Are foreign accents a reflection of identity?
October 21st, 2008
I’m trying to understand self-identity and native accents in a foreign country.
My friend Aurelie from Paris has a beautiful French accent, so when she orders a ham sandwich in English it sounds like, “Allo, good I ove an om sondweech, pleece?” Even though she’s lived in New York for 15 years, her accent is as strong as ever.
When I was in Paris, I met a man who’d been living there 20 years, but still had this strong American cowboy twang when he’d say, “Donny-mwa un sandwich doo jam-bone, see voo play.”
(Sorry - it’s hard to type accents.)
When I heard the ugly American accent speaking French, I thought, “Can’t you hear yourself? Can’t you hear you sound nothing like them? You’re saying it all wrong!” He’s saying the correct syllables, but with the wrong accent it sounds ridiculous.
Then I thought of my friend Aurelie, and realized it’s no different.
This guy may be in France, but obviously holds strongly to his identity as an American, so he’ll say the words correctly, but keep the American twang that he knows as his voice. Aurelie still clearly identifies as French, just living in New York for now.
If you asked either of them to imitate a native, they can pull off a convincing American or French accent, but do it mockingly and laugh afterwards, because “that’s not me!”
Then I think of my ex from Sweden, who moved to America to be with me. When we first met, she had a strong accent, but almost immediately her accent became totally 100% California, which matched her self-image as a girl who was born in Sweden but is quite American now.
Does Governor Schwartzenegger still feel Austrian? Or is he just living up to the public image of him with his strong accent, now, where changing would feel ridiculous?
I don’t know much besides English. A tiny bit of French, Japanese, Spanish, and Mandarin. But it seems the first thing I’d want to do with my first 100 words is to imitate the accent completely, to get that sound in my mouth, to sound as native as I can, which would build my identity and confidence of, “I don’t know much yet - but I sound good,” - then take that confidence to learn new words.
More succinctly put : identity first, words second.
Anyone reading this living in a country where you have a strong foreign accent?
Anyone successfully changed your original accent to sound like the natives in your new home?
Any insight into this accent-identity thing or accent-adoption thing? Please leave a comment, below, if you have a minute. I’m really curious about this.
I moved to the states when I was 12 and spoke Lebanese and German. Born in Lebanon, we moved to West Berlin in 1972 at the age of 1. I spoke fluent German growing up and Lebanese just because my parents spoke it.
English is my third language and I learned it for 2 years before we actually emigrated to the US on July 5th 1983. By the time I took my first class in 7th grade (sometime in August), I had no accent to speak of. However, I spoke the “Queens English” which made my teachers just think I was odd (especially the first time I asked for an eraser, which in england is a “rubber”).
I totally agree with “identity first, words second”. That’s exactly how it was.
Maybe it depends on the country. I lived in Australia for a while (I am from the US). I recall reading somewhere that foreigners should not try to feign an Aussie accent while Down Under as you often end up sounding silly. I also recall the British not being too impressed when Madonna adopted a British accent.
Maybe us yanks are unusual in that we find it flattering when someone moves here and actually attempts to sound like us.
Great question. Accents are learned, and like many other auditory skills (perfect pitch, pronouncing the letter ‘r’, etc.), there’s a window of time in which it can be developed easily. If you have an exceptional ear and some patience, you can develop an accent after that, but it’s difficult for most people.
Accents are (largely) the result of trying to map one set of phonetics onto another (different language, region, etc). In Spanish, for example, there is no sound like the English “th”. People for whom Spanish is a first language often use the spanish ending-d-sound instead (like in “cid” or “navidad”), but it’s a harder sound than English speakers expect. Conversely, vowels are much narrower in Spanish than they are in English, and many English speakers attempting Spanish use dipthongs or longer vowel sounds than native Spanish speakers would normally expect. This type of phonetic interpolation happens on a smaller scale region-by-region and town-by-town: people choose the closest sound in their “sound-palette” to the word or sound they’re trying to say.
Even though the brain’s accent wiring is very difficult to change without conscious effort, occasionally it can happen as a result of brain damage. For an interesting read, look into Foreign Accent Syndrome
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Accent_Syndrome
Wow! Thanks guys! Fascinating responses already. I really appreciate it.
Hi Derek,
As you mayy remember, I still have a strong French accent despite having been in the US since 1970 (with a 7 year break in Sweden in between). Past one’s early teenage years, it takes a lot of effort to lose the accent (especially for men, for some reason) and for many people it just does not come up as a priority until it’s much too late.
I personally hate my accent, and would dearly be rid of it, but it would probably be hopeless to even try, especially since I am pitch deaf and thus can’t use the normal auditory feedback (I hear it’s wrong, but I don’t hear why.)
Funny thing, though, is that I have a noticeable American accent in Swedish … and in French!
This is more of an observation… I have a Swedish friend who when I first met her, had some of her accent. Now more than a year later, it’s almost completely gone. She sounds completely Canadian… except when she gets excited about something, then the subtle unconscious European flavours emerge. Kinda cute actually.
