finlay wrote:They're few and far between. I've certainly met Dutch people that could pass for not-quite-sure-where-they're-from-could-be-American-or-European. Dutch was the example used in my Language Acquisition class last year when discussing this exact question – evidently it's easier for them to erase their accent entirely than it is for French people, although it takes a certain kind of dedication to erase it entirely and it's a rare person that can achieve it.
I think the ones I've found most convincing have generally been Scandinavian, particularly Danish.
It probably also helps if their target is some form of American English, as the flaws will be that bit less obvious to me (but not of course to an American).
I've heard a few Dutch & Scandinavians speak English in a North Americanish accent, which can be confusing.
When in Portugal 2 years ago me & my Girlfriend went on a guided coach trip. The guide in an accent similar to the one mentioned above, making us think he was Dutch, but was actually Portugese.
Cristina Scabbia, Italian co-lead singer of Lacuna Coil, has an almost perfect native accent when singing in English. Her spoken English isn't as accent-free, but it's still pretty spot-on for the consonants. Though the big things I notice with some foreign speakers are the stress patterns and vowels.
Here in Denmark, most of the Danes I've heard speak English speak it with a very good accent, almost indistinguishable from many native speakers. Same in Sweden (but I didn't notice it as much, probably because I was there only for a few hours!). Likewise, though to a different degree, with the Slovenes I dealt with last Spring (hi, Cathbad!).
In Germany, though, I've had varying levels. The big things that ring bells as "non-native" to me are some of the formalisms in speech, some of the vocabulary choices people use, and the rhythm. I don't notice the over-enunciation as much (maybe because I have some degree of it), but some of the vowels, the v-hypercorrection, and rhythm are rather prominent. Even the Germans I know who are/were extremely proficient in English still had something in their speech that identified them as obviously foreign, but what it was varied from person to person.
As for me, people keep telling me my German accent's pretty good (even if it's not Pfalzisch). I have no idea how my French accent is, but we'll find out in a few weeks: the only experience I really had with using French in the "real world" was in Québec. But even my English accent, apparently, confuses some people. And I'm a native speaker.
What do you see in the night?
In search of victims subjects to appear on banknotes. Inquire within.
But the river tripped on her by and by, lapping
as though her heart was brook: Why, why, why! Weh, O weh
I'se so silly to be flowing but I no canna stay!
... Zompist has made it clear many times that that behaviour is not acceptable, as it produces an atmosphere (misogynist, offensive, sexualised) that many find off-putting and unwelcoming. So don't do it.
But the river tripped on her by and by, lapping
as though her heart was brook: Why, why, why! Weh, O weh
I'se so silly to be flowing but I no canna stay!
The guy who runs that site has some videos rattling around with him talking to Japanese friends. I'm not the person to determine whether his accent is spot-on, but I've shown Japanese people to gauge whether he's native-like, and I almost always get freaked out Japanese people by the time I'm done.
The guy who runs that site has some videos rattling around with him talking to Japanese friends. I'm not the person to determine whether his accent is spot-on, but I've shown Japanese people to gauge whether he's native-like, and I almost always get freaked out Japanese people by the time I'm done.
Haha, yeah, that dude. People like him make me think that it isn't really as hard to develop a native-sounding accent as is often believed. I think it's, as Krashen says, mainly about enjoying the language and identifying with its community. If the language is fun to you, and more importantly, if you mentally play the role of native speaker, you'll have a much better accent than someone who identifies more with another community, as that self-image affects the way you treat the language. That would explain why I know Texas-born Hispanics who speak English with a non-native-sounding accent despite most of their English-speaking interactions being with natives, and white people who speak AAVE. It's about the groups you see yourself as part of. In Khatzumoto's (the AJATT guy's) words, "you become Japanese".
