it took me 2 years but i was 8 when i moved i think the younger you are the easier it is to lose an accent.

I can still switch between my English accent and Canadian one whenever i want haha. Its funny to watch people's reactions when u just randomly switch up mid sentence haha

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the reality is that most people who have an audible accent are not quite aware that they have it. languages are driven by phonological rules that function on a subconscious level without the speaker's knowledge. when a foreigner says something that seems odd to a native speaker, he likely does so because the same rules of his native language are now forced to operate on a different tongue, resulting in a misapplication of a phonological rule. merely "thinking" in a foreign language won't make much of a difference, as these rules are not available for a conscious "review" (unless you are explicitly aware of them and thus remain cognizant of them at all times - then you can compel yourself to speak correctly).

e.g., in german there is a devoicing rule that applies to word-final voiced stops, so that words like 'tag' , 'hand' and 'gab' are actually pronounced as 'taK' , 'hanT' and 'gaP' respectively. and so a native german speaker trying to speak english will more likely than not say 'bat' instead of 'bad' , 'doc' instead of 'dog' and etc. without even realizing this. while a native english speaker is clearly capable of telling the difference between a final 't' and a final 'd' (thus being able to spot the mistake), there are more subtle distinctions in the sounds of different languages that most native speakers are simply not aware of. so chances are, you will sound like a foreigner even if you are certain that you don't.

here's an obvious example for english speakers: in english there is a rule that aspirates (i.e. produces an extra puff of air alongside the sound) certain voiceless consonants at the beginning of a stressed syllable. so that when english speakers are faced with a foreign word, they will unintentionally aspirate such consonants, completely unaware of this. moreover, the contrast in sound between an aspirated consonant and an unaspirated one is inaudible to most english speakers because they don't ever need to discriminate between them in their native language, which means they literally cannot hear any difference in the way they sound. on the other hand, hindi, for example, has both types of consonants at the beginning of syllables. so for instance, the only difference between the pronunciation of the words 'pal' [= fruit] and 'pal' [= want] is the aspiration of the 'p' sound in the former but not the latter. to most english speakers they would sound the same. and as you can guess whenever an english speaker attempts to say either one of them, he will always end up with [fruit], since aspirating the initial consonant comes naturallly to him, without him being aware of this.

another related issue is the fact that even the supposedly identical sounds have different audible realizations in different languages. for example, both german and english have the vowel 'i', and yet there is a noticeable difference between them. such a difference may be difficult to perceive for the untrained ear, but it is certainly consistent and physically measurable. similarly, the realizations of the vowel 'a' found in norwegian, finnish and english all differ in very subtle but audible ways.

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Last edited by Noisician on Apr-14-2009 at 19:14

quote:

Originally posted by Noisician the reality is that most people who have an audible accent are not quite aware that they have it. languages are driven by phonological rules that function on a subconscious level without the speaker's knowledge. when a foreigner says something that seems odd to a native speaker, he likely does so because the same rules of his native language are now forced to operate on a different tongue, resulting in a misapplication of a phonological rule. merely "thinking" in a foreign language won't make much of a difference, as these rules are not available for a conscious "review" (unless you are explicitly aware of them and thus remain cognizant of them at all times - then you can compel yourself to speak correctly)

That is spot on.

yea renzo just because i'm not hispanic means i can't be a good judge of whether or not someone has a hispanic accent when talking to me

did it ever occur to you that maybe chach has zero accent when he's around his white friends and maybe when you've talked to him he had one and didn't realize it? i bet you didn't u fag.

oh and another example is denys. that russian mother****** came here from moscow when he was 11 and he has NO russian accent at all. and his family speaks russian all the time at home. he said sometimes it comes out when he's drunk and with family, but he sounds like a typical american whiteboy when you talk to him. i think that's impressive that he has mastered the american accent despite russian being his native langauge and him moving here when he was 11.

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quote:

Originally posted by notelfreak man i can't believe i tried to come off as responsible in that other thread, i am so full of shit just don't tell anyone

One thing about accents that annoy me is the people that act like they have a particular accent as soon as they start to hang out with those type of people. Like this dude I knew came over and hung out with some irish guys I know and all of sudden he started to talk like an irish person, like wtf?

quote:

Originally posted by weymouth One thing about accents that annoy me is the people that act like they have a particular accent as soon as they start to hang out with those type of people. Like this dude I knew came over and hung out with some irish guys I know and all of sudden he started to talk like an irish person, like wtf?

i've noticed a lot of white people do that with black people often

I give up.

good. i didn't mean for all you people with an accent to get all feisty and defensive lol jesus christ.

like i said before, everyone is different. peole like chach and denys speak perfect american english and sound like they were born and raised in america, despite english being their second language and them living in other countries until they were like 10-12... while others can't quite get rid of their native language accent no matter how long they've lived here, or maybe they don't want to because they have a sense of pride which is fine too.

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quote:

Originally posted by notelfreak man i can't believe i tried to come off as responsible in that other thread, i am so full of shit just don't tell anyone

Denys definitely has a bit of an accent

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True. No one would know I spoke anything but English and think I was born and raised in Canada. SO FALSE!

Denys has one with certain words he says, yeah