My father, Croatian, speaks his native language formally, and as I grew up understanding it. However, he grew up in an area (Istra) where the dialect is very strong, and when he talks with a friend who also grew up there, I have to really listen to even understand them. It’s like he put in a different tongue to speak with really… The words are all still there, but so differently coloured the ears have to adjust before it becomes clear again. I find it all fascinating… and your post reminds me to get back into learning some more Spanish.
Accents even exist within one country. I was born in the north - west of Germany. Although there is also a little accent, the spoken language is pretty much like written official German.
Now I live in a small village close to the Bavarian alps. At first I had a hard time understanding what was spoken. Not only an accent, but completely new words and idioms. But like you, Derek, I pick up things fast and try to become one with my surrounding. When I talk to our folks here, I use their language and still learn new expressions. It is fun and has helps me a lot, it gives me more support and friendship.
When I talk to my brother on the phone, I switch to my “native” language without noticing, although I get the feeling that he has an accent now.
I moved to California 1990, from Australia via Sweden, but I’m actually from Finland and one of the few Swedish-speaking Finns. So my head is full of languages and dialects of all kinds.
When I moved here I tried to sound more American, but as mentioned, it is not me, rather me pretending to be someone else, so I think what kicked in was a sense of self-preservation and identity resulting in just allowing the original language(s) to reflect the tonality of English.
There’s of course an exception if I sing on stage, or something similar.
Regarding accents within the same language - I’m a Kiwi living in the UK. I happen to think I have a very neutral accent - but nobody who hears my voice seems to agree.
Most Brits can at least tell I’m antipodean though most guess Australia (ALWAYS guess New Zealand first if you’re not sure). Most kiwis think I’ve become Anglicised in my accent. People I work closely with claim that my accent has ’softened’ - but that I get it back (along with some phrases I don’t ordinarily use) when talking to other kiwis.
It’s part habit, and part adaptive, just as I suspect that even if I tried to speak French with as much of a French accent as I could muster, some shape my mouth makes after 40 years of habituation would give me away.
My father was born in Glasgow and moved to NZ when he was 13. He still has a fairly pronounced Scottish accent, though most Scots don’t hear it that way…
My friend Clutch has one Scottish accent when he’s here in Birmingham, where he lives - and another, more impenetrable one when he’s back ‘home’ with his family.
It’s fascinating stuff.
The earlier the better is the rule of thumb for accents. I started “learning” French at the age of six and continued through today (a bit older than six now). Because of the early start singing songs, hearing stories (read to me by a native French speaker), etc. I am able to pronounce French words as a native (it has helped me out of more than one jam, given the reputation the US president has given Americans abroad). Learning a language at this level is possible much later in life, but it makes for a grueling process unless you’re gifted.
I’m currently trying to pick up Polish in order to better communicate with my girlfriend’s family. However, my ear and mouth are trained to French and English (US born). There are sounds in the Polish language that make my mouth move in very, very foreign directions. However, instead of concentrating on the vocabulary, I’m focusing first on these sounds because I’ve found no matter what country you’re in, if you make an attempt to speak the local language correctly, (it is more about sound than grammar or vocab), the natives appreciate it.
Now living in the UK, I’m all twisted up in the game and out of sorts. Like French in France vs French in Quebec, what is spoken in the UK is not always the same English. I could go on for hours… Learning languages is one of the best things you can do with your time. Thanks for starting this, Derek.
Oh, and to actually answer your question: Are foreign accents a reflection of identity? I think that depends on the speaker. Certainly people identify with an accent and they can allow themselves to be defined by this accent, but how often is this not a choice, but a matter of just not being able to adjust their language to the “local” language? Good or bad, whether we like it or not, I think our accents define us for others, though without necessarily reflecting our identity.
I was brought up bi-lingual (French first, then English when I started nursery school), but I have lived in England all my life. When I speak French I hear my English accent come out from time to time and it really annoys me because I feel that it’s something that’s almost beyond my control. I have to concentrate really hard to keep the correct intonation in my head. As a singer specialising in French repertoire, I try my hardest to sound like a convincing native French speaker, and I am sure that if I spent a year in France, the English accent would disappear completely. My mother, on the other hand, has never lost (or even toned down) her French accent, even though she’s lived in England from the age of 25 and is now 85.
I am convinced, however, that the various sets of facial muscles are used differently for different accents. A good ear is essential, but practice in using the right muscle coordination to reproduce the vowels and consonants that the ear hears is also needed to achieve proficiency. Those who are unable to analyse what they hear and find a way of reproducing those sounds will not be successful. It takes a conscious effort, and most people probably can’t be bothered.
The answer to your question is, obviously, yes. But, then the next question would be: do you want to make that accent part of your identity? In my case, the answer is no. I don’t live abroad, but I work very hard to ensure that my vocals do not sound like a Dutchman trying to speak English (even though that is what I’m really doing), because I feel the accent would detract from my message and my music.
