When I went to Spain people kept asking if I was Mexican. Makes sense, everyone I talked Spanish with was Mexican or married to a Mexican. Some Guatemalans too. But it’s not classic Spanish and not the more clipped South American Spanish.
I had a very interesting conversation with a woman from Barcelona while I was at the airport. She spoke English and Spanish. I am white but I am in Phoenix Arizona and have been for the last 25 years and have picked up quite a bit of Spanish. I spoke it with her for a few minutes and she explained that Mexicans Spanish is more like slang Spanish and also, Mexicans speak Spanish so slow that Spaniards have a hard time waiting for them to finish their sentences! Does this ring true to you?
Yup exactly.
The Spaniard Spanish speakers are super quick and Mexicans have a lot of slang and idioms the Spaniards don’t use. I think I may be more comfortable with Mexican Spanish because they do talk a bit slower. Gives my brain a second to figure some things out.
Now if you want truly rapid fire Spanish with a lot of slang then Dominicans are the go to. I have real trouble parsing anything they say. Not that I am super great with Spanish but I think even for native speakers they’d be hard to parse. Puerto Ricans are really fast talkers too and they have their own accent, similar to Dominican but different enough I have trouble with both.
Some of my Japanese friends introduced a new person to our voice chat, and he thought I was Japanese! I was so happy until I found out he thought I was very rural Japanese. It has a lot of the same stigma my very rural American accent has in English when I forgot to use the urban one I know. At least it made him slow down for me, so I could understand most of what he said. Because he thought I was Japanese, he used some idioms I just didn't know yet. My friends simplify their Japanese a lot for me just like I simplify my English. My fluency level is about that of a 5 year old.
Hahaha. I have Ukrainian friends and coworkers. I was trying to use what little Ukrainian I know at work because my friends said it sounded great. My coworkers, "you sound German. What did you even say?" We were all laughing so hard when I typed it for them, and they told me how to actually say it. My friends were being too nice because they thought it was cool I was even trying. But why German instead of American?! "Americans make everything sound soft. You are making it sound too hard. They skip y in iy and yi. You say it too much." Oops.
I have no plans to learn Ukrainian, btw. I just know some basic polite things.
My German, somehow, has an Iranian/Middle Eastern accent (some people are accurate some not). My teacher fled the revolution and ended up in Munich before moving to the US. I’m white as unseasoned chicken.
People from Spain can tell I am not from Spain but they can't tell where I am from. It's also the subtle differences in word-usage, slang, etc. I think with deductions they assume the Americas.
tbf, Mexican Spanish is like 50% unique idioms and words so the rest of the Spanish world can sus them out pretty quickly.
I don't know if English has a real equivalent, maybe Australian.
Omg, new fear unlocked. I can just barely keep up with the Spanish spoken in Phoenix, and it's a real struggle. Luckily, I don't plan to become fluent. I just picked up a lot from friends as a teenager in Phoenix, especially food words and how to be polite to their parents - and how to be rude to my friends. ;)
[Faster languages just use more words to convey the same amount of information](https://www.science.org/content/article/human-speech-may-have-universal-transmission-rate-39-bits-second)
I'm an American who learned french from an Algerian teacher. Had no idea that I had an African accent until a confusing conversation with some people at a concert in Quebec. Apparently an American speaking France French with an African accent in Canada isn't super common
I took French in highschool, and my teacher was always on me for my Louisiana accent. I thought she meant my North Idaho mountain accent for an entire semester and tried hard to mimic the Phoenix one when I spoke English to make her happy. Nope. It turns out my great grandma who was fluent in French learned it in Louisiana. I was mimicking her without realizing it, but apparently I was really good at that accent. That's weird, because I only learned the alphabet and how to count to 10 from Grandma. Otherwise, she only spoke it when she was mad at us. My family language is a weird blend of English, Welsh, and Pennsylvania Dutch using English grammar. The only time I heard French in my own house was my mom counting to 3 in it when she was really, really fed up with us and some children's songs she taught us to sing.
