Accents

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HoskhMatriarch
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Accents

Post by HoskhMatriarch »

Someone told me recently that I have a non-native speaker-sounding accent in English (not in exactly those words, it was more "You have an accent! What kind of accent do you have? *insert foreign language accent guesses rather than expected things like Southern here*). I'm sort of bewildered, because I am a native English speaker, and I'm not Cajun or Chicano or Pennsylvania Dutch or any of the other groups that normally get confused for non-native English speakers. I wasn't even doing any of my accents at the time (sometimes I will randomly talk to people in different accents). I also heard someone else on another forum say that they've been told that they have a non-native speaker-sounding accent by multiple people (I've only gotten that from one person, but if one person says it, probably other people are thinking it).

I was wondering if anyone here had that and what people think would cause that. I suspect it's mostly prosody. I've pretty much taken up thinking in a combination of English and German and I wouldn't be surprised if that slipped into my prosody sometimes, and I know I hyperarticulate pretty bad, which is definitely associated with foreign-soundingness, although I doubt that alone would cause it, since I'm pretty sure stereotypical Received Pronunciation-type accents also hyperarticulate.
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Re: Accents

Post by Αυτοβοτα »

If you're like some nerds, perhaps there are words only ever seen in a book and thus don't pronounce correctly. Also, there's a reason why they're only seen in a book. Little oddities like that can make one sound like a foreign language learner.
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Re: Accents

Post by CatDoom »

I recently heard someone joke that Keanu Reeves was so bad at imitating accents that even his normal speaking voice sounds fake. Maybe its possible that some people have idiolects that diverge enough from the norm that they occasionally strike others as foreign-sounding.

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Re: Accents

Post by alynnidalar »

Αυτοβοτα wrote:If you're like some nerds, perhaps there are words only ever seen in a book and thus don't pronounce correctly. Also, there's a reason why they're only seen in a book. Little oddities like that can make one sound like a foreign language learner.
Me, in a nutshell. To the point that my family still teases me about all the words I used to mispronounce when I was little! (all in good fun, of course :-D) I started reading when I was quite young, so even some fairly common words, I just had never encountered in spoken English (or didn't realize a word I knew the pronunciation of and a word I knew the spelling of where the same word!)
I generally forget to say, so if it's relevant and I don't mention it--I'm from Southern Michigan and speak Inland North American English. Yes, I have the Northern Cities Vowel Shift; no, I don't have the cot-caught merger; and it is called pop.

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Re: Accents

Post by richard1631978 »

alynnidalar wrote:
Αυτοβοτα wrote:If you're like some nerds, perhaps there are words only ever seen in a book and thus don't pronounce correctly. Also, there's a reason why they're only seen in a book. Little oddities like that can make one sound like a foreign language learner.
Me, in a nutshell. To the point that my family still teases me about all the words I used to mispronounce when I was little! (all in good fun, of course :-D) I started reading when I was quite young, so even some fairly common words, I just had never encountered in spoken English (or didn't realize a word I knew the pronunciation of and a word I knew the spelling of where the same word!)
I'm also guilty of only reading word & not knowing how to pronounce them. Also I use some words a lot in speech but don't know how to spell.

I've also had someone think I wasn't a native English speaker, & was really surprised when I told them where I was from, but they were a little worse for drink at the time.

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Re: Accents

Post by Zaarin »

alynnidalar wrote:
Αυτοβοτα wrote:If you're like some nerds, perhaps there are words only ever seen in a book and thus don't pronounce correctly. Also, there's a reason why they're only seen in a book. Little oddities like that can make one sound like a foreign language learner.
Me, in a nutshell. To the point that my family still teases me about all the words I used to mispronounce when I was little! (all in good fun, of course :-D) I started reading when I was quite young, so even some fairly common words, I just had never encountered in spoken English (or didn't realize a word I knew the pronunciation of and a word I knew the spelling of where the same word!)
Yep, me too. Even though I was familiar with their spoken forms, I recall pronouncing chaos [ʧɑˈoʊ̯z] and albeit [ɑlˈbɑɪ̯t]. :oops:

