to England or Australia or a French person who moves to Quebec or a Mexican who moves to Spain etc. Do you think that it is strange/acceptable/unacceptable/inevitable/natural/desirable /undesirable for such a person to adopt the accent of the new country and to what extent? Are there certain circumstances under which you find this more acceptable/strange than others? If so, what are they? How much time would somebody have to live in the new country before you would think that they should/could start adopting the new accent? I think everybody would agree that an American, for instance, who steps off a plane in London for the very first time and suddenly starts speaking with an English accent would be “putting on a fake accent” but what if they live there for 2 years? or 5 years? or 15 years? or 40 years? Where do you draw the line? Does the persons intent make a difference? Would you have a different opinion about someone who has lived in the new country for so long that they can’t help but speak with the new accent, than you would about someone who has lived there for the same amount of time and is able to maintain their native accent but chooses to adopt the new one? Have you got personal experience with this? If so, what are the reactions you’ve got from people in the new country? What reactions have you got from people in your home country if they’ve heard your “new” accent? I'm assuming that the person in question moves abroad as an adult and is adopting an accent in their own native language. I’ve been wondering about this for quite a while and would love to know what everyone thinks. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5135 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes  Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 2 of 13 29 November 2011 at 3:28pm | IP Logged | ||
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I have no experiences with your exact question, but we have lots of people who move in to Oslo from other regions with very different dialects, and thousands of Swedes who move to Norway each year. Boths cases are fairly similar to your example. In both cases they usually keep their own dialect/language/accent.
In the 50es people used to change their accent when they came to Oslo, but now pride in your roots is the word of the day. I have heard of one single Swede who has modified his Swedish, but that is after being married to a Norwegian and having lived in Norway for decades. I know Danish students were irritated that Norwegians did not change their accent when studying in Denmark, but I think most people would feel fake if they left their original accent and took up a new one. I think people should just do what they find natural or which suits their interest best. If they want to change their accent, to fit in or to be better understood, I see no reason to look down on them, but I do not think anyone should be forced to change their accent. Live and let live. However I guess I am not alone in that when speaking a foreign language it is easy to adapt to the local dialect. My English accent is American/Mid-Atlantic, but becomes more British when I am around Brits. My Spanish dialect is Andalusian, but when I am among Latin-Americans, I start using some of the word they use. I guess you are not so set in your ways in your L2. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5063 days ago 2237 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 3 of 13 29 November 2011 at 3:52pm | IP Logged | ||
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I lived in northern England for several years as an adult American from the upper south. I didn't lose my accent even with an English wife and two kids. It's just too ingrained, a part of who I am. I did pick up some English vocabulary- "straight away", "windscreen", "what are you on about?", "whilst", "pop round", etc, that I still have today.
Sometimes, whilst living in northern England, I would get tired of advertising my "American-ness" when I was out and about and I would "put-on" a bit of an accent using just one word. For example, I would pop into a shop to buy something and say "morning" with an English "r". Then I'd hear "5 pound 50 please" at the till and I'd say "ta" and walk out with my purchase thereby avoiding the inevitable conversation about someone's recent trip to Orlando! Now that I live in the Caribbean, a lot of Caribbean English vocabulary is starting to naturally take hold, etc, but my accent in English stays pretty much the same, according to my mainland and English family. Edited by iguanamon on 29 November 2011 at 5:55pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5182 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 4 of 13 29 November 2011 at 4:41pm | IP Logged | ||
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And if you moved, and your accent changed... what would the problem be?
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Kisfroccs Bilingual Pentaglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 5210 days ago 388 posts - 549 votes Speaks: French*, German*, EnglishC1, Swiss-German, Hungarian Studies: Italian, Serbo-Croatian | Message 5 of 13 29 November 2011 at 8:34pm | IP Logged | ||
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I do this when I'm in France, changing to a more "french" accent, rather than a swiss one. It just comes naturally. But sometimes helvetism come into my language, such as "natel, chiclette, regarde voir,faites seulement, chenis, un cornet etc". Then I'm discovered :).
I simply feel like a peasant with my swiss accent. Don't get me wrong, I love Switzerland, but I think other romands can relate to this... Unvonluntary, I did this also in Hungary when speaking German. I took the Hungarian accent in German, but I didn't know it... until I asked something in German, and the guy thought I was speaking Hungarian (only that he couldn't understand). Beside, when my mom picked me up, she couldn't understand me anymore. She still necks me with this one ! :) Kisfröccs 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Lucky Charms Diglot Senior Member Japan lapacifica.net Joined 6750 days ago 752 posts - 1711 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: German, Spanish | Message 6 of 13 30 November 2011 at 5:31am | IP Logged | ||
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My stepdad is from New Zealand, and lived in the U.S. for at least 20 years. Americans always bothered him about his accent and wondered where he's from; to us, it's immediately
apparent that he's not from North America. So I always took it for granted that he had a Kiwi accent. However, when we went to New Zealand, I was shocked that everyone was assuming he was from the U.S., and his old friends were telling him he totally sounded like an American! To me, he sounded exactly the same as them, but to them, he sounded exactly the same as me. So I guess that after so many years he settled on a sort of "in-between" accent, without completely losing his original Kiwi accent. I also felt the same process beginning to work upon me when, conversely, I spent a year in NZ as a teenager. My American accent made me feel self-conscious, and after a while being "immersed" in New Zealand, it even started to sound strange or wrong to my ears. Yet, Kiwi pronunciation coming out of my mouth felt forced and equally unnatural. I remember eventually being stuck in this awkward no-man's land where neither accent felt right to me. By the end of the year, I think that what I ended up with was my native Californian accent "softened" by the addition of Kiwi vocabulary, intonation patterns, and non-flapped "t". My vowels might also have been in transition. I never got so far as completely adopting the non-rhotic "r", or adding a rhotic "r" to the end of "Amiiricurr", though. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| dbag Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4823 days ago 605 posts - 1046 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 7 of 13 30 November 2011 at 11:29pm | IP Logged | ||
Sorry to distract from the op a little, but Im really curious as to what Americans say instead of "Straight away"? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Mauritz Octoglot Senior Member Sweden Joined 4869 days ago 223 posts - 325 votes Speaks: Swedish*, EnglishC2, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, Esperanto, French Studies: Old English, Yiddish, Arabic (Written), Mandarin, Korean, Portuguese, Welsh, Icelandic, Afrikaans | Message 8 of 13 30 November 2011 at 11:57pm | IP Logged | ||
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"Right away", maybe?
2 persons have voted this message useful |
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