To the age of 10 years i went to common primary school in Kent, SE England where everyone spoke in a vaguely eastend london accent.. Then i went to a private school where everyone sounded like David Cameron.. when i left school i lived in south-east London where everyone sounded like dell-boy from only fools and horses.. the results are my accent is a mixture of all that.. i can drift between down right common or horay henry posh.. i’ve tried adapting it and i hate hearing my own voice, eventually i just accepted how i speak..
But everytime i go to the states i tend to americanise my voice with phrases that seem to be more welcoming.. “Hey, how are you doing” instead of “alright mate”.. etc.. despite this everyone always think i’m Australian.. why is this? why do some AMericans not tell the difference between Australians and Brits..
A friend of mine was a salesman who had work in Europe, mainly in France.. he learnt French by having to converse with the French.. And he was told not to try and adopt the French accent, there was no point he was told.. just speak the words in your normal accent, you will be understood.. do not, they said, try and speak french like you are taught at school, because Parisian does’nt work when your doing business in Lille.. whatever that means :/
When I was visiting northern England, I mentioned how I had seen the castle in ‘Edin-bra’ and they were pleasantly surprised: “You said it correctly! Most Americans say ‘Edin-burrow.’” Which got me to thinking: When you’re in the UK almost everyone says ‘Edin-bra’ while many other words are pronounced differently depending on the location/dialect. Without realizing it, I had adopted the “commonly pronounced” words but kept my American accent for all others, because it would have felt like I was doing a bad Monty Python impression otherwise.
My mind still grates when I hear fellow Americans say the classic German sportscar as ‘Porsh’ rather than the Germanic ‘Por-shuh’ because I interpret that as arrogance, as Germans say ‘Por-shuh.’ It’s a German word, so say it in the German way!
Now I’m sure if I thought a little more, I’d find all sorts of contradictions in my own logic, so I’ll stop there.
(Then there’s the topic about how many UK singers sound American when they sing. I doubt it comes out that way naturally. Are they trying to “sell” their voices to the larger American audience? Why does Bono keep coming to mind?)
I’ve lived in Germany for 25 years and most people say I don’t have an accent and never did (I’m sometimes confused for Dutch, but NEVER for American). In my experience, it’s not something a person can control: you either have an ear for languages, in which case you lose your accent, or you don’t, in which case you may speak the foreign language perfectly, but always with an accent. I once had two American friends who both had very strong American accents when they spoke German: both were also tone deaf. Coincidence?
Another thing: When I return home to the states, my sister says I talk funny. But after a week or two, I’ve picked up my old way of talking. If I’m in England for awhile, I start to adopt an English accent, in Scotland a Scottish. Only a tiny bit, but I hear it. It’s me ears, blokes! I canna help it!
Identity is identity, and I think it’s impossible to fully adopt a new culture. When I was 20 I moved to Brazil, absolutely fascinated by brazilian music and determined to get inside of it. While there, I learned to speak portuguese and sang many, many brazilian songs. One happy effect of singing a lot was that my foreign accent all but disappeared - locals started assuming that I was simply from another part of Brazil and not a foreigner. I got to really blend in for awhile and get to know the real Brazil, but after 1 1/2 years I had to admit that I’m just not brazilian and come back to the states. There’s no place like home - we share so much information with each other through our language. In a conversation with a stranger we’d bond over random references to figures like Dan Rather, Bogart, Chuck D, the Dukes of Hazzard or Tom and Jerry. Other cultures have their own set of references that you can’t penetrate if you didn’t spend your childhood in that country. Since my brazilian adventure I’ve traveled a lot more, but with less pretense at trying to adopt the local accent. I think it shows more respect to admit a cultural divide and to work around it, rather than try and erase it.
At LibriVox.org we occasionally get people saying, “the accents are to strong, people should go for a mid-Ohio accent, that is the broadcast standard.” Or BCC standard I guess.
My take has always been: Read it the way you talk, let’s have some humanity in this audioliterature.
What could be better than a Jewish Brooklyn grandmother reading Jane Austen? Or a young girlish American reading Heart of Darkness?
Bliss.
No scientific backing, but I would guess that it is far more to do with an identity thing.
As a general observation I have found that the earlier a move takes place in a person’s life, the more they lose the original accent.
I am live in England & have an English accent, although I’m not sure that I really feel that it’s an incredibly strong part of my identity. Wonder what would be considered a neutral accent on a global scale?
Hm, I think it may be important to make the distinction between the speaker’s identity and the listener’s perception! I have a bit of a twang so I couldn’t help but notice that you called a twang an “ugly American accent” (don’t worry, no offense taken - I’m used to it! - but just be aware that many of us consider it to be quite melodious, not ugly
Most Americans consider the French accent to be beautiful - but I’d wager that in France there are accents traditionally associated with the upper class, probably considered beautiful (and perhaps snooty), and low-class accents, probably considered ugly. I know that’s certainly the case in Italy.
It’s all a matter of perspective.