I regularly get pegged as having a Seattle accent, even though I've only been to the Northwest twice (for a total of about three weeks), have lived pretty much everywhere else, and have parents from upstate New York. I guess my particular mixture of features comes across as Northwestern.
Last edited by Zaarin on Fri Dec 18, 2015 7:06 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Accents

Post by Zju »

Zaarin wrote:Yep, me too. Even though I was familiar with their spoken forms, I recall pronouncing chaos [ʧɑˈoʊ̯z] and albeit [ɑlˈbɑɪ̯t].
Funnily before I checked its pronunciation, I always assumed albeit was pronounced [ɑlˈbɑɪ̯t], even before studying German. I still find it strange pronouncing it all be it.
HoskhMatriarch wrote:Someone told me recently that I have a non-native speaker-sounding accent in English...
Tell me about it! At various points people have told me I have Arabic, French, English, Czech or Polish accent. Once I was even mistaken for a Greek.

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Re: Accents

Post by linguoboy »

My accent is so eclectic at this point that it breaks those online accent quizzes. (I think the last one I took placed me in New England--on what basis, I can't imagine. Their second guess was someplace in Texas.)

I had someone tell me to my face that they knew I wasn't from this country. Again, I have no idea what they based that conclusion on. And once a Canadian asked me, "Why are you speaking with an Ottawa accent?" Since at the time I didn't even know what an Ottawa accent sounded like, I had no good response for her.

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Re: Accents

Post by Travis B. »

People have told me on a number of occasions that I have a strong accent - including people here in the Milwaukee area.

However, the times I have been told by Milwaukeeans that I do not sound like I am from the area appear to be due to my speaking with a bit of a lilt when speaking carefully, which is not typical of the dialect here.

On the other hand, which suburb of Milwaukee I am originally from has been picked out correctly by someone I had never met before based solely on my accent on one occasion.
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Re: Accents

Post by Αυτοβοτα »

I'm a military brat so I come by the horrible mix of accent naturally. The Deep South, the Not-So-Deep South, Rocky Mountain states, New England, Pac NW, and Californian parents to boot, one by way of the Midwest. Whee! I'd say my accent is mostly now "trying very hard to never sound like I'm Southern ever again, also I've lived in the Pac NW for a while so let's go with that."
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Re: Accents

Post by Zaarin »

Αυτοβοτα wrote:I'm a military brat so I come by the horrible mix of accent naturally. The Deep South, the Not-So-Deep South, Rocky Mountain states, New England, Pac NW, and Californian parents to boot, one by way of the Midwest. Whee! I'd say my accent is mostly now "trying very hard to never sound like I'm Southern ever again, also I've lived in the Pac NW for a while so let's go with that."
I'm not a military brat, but otherwise sounds like me. My parents are both from rural upstate New York (but my dad moved to Georgia when he was twelve and has a faint Southern accent that he exaggerates when talking on the phone or to people of a lower class--not even joking). I was born in Arizona, moved to Georgia when I was one, moved to South Korea when I was six, moved back to Georgia when I was nine, and moved to South Florida when I was fifteen, in which godforsaken place I am still stuck. Yet the only Southernism I ever picked up is calling soda "Coke" (though, on the other hand, I hate Pepsi, so...); otherwise I have a mishmash of features and lexical terms that dialect quizzes and people both regularly place in the Northwest. Suits me; that's where I'd be if I had my choice.
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Re: Accents

Post by jal »

HoskhMatriarch wrote:Someone told me recently that I have a non-native speaker-sounding accent in English (...) I'm sort of bewildered, because I am a native English speaker (...) I was wondering if anyone here had that and what people think would cause that.
That, I suspect depends on who told you. I assume it was a native speaker of English as well, but from where, and how educated? Since you're, iirc, Australian, I can imagine someone from Britain who doesn't watch Bondi Beach on a regular basis (my go-to source of everything Australian, together with Steve, may he rest in peace) may not be able to pin-point your accent and assume it's foreign.


