Strange accent I heard today

[Das Baron]

I talked to a Korean guy (I assume he was Korean) today at work who replaced the majority of the p's in his speech with f's. For example, at one point he said that his bike squeaks when he fedals. However, his last name was Park, which /p/ he had no trouble pronouncing. I've never heard of an accent like this before, though I've heard of the opposite (i.e. using /p/ instead of /f/, which, I think, is common in the Philippines). My question is this: is this an accent or simply a mistake in his learning of English? Or could it be something like a speech impediment? I'm more inclined to believe it was just his difficulty in learning or speaking English.

[clawgrip]

It's a common form of hypercorrection among Korean speakers, since the Korean language has no [f]. I hear it from time to time.

[Das Baron]

It's a common form of hypercorrection among Korean speakers, since the Korean language has no [f]. I hear it from time to time.

Interesting. I'm gonna keep an ear out now, since the college town I live in has quite a few Korean residents.

[installer_swan]

It probably also has to do with the fact that english initial <p>'s are /p^h/, which makes it sound closer to /f/ to speakers who are used to hearing only unaspirated <p>.

[----]

That doesn't really seem as likely to me, because Korean does have phonemic aspirated stops.

[ol bofosh]

And I don't think using an unaspirated [p] is a big deal in English. I know plenty of Spanish that do.

[Travis B.]

And I don't think using an unaspirated [p] is a big deal in English. I know plenty of Spanish that do.

Except that to many English speakers, unaspirated onset (not intervocalic or final) [p] will very likely be heard as /b/, which will have unaspirated [p] as a very common allophone in that position.

[installer_swan]

That doesn't really seem as likely to me, because Korean does have phonemic aspirated stops.

Yeah, but the thing is english doesn't mark aspiration orthographically, so a lot of L2 learners (especially if their native languages have aspirated/unaspirated pairs which are written differently just learn <p> as the /p/ sound. I (and a lot of Indian English speakers) usually don't aspirate initial p's quite often, which has led to people getting confused since I moved to the US for grad school.

[Travis B.]

Yeah, I would myself find a generalized lack of aspiration quite confusing, in that I would hear things as having only /b d dʒ ɡ/ prevocalically, with there being no prevocalic /p t tʃ k/...

[clawgrip]

I don't think it's so much that they are interpreting [pʰ] as [f], it's that, they know that both /p/ and /f/ exist in English, but they can't tell the difference very well, or they learned these words before they were able to tell the difference, and so they just end up guessing.

[ol bofosh]

And I don't think using an unaspirated [p] is a big deal in English. I know plenty of Spanish that do.

Except that to many English speakers, unaspirated onset (not intervocalic or final) [p] will very likely be heard as /b/, which will have unaspirated [p] as a very common allophone in that position.

Oh, well, I must have quite an enlightened ear then, lol.

[Thry]

And I don't think using an unaspirated [p] is a big deal in English. I know plenty of Spanish that do.

Except that to many English speakers, unaspirated onset (not intervocalic or final) [p] will very likely be heard as /b/, which will have unaspirated [p] as a very common allophone in that position.

Oh, well, I must have quite an enlightenedspanish-friendly ear then, lol.

[tezcatlip0ca]

And I don't think using an unaspirated [p] is a big deal in English. I know plenty of Spanish that do.

Except that to many English speakers, unaspirated onset (not intervocalic or final) [p] will very likely be heard as /b/, which will have unaspirated [p] as a very common allophone in that position.

Oh, well, I must have quite an enlightened ear then, lol.

Enlightened? HERESY! Only AoA can say that word from now on. And AoA must be banned.

[ol bofosh]

Oh, well, I must have quite an enlightenedspanish-friendly ear then, lol.

Yes, Spanish-friendly (and French-friendly), that must be it (to not invoke accusations of heresy, lol)

Bero, lo gue yo no endiendo es bor gué la gende gordan árboles de vino. ¿No hay gue beber el vino?

[Thry]

Bero, lo gue yo no endiendo es bor gué la gende gordan árboles de vino. ¿No hay gue beber el vino?

lol?

[ol bofosh]

"Pero, lo que yo no entiendo es por qué la gente cortan árboles de vino (pino). ¿No hay que beber el vino?"

[Thry]

"Pero, lo que yo no entiendo es por qué la gente cortan árboles de vino (pino). ¿No hay que beber el vino?"

oooh okay, pines. I had read "wine tree" I was like wtf xDDD

But you still have to use singular verbs with gente, even if drunk. People are = la gente es...

[ol bofosh]

But you still have to use singular verbs with gente, even if drunk. People are = la gente es...

Maldita sea... otra vez. Es difícil. I'll console myself that some Spaniards have the opposite problem: "The people is..." I heard not so long ago.

[finlay]

And I don't think using an unaspirated [p] is a big deal in English. I know plenty of Spanish that do.

Except that to many English speakers, unaspirated onset (not intervocalic or final) [p] will very likely be heard as /b/, which will have unaspirated [p] as a very common allophone in that position.

It's ok when they're actually talking connectedly, but I remember teaching a group of Spanish, and one exercise had a quiz whose answers on each question were either "P" or "B", and I had a very hard time understanding which one they were saying – I had to ask them to repeat several times to make sure. Couple that with the fact that they can't distinguish B and V and it gets very confusing.

And there was another guy who kept saying "down" instead of "town"...

I don't normally have this problem with Japanese speakers in lessons; I think their P is very lightly aspirated as it is.

[ol bofosh]

[quote="finlay]And there was another guy who kept saying "down" instead of "town"...[/quote]

Petula Clark's "Downtown" must be quite funny then... lol.

[Thry]

I'll console myself that some Spaniards have the opposite problem: "The people is..." I heard not so long ago.

oho, yes we do xD. Pípol is beri bá.

[Ambrisio]

I talked to a Korean guy (I assume he was Korean) today at work who replaced the majority of the p's in his speech with f's.

This is how history repeats itself.