That said, my wife studied French in high school and was able to pass for a native when she visited France(!). But I know someone else who has been living in Australia for 40 years, and she has only managed to change her accent to the point that she sounds Australian to Americans but American to Australians. Go figure
I think you have more luck learning different phonemes if you start early.
Interesting topic, Derek. I’m with Faith on this that you either “have an ear for languages, in which case you lose your accent, or you don’t.” There’s a certain sensitivity that you acquire, sort of empathic listening skills to detect the nuances. When I learned Mandarin I needed to listen for a long time, before I could even utter some meaningful sentences. In this language, if you don’t get the nuances right, you could be in big trouble!
My accent and sentence construction changes depending on who I’m hanging out with. When I was in Thailand for a month, I even developed a Thai accent on my English!
The funny thing is, most people I’m with don’t even notice that I’ve picked up their accent.
I am Indian and speak English with an Indian accent, to be precise a south-indian accent. Many years of working in the UK reduced this to a minimum but the flavor remains still.
I don’t think it was a question of identity for me, otherwise I should think I have lost my Indian-ness…
I believe a language should be spoken like the natives do. The ideas contained in your speech can emphasize your identity, should not matter in which accent these ideas are vocalized.
Wow Derek, you have quite an international following.
I am a Japanese native, so I obviously have an accent. But I also end up sounding closer (though never nailing it) to the accent I’m surrounded by. It’s an unconscious thing. I sound what I hear — or should I say, I adapt my identity to the particular area I live in? I used to live in Austin, Texas and now I live in Minnesota. I’m sure I’ll adapt a bit of British accents if I lived in UK.
I am consciously trying to diminish my accent, too, mainly because I don’t want my accent to come through when I’m singing. With Japanese accents, we can sound rather child-like — and it just doesn’t go well with artsy nature of my lyrics. If I could switch the accent “off” when I’m singing, then I am happy with how I speak, with accents and all, as I have gotten good enough where people understand me most of the time. I’ve been living in States for over 16 years, though. It didn’t happen over night, my fluency.
ari
I don’t know how to answer your question - it’s tricky. I do wonder too, if the way people hear things both helps/hinders their attempt at pronunciation. Some are good with imitating accents, others - not so much. My friend Barbara came to live with me in high school - from Italy. She had an ability to erase her Italian accent when she would speak AMERICAN (different than English to my ear) and she sounded like an all American girl. However, sometimes, some other unidentifiable accent would come through too (i quietly laughed a LOT). I didn’t try to correct her too much as I didn’t want her to be intimidated to speak (American), but I did get hung up on some words, so I would really try to correct her - and while she thought she was getting it right - she simply was not. For example, in trying to teach her the word SLEEP - I failed miserably. She would pronounce it ZLEEP. I’d repeat it - she’s come back at me with ZLEEP again. I’d hiss at her SSSSSSS and she buzzed at me ZZZZZZ. She could NOT hear the difference. So…her accent, in spite of her effort, came through. Long story short - even the best attempts at articulating like a native might sometimes, just not be possible. I think I realized that people’s auditory processing gets in the way of perfecting an accent.
On a side note, English (American) is my second language - all learned as a child. I don’t have an Italian accent when I speak English, and I don’t have an English accent when I speak Italilan. HOWEVER - my grammar often defaults to Italian when I speak English - that’s when I’m in jeopardy of being discovered - or I sound completely uneducated. I’m getting better at catching myself - but really, I could use a verbal editor because I slip up a lot and get corrected by people that know I’m bi-lingual and usually, it’s in the form of “poke fun of Gia.”
Hi Derek!
I am from France and I have lived in New York for the past 4 years.
The question of accents is very strange to me. I have learned English in school like every other kid in France. I was terrible at learning the language so I wasn’t even asking myself any questions about an accent. I had a British teacher who desperately tried to make me sound like him but I just did not get it.
Today, most people don’t even notice an accent when I speak English or they hear a little something but they don’t really know where it is from. And it does give me a sense of identity in the US. I am much more able to feel like I am a part of the city, of the culture. People share more easily with me because they are not scared that I am not going to understand what they are telling me, or that I don’t have the references in the culture to understand. Not that people who have an accent wouldn’t understand, it is just that people tend to imagine that if you don’t speak like them, you are not going to understand.
You learn so much about a mentality of a country through their language. French likes to take every detour possible to explain something, it is all about the way you say it, about “word decoration”. English is simple and straight to the point!
The way it worked for me was really through music. I wanted to sing in English and I had a teacher who corrected me all the time. It is easier to learn in a song because I think learning an accent is like learning a melody, and a song also breaks it down slowly and you repeat it a lot so you have time to repeat the same words over and it sinks in.
In my opinion, the hardest thing to learn in English for a foreigner is not how to pronounce certain sounds and vowels, it is to learn where to put the emphasis on a word. In French, every syllable has the same length, volume etc. We say “an a-me-ri-can”, you say “an a-ME-ri-can” with and emphasis on the “ME”. That is something you can only learn. There aren’t really rules about it and it would be too complicated to think of a rule anyway. So today, the times I still get caught as a foreigner is when I say a word I don’t use every day and I put the emphasis on the wrong syllable.