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Re: Accents

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Zaarin wrote:
Αυτοβοτα wrote:I'm a military brat so I come by the horrible mix of accent naturally. The Deep South, the Not-So-Deep South, Rocky Mountain states, New England, Pac NW, and Californian parents to boot, one by way of the Midwest. Whee! I'd say my accent is mostly now "trying very hard to never sound like I'm Southern ever again, also I've lived in the Pac NW for a while so let's go with that."
I'm not a military brat, but otherwise sounds like me. My parents are both from rural upstate New York (but my dad moved to Georgia when he was twelve and has a faint Southern accent that he exaggerates when talking on the phone or to people of a lower class--not even joking). I was born in Arizona, moved to Georgia when I was one, moved to South Korea when I was six, moved back to Georgia when I was nine, and moved to South Florida when I was fifteen, in which godforsaken place I am still stuck. Yet the only Southernism I ever picked up is calling soda "Coke" (though, on the other hand, I hate Pepsi, so...); otherwise I have a mishmash of features and lexical terms that dialect quizzes and people both regularly place in the Northwest. Suits me; that's where I'd be if I had my choice.
I'm also a military brat, so my accent is rather, uh, all over the place. My parents are from Ohio and West Virginia (Huntington, so not in the countryside), so that sort of accent is normal to my ears, but I grew up in Hawaii, Washington, Texas, North Carolina... and Germany, where we got British television by satellite. British accents are also very normal-sounding to me, and I had no difficulties understanding people when I lived in the UK (granted, in Swansea, so not in one of the very strong accent regions).

I've been placed as being Dutch, German, British even... and sometimes from the South, but I really have no idea where to place my accent. Most people say it's because of the overarticulation of some words (I don't have intervocalic flapped t, for example) and some of my vowels being a little "off" from usual American English varieties.
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Re: Accents

Post by Zaarin »

vampireshark wrote:I don't have intervocalic flapped t, for example
My dad doesn't flap or glottalize his coronals; it sounds so strange to me.
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Re: Accents

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vampireshark wrote:I had no difficulties understanding people when I lived in the UK (granted, in Swansea, so not in one of the very strong accent regions).
Swansea, like all of South Wales has a very strong South Wales accent, with Swansea's being more like a Valleys accent than anything else.
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Re: Accents

Post by linguoboy »

dyolf wrote:
vampireshark wrote:I had no difficulties understanding people when I lived in the UK (granted, in Swansea, so not in one of the very strong accent regions).
Swansea, like all of South Wales has a very strong South Wales accent, with Swansea's being more like a Valleys accent than anything else.
I think there's a marked difference between those UK accents which are essentially the historical product of L2 influence on a more-or-less standard variety (Highland Scotland, most of Wales) and those which have roots going back to Anglo-Saxon times. The latter bleed into dialect, with all sorts of local words and even grammatical constructions which are completely foreign to the standard. The phonology is also more complex, representing a divergent constellation of mergers and shifts rather than a straightforward adaptation of koïné English to a non-English phonological system.

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Re: Accents

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My accent is a weird mix of Welsh and West Country. This is due to living in Gloucestershire and then moving to Mid Wales. My cousins in Gloucestershire have noitced and started teasing me about my Welsh accent... :x

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Sglod wrote:My accent is a weird mix of Welsh and West Country. This is due to living in Gloucestershire and then moving to Mid Wales. My cousins in Gloucestershire have noitced and started teasing me about my Welsh accent... :x
They're in no position to poke fun with a West Country accent. :-D
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Re: Accents

Post by linguoboy »

dyolf wrote:
Sglod wrote:My accent is a weird mix of Welsh and West Country. This is due to living in Gloucestershire and then moving to Mid Wales. My cousins in Gloucestershire have noitced and started teasing me about my Welsh accent... :x
They're in no position to poke fun with a West Country accent. :-D
The West Country...that's where the Hobbits come from, innit? At least I know they speak Westron there.