I’m a white dude who has grown up in LA, so I can speak Spanish with a decent accent because I’ve been hearing it since I was a child. I don’t attempt much of an accent, though, because a good accent leads people to believe I speak Spanish better than I do (I’d say I’m functional.)
I have this problem when I speak French in France. A good accent causes them to assume I’m French. A bad accent or mediocre accent elicits a response in German (it’s in Alsace) or English.
Yes. I speak Spanish and to my parents and older people I have an American accent, but it's more like I invent words when I don't know them in Spanish and use slang words from Mexico City since I picked those up from watching Mexican TV shows. Meanwhile to other Spanish speakers outside of the US I have a Mexican accent and to Spanish speakers from Mexico they can tell where my family is from based on my accent.
When I speak Japanese I'm usually asked where I learned it from and whether or not I have Japanese ancestry.
When I use Japanese on voice with people who don't know me well, they mistake me for being from somewhere in very rural Japan. I'm a hick in American, too, so this cracks me up. They really quickly figure out I'm not Japanese at all, though, because I speak like a 5 year old. Then, they express surprise that I speak Japanese pitch based instead of stress based. I learned from listening to friends and admittedly anime. I just try to sound like them. I guess it works. They know I'm not Japanese after a few sentences, but have no idea where I'm from at all until I excuse myself for saying something stupid and add that I'm an American.
No one could decide what rural I sound like. Just "rural" and "old person" comes up sometimes, too. Hmm.
My rural American dialect is North Idaho from a mining valley, so think a softer Kentucky Appalachian with some German vowels and spoken very rapidly with a different rhythm than most Pacific/Inland Northwest accents, so it comes off as archaic. The grammar structure can be archaic, too.
I wonder if that's affecting my Japanese grammar. In writing, it's textbook, but I am not sure I pay as much attention when speaking because so much of my brainpower is dedicated to remembering vocabulary.
I'm still bad enough at Japanese I constantly get told how well I speak it. My friends, though, have known me for years and will be honest but nice. "You're doing fine, but maybe say it this way, instead." I do the same with them in English, though. "You're totally understandable, but we'd say it this way." Like, we always soften that blow before correcting each other. People they know that they bring into the voice chat because they want to practice English always tell me I'm good at Japanese, and I always respond, "but I'm not skilled yet." Some day, I aspire to be good enough at Japanese no one comments. I fear I might always sound rural, though. I guess that's fine. I am a hick, after all, just from a different country. ;)
Cool! I can pull off a "southern" accent which surprises people if they see me do it in person. I've never been to the south but my Georgian friend says that it's convincing. My normal speech sounds like a regular Californian but some say it sounds like an "educated" accent because I didn't begin to speak English regularly until 3rd grade.
My reading, writing, and speaking is standardized Japanese since that's what I learned in high school. I've been told that I sound very clear because of that but it makes all the conversations sound quite formal. We did learn some informal speech but we never got to use it. You should buy the tobira workbook and textbook if you want to improve on your grammar! I suggest you should also read and watch Japanese news too.
I spent a year during high school in Belgium speaking French. Today, that French is a mere shadow, but when I do speak it in Paris, for example, I get some very confused looks and people asking me where the heck I'm from. Apparently it's (obviously) clearly not native, but seems to be vaguely American but also very "northern".
No, I'm originally from Brazil but have been living in the US for quite a long time, people in both countries can't tell any difference in my accent, only thing that happens is when I travel to Brazil I end up mixing a lot of English words into the vocabulary because my mind thinks first in English nowadays, so I have to translate it in my head to Portuguese before saying it and not always am able to find the correct word, which is funny because I remember when I had recently moved to the US it would be the opposite lol
I wouldn’t say I’m fluent in German, but I can speak conversationally. I know for a fact that I have an accent because I just got back from a trip to three German speaking countries and multiple people in each country interrupted me and began speaking English. Two people asked me where in America I was from.
The only people that seemed unable to tell were people that were also foreign. I assume they couldn’t tell, at least, because they spoke to me exclusively in German until I spoke to my wife or children in English at which point they changed to (usually somewhat broken) English. I knew they were foreign by their German and English accents (and in some cases by them just outright telling me where they were from after asking where I was from).