I think the major thing to really get the accent is to try. I used to feel really stupid trying to sound like an American because I felt it sounded stupid in my mouth, like I was trying too hard and I was worried people would think that I am a snob. Now that it is obvious for me, I can’t imagine going back to a thick French accent, except when I’m trying to be funny!
Actually, when I met Arnold he was talking in German to the wait staff at a restaraunt in Santa Monica. So Ah-nold probably still considers himself to be Ger-man.
This is very interesting. I am pretty sure identity has a lot of effect on the words & accent. I have 2 stories to share:
1. Last year when I was learning ‘Arabic’. My teacher who has been teaching from the past 7 years made an insightful comment. He also said that someone needs to research this. His theory was this:
As students while learning Arabic, we would try to say Arabic words and they would perfectly sound ok and close to the original to each of us - but to our teacher they were not. But we would all be so sure of it. Then he would play the audio/video of those words and we would be surprised as to how off the track we were.
All the time while repeating the words we all were so confident and believed that each of us spoke with exact Arabic accent.
Your insightful observation reminds me about it. May be each of our identities are so dominant that we are not even able to hear how we sound in foreign language.
2. Sangita (my wife) has uncanny ability to switch between American accent & Indian accent. She sounds totally different when she talks to American (whether Indian or non Indian) people and she has a thick Indian accent which kicks in when she talks to people from India. This is done very automatically and she doesn’t even realized it until we spent some time together in India last year.
May be it’s her Indian personality that takes charge as she sees Indian people or hears Indian accent.
Very very interesting.
Thanks for the amazing replies, everyone! Very very interesting.
By the way, the image (above) of Dick Van Dyke from Mary Poppins was chosen because he put on the worst British accent ever.
One of the major milestones in my life was moving from Dallas, TX, where I grew up, to Brooklyn, NY. I arrived with a pretty thick Texas accent. But I loved the Brooklyn accents I heard and would follow folks around Prospect Park listening to them talk, and very quietly imitating their accents. After several months of this I found that a Texas accent and a Brooklyn accent are 180 degrees out of phase with each other and I wound up with no accent.
I live in Atlanta now and the Southern accent has crept back in;^)
What about our British actors invading you drama series.. like Hugh Lawrie in ‘house’ and Eddy izard in that other show.. is it just us, or can Americans also spot the dodgy american accents.. ??
I’m in Brazil right now on a storytelling tour, and though I only speak a little Portuguese, I try very hard to get the sounds right. It seems like a mark of respect.
I lived in Bulgaria in the early 80s. I spent a lot of time listening and imitating, working at not having an American accent. One night, I dreamed in Bulgarian–but I didn’t understand a word! I was learning the music of the language first. Though my grammar was never the best, because I got the intonation and phonemes right, people understood me. A Belgian friend spoke grammatically correct Bulgarian, but her intonation was off and people would give her that extremely quizzical look. Huh?
My family and I moved to Bombay, India when was 5, as soon as my brother was born. I stuck out like a sore thumb for the first three years and quickly adapted to the ‘Bombay Indian’ accent to avoid the attention I got whenever I opened my mouth (or so it seems in hindsight). That plan backfired for a while: the same kids who ribbed on me for having an American accent ended up ribbing on me for trying to sound ‘Indian’. But I knew it was for a short time and a small price to pay to finally ‘fit in’ in my mind. So I had a very palpable sense of not identifying with either culture for a long time.
I don’t have my indian accent in the States. Been here since I came back when I was 19 (I’m 34).
But I never really ‘lost’ it. I believe it’s since I changed it very consciously.
sorry for this long reply, hope is worth your time.
I’ve been told that I was born in Spain in 1978. 24 years later, when I decided to come to the UK, I couldn’t even imagine that I was going to go through a second-language-acquisition trauma that would put my take on things upside-down. I felt trapped in the mind of a monkey for many, many months but it felt like centuries (no disrespect for monkeys, often way more interesting than most humans). I can still remember how my heart’s beats per minute rate would double when having to answer the phone in the photo lab I used to work in. The more transducers in the chain (foreign vocal cords resonating somewhere distant—telephone1—photo lab’s telephone—my big ears/small brain) the less I would get.
When functioning in “native mode”, there are forces pulling from innumerable angles that we take for granted and use to our advantage (ability to produce sounds, grammatical perfection, correct intonation, shared code of cultural references, understood social behavior patterns….). When in “foreign mode” it all loses its always-available, liquid quality. There’s this solid barrier now forcing us to get by in a “beta version” that very often implies distortion (in the impression generated in others) and restriction (in the set of social interactions). Here they call it broken English (this notion could do for a whole book on the subject). Listening skills are obviously a must, but motor skills are even more important. I am a musician and sound engineer myself and it took me ages to speak fluently and with a good enough intonation (incredibly important to be understood, at least here in England) but I still have a noticeable accent that perhaps I could not totally erase even if I tried hard to (i.e. taking lessons on diction and phonetics to further train my muscles and knowledge).