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Re: Accents

Post by Sglod »

linguoboy wrote:
dyolf wrote:
Sglod wrote:My accent is a weird mix of Welsh and West Country. This is due to living in Gloucestershire and then moving to Mid Wales. My cousins in Gloucestershire have noitced and started teasing me about my Welsh accent... :x
They're in no position to poke fun with a West Country accent. :-D
The West Country...that's where the Hobbits come from, innit? At least I know they speak Westron there.
I think Tolkien based the Shire off The West Midlands; specifically the areas outside Birmingham.

In the West Country, we have a tendency to replace every consonant with ɹ :-D

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Re: Accents

Post by linguoboy »

Sglod wrote:I think Tolkien based the Shire off The West Midlands; specifically the areas outside Birmingham.
I thought they used the Black Speech there.

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Re: Accents

Post by richard1631978 »

linguoboy wrote:
Sglod wrote:I think Tolkien based the Shire off The West Midlands; specifically the areas outside Birmingham.
I thought they used the Black Speech there.
Some of it it known as the Black Country.

The Cotswolds have a Shire like vibe to them.

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Re: Accents

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linguoboy wrote:
dyolf wrote:
vampireshark wrote:I had no difficulties understanding people when I lived in the UK (granted, in Swansea, so not in one of the very strong accent regions).
Swansea, like all of South Wales has a very strong South Wales accent, with Swansea's being more like a Valleys accent than anything else.
I think there's a marked difference between those UK accents which are essentially the historical product of L2 influence on a more-or-less standard variety (Highland Scotland, most of Wales) and those which have roots going back to Anglo-Saxon times. The latter bleed into dialect, with all sorts of local words and even grammatical constructions which are completely foreign to the standard. The phonology is also more complex, representing a divergent constellation of mergers and shifts rather than a straightforward adaptation of koïné English to a non-English phonological system.
That's a bit of what I meant by "strong accent", i.e. not having a lot of specific regionalisms or phonology different from standard RP. Most of what I heard (or remembered hearing; it's been six (!) years since I lived there) seemed just like a slightly different flavor of RP. Nothing too difficult or hard for this American to understand.

I've also been told I sound German when I speak French, though I should ask other opinions on that. At the very least, when I speak French, it isn't foreign enough to most French speakers for them to automatically switch to English, which makes me happy.
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Re: Accents

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vampireshark wrote:I've also been told I sound German when I speak French, though I should ask other opinions on that. At the very least, when I speak French, it isn't foreign enough to most French speakers for them to automatically switch to English, which makes me happy.
Ha! You and me both! I've asked a few times and everyone tells me, well you definitely don't sound American, I can tell you're Germanic but can't tell from where. If I ask people to blindly guess where I'm from they struggle, say Germanic somewhere, but then almost 9/10 times settle on German. It's been such a common answer that it motivates me to learn German since I can apparently pass as German. But like you overall my accent is good so no one switches to English or German or Dutch. On a few occasions I was even mistaken for being a native speaker which I was quite proud of.

My English accent is Midwestern and nothing terribly interesting, although people have made fun of me for adding a dark l in "both". I could never figure out if this was a trend across Michigan, or if not where I would've picked it up.

My husband's father has an inexplicable accent for our region. It sounds almost Southern, very rural, but it does not belong to Michigan where he spent his entire life. Thankfully my husband didn't take up that accent. He has a few features, but they are very limited. They are funny though to my ears, such as random instances of the Pin/Pen merger which is not supposed to take place in Michigan.
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Re: Accents

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dyolf wrote:
Sglod wrote:My accent is a weird mix of Welsh and West Country. This is due to living in Gloucestershire and then moving to Mid Wales. My cousins in Gloucestershire have noitced and started teasing me about my Welsh accent... :x
They're in no position to poke fun with a West Country accent. :-D
Mine floats between posh South East, chavvy Sowf East and gurt lush West Country because of moving around a lot in the last ten years.

I also overcompensate and pronounce free as three occasionally when I'm tired because because of Estuary English influence. I'm not entirely convinced I actually hear the difference between /f/ and /þ/, I just know where they should go. This makes learning Welsh quite hard as I often can't differentiate ff and th or f and dd until I've seen the word written down.

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