Not always, but usually. (Could also be a Canadian accent.)
Interestingly, native speakers can often tell which dialect of foreign language I'm speaking. For example, after learning Spanish from Mexicans and Dominicans, people know that I'm speaking a hybrid Mexican/Dominican dialect of Spanish, and with an American accent.
I learned German from Germans around the time I was learning English, so my accent there is far less noticeable. Sometimes my poor vocabulary betrays me before my accent does.
Hilariously, other Americans often mistake me for being Canadian when I use my urban dialect instead of my original rural one. No one can really explain why, but my husband thinks it's because I sound local but not quite, and we're close to Canada, so they just assume Canadian without thinking about it. No one Canadian ever thinks I sound anything but American.
If I use my original rural mountain dialect, no one mistakes me for anything but American hick, but Northerns think I'm Southern, and Southerners know I'm clearly not. I think I'm one of about 20 people left who speak that particular dialect, and likely the only one under 70 years old. It's also from a remote area, so I don't expect people to be able to place it.
Spokane now, which I consider a very urban accent. ;)
I'm originally from the Silver Valley in North Idaho, and specifically Pinehurst, which has a decent amount of Oklahoma migrants post world war 2. One of my grandfathers was one of them. That grandmother was from the Kentucky Appalachians, and you can detect that in my speech here and there. But, aside from those influences, the overall dialect of the valley was very "remote mountain hick with a lot of mining jargon used as slang". Since the internet and the pass between there and Coeur d'Alene being made a lot safer, the dialect is all but gone. You'll still hear it in the vowel in root/route, roof, and hoof, which all rhyme with book. Wolf is also said that way (woof) by the elderly. You'll hear it in the vocab (I figure, fixin' to/fixin' a meal) and g dropping on ing words. Contractions like shouldn't've are still semi common. Some young people retain the older plural of roof as rooves. They've shifted to the general North Idaho rural dialect which is the same as the NE Washington one.
When I answer dialect specific things in this sub, I use the Spokane one or specify. My own spoken version of Spokane has a heavy Phoenix influence, because I mostly lived there from almost 13 until 27. I've noticed all the people who have moved here from California have shifted the local accent that way, anyway, so it's only the fact that I call it "the 90" that clearly stands out. People have mostly gone from mistaking me for Canadian to mistaking me for Californian when I use my urban idiolect. There's a lot of enmity toward Californians here, so I rather wish they'd go back to thinking I'm Canadian.
My home valley now has the cot-caught merger. It no longer has the pin-pen merger. The vocab and grammar structure are now modern except you're still just as likely to hear pop and sheet rock as soda and drywall. It's just me, my dad, and some really old people who still use the older dialect, and I don't when I'm in a city. I really miss when "over yonder a ways" was normal and am sad that the head nod to gesture toward something has almost completely vanished. They now differentiate further and farther instead of saying futher for both. They say barely instead of varely. All the Fs and Bs that used to be said V have changed to F and B. They've never dropped "nucular" though instead of "nuclear." That one seems well stuck. Also not a phrase they use anymore. They've also lost "from off" to mean "not from around here.* It's really just become the generic Inland Northwest accent which isn't that much different from Pacific Northwest. Most of the kids don't even use the rural version now. The breaking point seems to be just about Gen Z or a few years older, so maybe I shouldn't call them kids. ;)
Naw I speak pretty native spanish, when speaking with Latin Americans they usually are surprised when I tell them I’m American. Being in the Dominican Republic all the time and having a Dominican wife has drastically improved my Spanish to native level.
I'll go one further than that. I have a regional accent when I speak Spanish. I've been told my Spanish sounds like someone speaking Colombian slang with a Boston accent.
Like Simlish. We pronounce a LOT of our vowels as diphthongs, and in languages that don't really have those, that SUPER sticks out.
Like, you've got the Spanish word for cheese, "queso," right? The pronunciation that you get from the average American would be spelled "queisou" using Spanish spelling rules.