Identity is a funny construct, irrelevant if seen with enough perspective, but at the core of who we think we are at a given time if seen under some ordinary, day to day lens. There probably are people that use their foreign language from an identity-conscious perspective, but I think that the choice is usually not that much of a choice, but mostly determined by whoever’s different listening/muscular/commitment abilities.
In other words, many of the so called personality “choices” could well be the result of not having been able to overcome the “foreign mode”, a sort of make up we put to cover this fact up. Temporarily losing the comfort of our native environment can be a source of constant learning and antidote for many illnesses, but it can be the exact opposite too.
Once realization of how trivial and random our origin is comes (whose vagina did you roll down into the world from and does it matter that much?) the importance of that same fact gets amplified into a mysterious paradox: try to stare at yourself on a mirror seriously asking “who am I”, and see how long it takes for a panic attack or reality-meltdown-event to happen.
This is why in my opinion, letting the wrong ideas get hold of one’s belief system (perhaps even the need of a belief system itself), is a dangerous thing for which there’s not enough prevention yet. Identity might be one of them.
Interesting point Derek.
Well, I ‘tailor’ my accent depending on the social context. When I play the blues in a club in Alabama, nobody notices any accent. When I am in Austin and speak about politics, I dial in the French accent.
It is a matter of knowing when exoticism is appropriate and when it is not, I guess…
When you have a strong foreign accent, whatever you do, you are always first seen as an ambassador of your country of origin…sometimes you don’t want your nationality to be the main defining parameter of your identity..and sometimes you do..
What is great in the U.S of A is that you can be a governor of California and have a foreign accent…try that in a European country !
I might add that to be American is not defined by ethnicity, nor by race nor by religion, not even by your mother langage…all the fellows Americans have ancesters who used to speak with a foreign accent at some point; so, to be an immigrant here in the US with a strong accent is probably easier than in a European country..America is a concept of freedom, not ethnic group, and that’s why it is THE BEST COUNTRY ON THE PLANET.
Cheers guys !
Hi Derek, first of all, I’ve read your ebook and it was great. I’m not a musician, but an aspiring author and it helped me loads.
Second of all I’m a yoga teacher. I teach people how to feel their body and how to lead it into doing what we want it to do. I think language, saying thinks is another way of using the body (the tongue and mouth) to express something.
In line with a few of the other comments above, I think one key is learning to truly hear ourselves as we speak. Not what we think we are saying but what we are actually saying. Using recording instruments is an aid to this. If we use our recorded voice to calibrate what we think we hear with what we are actually saying we may be able to better mimic the accent we are trying to learn.
I spent some time learning mandarin (I live in Taiwan right now) and for the speaking side of it, if you have a good teacher who is able to explain tongue positions in plane language (rather than linguist techno speak) it is actually pretty easy to practice the sounds of a language.
I think those would be the keys to learning to get speak like a native. It isn’t so much about having a window of opportunity as it is about taking the time to learn to listen to how we really sound and also learning to exercise the muscles we use to speak with, (and exercise them correclty.)
The key in both cases, (both sensing and doing) is to notice what we are doing.
I think this applies in anything we do if we want to do it well weather learning to play music or sports or do yoga or tai ji.
sincerely Neil
(oh yes, and thanks for the book list too, i’ll have to write another response about that one)
I grew up in Germany and moved to the states in 93. First NYC than LA. I learned English in school but wasn’t confident to speak a lot when I first moved to NY. I listened to the New Yorkers talk and tried to sound like them. People would always ask me where I’m from but don’t always detect it’s German which was kind of cool. I personally don’t hear it but it’s always the first thing people ask me after they hear me talk. One thing they always tell me is “Please don’t ever lose it”. Now I’m just being myself instead of trying to sound American. From my own experience, Americans love Accents now I actually like my accent to.
Jacqueline
Hey Derek, this is interesting! I’ve wondered about the same thing many times…like when my Spanish teacher was an American who butchered the pronunciation of words.
I am with you in that I create an identity with the culture I’m trying to learn. I want to understand it, to feel that I can participate in it and be accepted (by having an accent equal to the natives).
I speak Spanish fluently and speak with a Mexican accent because I imitated those who I learned from working in restaurants in AZ. When I was learning some Arabic I imitated the accent of the Lebanese people I worked with.
The reason for this…I wanted to fit in to their cultural profile. It really seems to make a difference too. In both language cases my friends would say ‘hey Andrew speaks Arabic’ (or Spanish) to their friends and want me to show them. This would create a warm reaction from the person and they would be impressed and want to talk more with me in their native tongue.
I think that people very much identify with their nationality. Some people just identify with it so much that they couldn’t or wouldn’t want to be able to be a cameleon in different cultural settings. It would be a betrayal of who they are. I guess I’ve never identified myself as being one thing. I want to be a shape-shifter and be able to adapt to whatever scenario I may find myself in.