Declan wrote:I was just browsing through Omniglot, and I spotted a guest blog post on accents (here). The author says that he knows a lot of people who speak English with no discernable accent, and the same happened to him in numberous different languages but not Dutch. However, I, and a number of the commenters there, find that difficult to believe. I know lots of people who speak English perfectly fluently, and excluding perhaps one person (I've to listen to him again, but I know he uses unusual phrases occasionally) who's lived in Ireland in the same area for 15/20 years, I know no-one who speaks so perfectly that I wouldn't pick them out as a second-language speaker after a minute. Equally in Irish, from the foreigners I know who speak Irish, pretty much none of them can imitate an Irish accent correctly. I've also asked lots of Germans about Irish people (and one French lady) who speak German fluently, and some who have lived in Germany for long periods, and they all said, that after a few minutes, they could eventually tell that the people were Irish and French, although the French lady was the closest to sounding German.
Anecdotally, or even scientifically, have ye, as people who speak lots of languages, encountered people who have managed to get native accents?
By this I'm assuming you're asking about people who started learning the language when they were significantly old, like 20 years old or so? Kids who've managed to get a native-like accent aren't hard to find AT ALL.
I know a man who lived in Honduras for about 10 years totally isolated from English speakers, having started to learn Spanish in his early 20s (he's in his 60s as we speak). When I met him he could've perfectly passed as a Salvadoran as far as I'm concerned (linguistically speaking that is—being more than 2 metres tall, blue-eyed, with such an obvious Danish name, errr...).
Serafín wrote:By this I'm assuming you're asking about people who started learning the language when they were significantly old, like 20 years old or so? Kids who've managed to get a native-like accent aren't hard to find AT ALL.
Yes, and the more isolated they've been the more remarkable I find it. For example, someone who develops a near native accent in Holland compared to someone who's spent years in an English speaking country, I find quite impressive.
[quote]Great wit and madness near abide, and fine a line their bounds divide.[/quote]
My father's aunts emigrated to Australia in their early 20's, and they've all developed thick Australian accents. Even while speaking Maltese, which is their native language, they speak it with an Australian accent.
Serafín wrote:By this I'm assuming you're asking about people who started learning the language when they were significantly old, like 20 years old or so? Kids who've managed to get a native-like accent aren't hard to find AT ALL.
Yes, and the more isolated they've been the more remarkable I find it. For example, someone who develops a near native accent in Holland compared to someone who's spent years in an English speaking country, I find quite impressive.
The amount of English-language media in Holland, particularly aimed at children... I really wouldn't be surprised to meet a Dutch person with a perfect accent.
But the river tripped on her by and by, lapping
as though her heart was brook: Why, why, why! Weh, O weh
I'se so silly to be flowing but I no canna stay!
Simmalti wrote:My father's aunts emigrated to Australia in their early 20's, and they've all developed thick Australian accents. Even while speaking Maltese, which is their native language, they speak it with an Australian accent.
As in "they sound like Australian English speakers speaking Maltese", or as in "they sound like Maltese speakers with an Australian accent"? If that makes sense... Like, is it just a certain Australian-Maltese accent, or is it Maltese with an Australian-English accent?
Astraios wrote:"they sound like Maltese speakers with an Australian accent"
This. Like for example, their "r"s sound very Australian, and so does their intonation (they end their sentences like questions), but their grammar and vocabulary etc is flawless
So you could say that Australian Maltese is different from Maltese Maltese in some of the same ways Australian English is different from English English? What about vowels, like <ej> is pronounced /æi/ or something?
Astraios wrote:So you could say that Australian Maltese is different from Maltese Maltese in some of the same ways Australian English is different from English English?
Well first, most of the Maltese people that emigrated to Australia in the 60s were from small villages that had different dialects than the standard, so the Maltese spoken there, and in other countries like Canada is slightly different. My father's aunts were raised with the standard language though, but they acquired speech patterns that is typically Australian, like the ones I mentioned.
Astraios wrote:What about vowels, like <ej> is pronounced /æi/ or something?
Yes, the vowels did sound a bit different to how a Maltese person would pronounce them.
If I can, I'll try to find a recording of Maltese-Australian accent later today
Simmalti wrote:My father's aunts emigrated to Australia in their early 20's, and they've all developed thick Australian accents. Even while speaking Maltese, which is their native language, they speak it with an Australian accent.