That’s my two cents…
Wow, this is a great topic! I’m a singer/voice teacher specializing in Eastern European folk music, so this is an area close to my heart–I love the details of language! What I’ve been told by linguists is that your soft palette (the part behind the roof of your mouth that itches when you experience allergies) forms by the time you’re 7, and its shape is dependent upon your first language and what version/dialect (even accent) is spoken in your direct environment. Although your soft palette doesn’t change a whole lot once its shaped, how you use it relative to your speech can. This explains why people–including many who have commented here–can take on a different accent later in life; environment is a strong factor in that kind of shift. Second most important, though, is an ear for that change (which also explains why some folks keep the same accent, no matter where they live). Tuning your ear to a sound makes you aware of it; your body determines how it will process it.
Though I was born in the States, I spent the first 6 years of my life speaking only Ukrainian, so my accent as a young child was pretty thick. It softened the more time I spent with playmates from Slovakia, and even more once I started going to school and learning English. Hearing me speak now, you’d never know that English is my second language–I’m about as Midwestern as you can get. But when I learn new languages (French, Spanish, Dutch, Bulgarian, etc.), I find that my natural instinct is to pronounce things as a Ukrainian would…until I’ve tuned my ear to the language in question and really made an effort to create those new sounds.
Isn’t language fun?
Being a diplomatic child I lived in Yemen, Kenya, India, Libya and then finally at the age of 15 I moved to the UK to stay here until now…and even with that I spent time living in Edinburgh and Newcastle, both places with their own distinct accents.
I don’t even know what my accent sounds like really, it’s totally unique…it’s mostly London though now with twangs of all the other ones…I thoroughly use the words “aye” and “wee” as I love them
I moved to the States 13 years ago when i was 24 and truly worked hard learning slang trying to get rid of my Slovak accent. Then one day someone said to me “all Americans are trying to be different, you have this accent that makes everyone remember you…” so i relaxed about it. Some people can fake it, some are not as good at it. Credit to all those that can learn a second language, accent or not. And as for the identity, nationality is just a small part of the package.
The comments about facial muscles and soft palate formation in childhood are very interesting. In my own case, my parents loved French and sent my brothers and me to a French-English bilingual private school from age 5 to 11. I also briefly attended school in France in 7th grade, which cemented the language and accent — from that point, I was said to have a perfect accent.
However, I always wanted to speak Spanish, a far more useful language here in California (and far more common now than when I was a child). I studied it in college and then met and married a Mexican. For a few years I had a French accent in Spanish. The interesting thing is, through the process of immersion with my husband's culture and family I improved my fluency and eventually adopted a perfect low-class (there are more polite ways to say it, such as low-register) Mexican accent, replete with swear words that only a man would say.
Then I got a job working on a Spanish-language publication for doctors. Suddenly I had to work very hard (my husband being the first to point it out and tutor me) to stop swearing like a sailor (didn't bother me in Spanish) and speak less street-style. Street-level Spanish from central Mexico is very sing-song. I still speak that way (now my children do too) but at least I have a vocabulary and conscious ability to sound more professional if necessary. Interestingly, I hate the upper-class female Mexican accent, which is the equivalent of East Coast American lock-jaw.
I could go on and on… In summary: Immersion is crucial to learning an accent. Accents reflect regions, class and education, so there are advantages and disadvantages to perfecting one. When you have a more generic accent, as in how I speak Portuguese with a muted Mexican accent, you avoid to some extent the regional animosities of sounding like a Carioca or Paulista or whatever.
And we didn't really get into the musical aspects…
Hey Derek,
I came across your website by accident…Here is my experience with English accent…I was born in Beijing in 1980, my mother tongue is Mandarin… I started learning English at age of 15, our teacher at the time was very strict, she made sure we pronounced our words accurately and as native like as possible (we were actually being divided into different classes based on what accent we want to adopt, American or British..), I remembered it was so hard to speak English right at the beginning, then slowly I got the hang of it, I was in the American Accent class by the way…at age of 18, I moved to Kuala Lumpur Malaysia for my university education, my teachers in Malaysia thought I was from the US because of my accent, which was kind of funny…after living there for 3 years, I could speak English like Malaysians if I want to, I try to imitate their accent, try to sound like them, so that I don't stand out among my Malaysian friends…
Now I've lived in Canada for over 5 years, this is now my country to call home… after these many years living here, I still have a mild accent when I speak English…Canadian native English speakers could still tell I have a little bit of an accent, but they just can't tell where I am from by just hearing me speak…many even think I was born and raised here…I am doing mortgage sales in a bank, my accent never seem to get in the way…People understands and relate to me just fine…
But to be honest, I sometimes still get insecure because of my accent…I don't know why…I just do…But on the other hand, I feel extremely lucky to be able to speak, read and write Mandarin, English and Japanese ( my 3rd language) fluently, I would not trade that for anything else…
reading posts from everyone here is inspiring, I think I have to find the balance myself to get over “my accent” thing…thanks for your article.
For me, it’s about assimilation. Being a rebel is cool, but sometimes not good for survival. The tallest blade of grass gets cut first & all that.
I’ve found that by blending into the mainstream, it’s easier to work from within a system rather than brute force it from the outside. Trust is more readily established when someone shares similarities, kinda like you mentioned in your conference blog.
If an accent can be effectively adopted, it can create an instant comfort zone in some situations.
Last time I was in Hawaii, I started speaking “Da Kine” & was often treated like family just because of that. At Chinese restaurants, my American-born friends who speak perfectly accented Mandarin often are informed about the specials not on the menu. Picking up on specific slang terms in the urban world, helps your street cred, when used in the proper context.
And THAT is where many fall short, becoming posers & wannabees, ridiculed as fakers who really don’t care enough to be part of a culture, but pretend to be in attempt to be accepted.
That is sad.
Hey Derek,
I have not researched this subject scientifically, but from my observations I have become convinced that musicians are generally better at learning languages than nonmusicians. We are trained to listen to rhythms and melodies, analyze them and recognize aural patterns until we can successfully replicate them - all skills that pertain directly to learning a foreign language.
I have always been fascinated with the way the brain works, and particularly the way we learn languages. After Berklee, I decided to run an experiment: I moved to Paris, France, knowing only a few phrases of French; and I was going to see if I could learn the language without any formal study (language courses, memorizing vocabulary and grammar rules, etc.). My family and most of my friends thought it was a ridiculous idea, but I was fluent within six months.
I was born and raised in Germany, but have lived in the U.S. for almost ten years. I actually find it easier to express myself in English than in my native tongue. I still have a slight accent (which I will probably never quite get rid of), but it usually takes people I meet a few minutes to say, “your English is really good, but… where are you from?” I often ask them to guess, and they can almost never place it.
I believe that these people who act different as to the issue should be respected as long as they take it naturally and freely as to their beleifs, but it is pathetic if they do it to please others and recieve their approval to stay in the foriegn country. Id that person enjoys imitating the forien accent then let it be, and if not, then his attitude is: “take it or leave it”. Just act as you wish, don’t try to please others to get their approval, love your self and who you are, that is the real good inner life.
Derek,
You really do have an international following, wow!
I am an American who has lived in Latin America for 17 years and raised my 3 kids here. I conduct business entirely in Spanish and even write contracts and letters on occasion. Although I am “fluent”, I still frequently use 50 words to describe a one word object and unabashedly ask native speakers what words mean. I have what I think is a “medium” accent that is easily identified as American. I wish I had no accent.
Here are some random thoughts and observations:
Generally, we all want to communicate (identify with) others in the most effective manner possible. - So we first chose a common language, and then select vocabulary words for both parties to be best understood. It’s a natural thing, usually done without comment.
Accents- This can be a choice, or beyond control, or even beyond one’s ability to hear. (I tried briefly to learn the Aztec language, but couldn’t hear the difference between some words. Does that make me tone deaf to Aztec?) The first step is to hear your own accent. Quite another to correct it.
People switch accents to blend in, sometimes it works, sometimes it sounds silly. It usually fools no one. You feelin’ me homie?
Swearing in a foreign language almost always sounds silly. I had a friend from Venezuela who would get mad and swear he was not going to take a shit from anybody…ever again. He would randomly yell “dick” instead of damn, or fuck, when he smashed his finger. His angry outbursts made us all laugh.
The military grades its spies on language ability. Regional dialect (sounding like your from a distinctive area in a country) and telling/understanding regional jokes are two of the most difficult tasks. An coworker of Arab decent couldn’t make the grade and spent the war listening to Arab radio (the lowest grade spy).
Opera singers learn accents, without learning the language. Any non native - even with the heaviest accent - can spell the word “socks” [S.O.C.K.S.]out loud in English and in 3 seconds sound like a native Mexican saying “That’s how it is” [ESO SI QUE ES] in Spanish. Try it!
I think we learn foreign languages wrong, but am not sure the best method. I am impressed with Rosetta Stone.
When you have reached the level in a foreign language where native speakers stop complimenting you on your language skills, then you have truly achieved a milestone.
Vertaal dit, schrijf me bij: busby@la5music.com, en ik zal u een vrije T-shirt en een compact disc van de band La5 verzenden. Juicht toe.
Well, we’ve all got different motivations. More than you’re going to get represented in the responses, I’m sure.
I’m a California native English speaker who always gets positive comments on his Spanish accent from native Spanish speakers.
In my case, I think it’s a combination of perfectionist tendencies and love of sound and language. I want to honor the tradition or core or spirit that brought forth and developed this beautiful set of sounds.
(I’d like to do it with French, but I don’t have the time or energy - sorry - you don’t want to hear me mangle French.)
The meaning is another matter. It’s utility or aesthetics, and I don’t think the Governator feels he needs to fit in, but maybe he is enraptured by the sonic quality of what we call his “mother-tongue”. He probably feels a stronger sense of identity speaking in his native accent.
My best Jewish friend from New York, though, get him with the family for a while, kibbutzing (sp?), arguing - doing what they do, and eeesh - the accent has taken ovah again.