That's not quite what OP is asking about but the same happened to an aunt of mine who moved to Montréal many years ago, nowadays speaking Salvadoran Spanish with a thick Québec French accent, mostly because she lived isolated from other Spanish speakers (there weren't as many as today back in the mid-70s when she moved at all).
candrodor wrote:I also read an article a few years ago, saying (no shit, sherlock) that British English speakers tend to shift to a more AmE for singing. I wonder whether this comes across as "genuine" AmE to Americans?
I personally would rather they sing as if their audience were British, rather than attempting to emulate North American English, with varying results.
I should note that there are certain things which to North Americans typically are an immediate tip-off that the singer or speaker is not North American and which sound very jarring when not expected, such as intrusive r, which in particular seems to be very hard for Englishpeople to avoid.
It would probably be better for Britons to just sing as they would normally and not try to affect sounding North American unless they can both sing and speak North American English consistently without these sorts of things - and even then, why bother in the first place? They are not speaking for a character, so it is not as if they have some character whom they have to be in their speech...
Try telling me Ozzy Osbourne doesn't have an American accent when singing. And he's from Birmingham, England.
candrodor wrote:I also read an article a few years ago, saying (no shit, sherlock) that British English speakers tend to shift to a more AmE for singing. I wonder whether this comes across as "genuine" AmE to Americans?
I personally would rather they sing as if their audience were British, rather than attempting to emulate North American English, with varying results.
I should note that there are certain things which to North Americans typically are an immediate tip-off that the singer or speaker is not North American and which sound very jarring when not expected, such as intrusive r, which in particular seems to be very hard for Englishpeople to avoid.
It would probably be better for Britons to just sing as they would normally and not try to affect sounding North American unless they can both sing and speak North American English consistently without these sorts of things - and even then, why bother in the first place? They are not speaking for a character, so it is not as if they have some character whom they have to be in their speech...
Try telling me Ozzy Osbourne doesn't have an American accent when singing. And he's from Birmingham, England.
Aiďos wrote:
Am I the only GenAm speaker with intrusive R?
Probably not, although it's rare.
I've heard at least one Scottish undoubtedly-rhotic speaker with an intrusive [ɾ]. That was fucking weird. But the word in question was "Wispa", a brand of chocolate, and it's quite possible that the guy had internalised the pronunciation as the same as "whisper", in which case intrusive R makes a lot more sense. It was just a guy calling for a friend in the supermarket, so I didn't get a longer sample of his speech.
Similarly, my Scottish teacher of English at school always pronounced "mirror" as /mɪra/ and "idea" as /aidiər/ – the second, and it's only in this word, is particularly common in Scotland, and it's even more intrusive because it shows up in places where it wouldn't in an English accent with intrusive R (ie, in England the /r/ would only show up before a following vowel, whereas in Scottish accents with this pronunciation of "idea" it shows up anywhere...)
Aiďos wrote:
Am I the only GenAm speaker with intrusive R?
Probably not, although it's rare.
I've heard at least one Scottish undoubtedly-rhotic speaker with an intrusive [ɾ]. That was fucking weird. But the word in question was "Wispa", a brand of chocolate, and it's quite possible that the guy had internalised the pronunciation as the same as "whisper", in which case intrusive R makes a lot more sense. It was just a guy calling for a friend in the supermarket, so I didn't get a longer sample of his speech.
Similarly, my Scottish teacher of English at school always pronounced "mirror" as /mɪra/ and "idea" as /aidiər/ – the second, and it's only in this word, is particularly common in Scotland, and it's even more intrusive because it shows up in places where it wouldn't in an English accent with intrusive R (ie, in England the /r/ would only show up before a following vowel, whereas in Scottish accents with this pronunciation of "idea" it shows up anywhere...)
That reminds me of my team leader out here in Maryland, who speaks GA overall but specifically pronounces idea with an intrusive /r/.