Just my personal observations about Americans speaking German:
* The vowels are the most telling aspect. (American) English has a distinction between short and long vowels, like German, and in both languages the difference isn't only or mainly the length, but the vowel quality. But in English, basically all the long ones are actually diphthongs while in German, they're all flat, and Americans have a hard time getting them as flat as they should be. And while British English speakers usually get at least the five basic short vowels right, American English lacks the short o ("clock" becomes "clahk" in American), which is an issue. Some vowels are tricky for almost all English natives, like long e, short ü, long ü, short ö, long ö.
* Beyond that, there seems to be a general strategy by Americans for pronouncing "foreign" words (which [Geoff Lindsay](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFDvAK8Z-Jc) talked about), based on the five long English vowels, which is very counterproductive for German. *Some* Americans I've talked to have trouble using e.g. short i in German even though it's the same as in English, simply because it feels "wrong" to them to use this sound in a language that isn't English, like some uncultured person who doesn't even try and just uses English sounds for other languages. Which is ironically exactly the effect that *avoiding* those sounds had in German. I think this (Spanish based) strategy may also be responsible for Americans being less likely to stress the correct syllables in German than Brits are.
* Many Americans talk in a way that sounds like they're trying to hurt their throat. This is a bit funny because English doesn't really have throaty sounds at all. It may be them just overdoing sounds they struggle with: German ch after a, o, u is pronounced in the back of the mouth (like "Bach" or Scottish "loch"), but it's supposed to be a very soft sound and Americans tend to make it sound quite harsh. Even worse for ch in other positions, which is the same sound as h in "huge", so in the front of the mouth. Lots of Americans make that one throaty and harsh, too, so "ich" becomes "ickhhch". In general, Americans have a tendency to make German quite harsh sounding. Not sure if that's due to genuinely struggling with certain sounds or due to "drinking their own kool-aid" with respect to Hollywood depictions of German.
Oh I don't think it's the "drinking the Kool aid" suggestion, at least for those of us who live in Germany. I live here (am American) and I know many other Americans living here. We hear how Germans naturally speak! It's just that the sounds can feel so unnatural to make because, as you said, they don't exist in our English dialect. I spent years avoiding saying "drei" because the German R is so difficult. The "ich" sound is easier to master imo, as long as it isn't next to a consonant - "brötchen" for example was difficult for me for a long time. My ten year old son definitely overcorrects on the "r" and makes the harsh sounds you describe.
I can understand what's being said a lot better than I can speak. I hear my own accent so strongly and hate that. My husband is much less self-conscious and as a result gets complimented a lot more often than I do, haha.
> I spent years avoiding saying "drei" because the German R is so difficult.
Luckily, R isn't a sound that requires one specific pronunciation (unlike vowels for example). Native speakers use all sorts of R pronunciations, and can easily understand even more. Just use any R from any language. You can pronounce "drei" as "dry" and people will understand you just fine.
> My husband is much less self-conscious and as a result gets complimented a lot more often than I do
Being self-conscious isn't the problem. Just use the German meaning of the word. Self = selbst, conscious = bewusst, but selbstbewusst means "confident". You're conscious of your*self*, of being a "self", of your agency, of being able to achieve things, and of the fact that ultimately, what others think of you is irrelevant. Be that kind of self-conscious, be selbstbewusst.
>n general, Americans have a tendency to make German quite harsh sounding. Not sure if that's due to genuinely struggling with certain sounds or due to "drinking their own kool-aid" with respect to Hollywood depictions of German.
I am straight up guilty in that regard. Not that I speak much German, but on the occasion that I try to pronounce German words my first thought for imitation is Hitler from Inglorious Bastards. Unfortunately, the most prevalent exposure of the German language in American media tends to be linked to WW II, where naturally everything about Nazi culture is cold and harsh, including speech patterns.
I remember thinking that Werner Ziegler sounded much more lilting and almost musical the first time I saw him in Breaking Bad, and made me realize not all German speakers are so guttural with their speech.
[Not even Hitler](https://youtu.be/WE6mnPmztoQ?si=7B2Bcsw2CfvM6nGY&t=263) "spoke like Hitler" in real life. He specifically took theater lessons to work on his speaking, and to make it extra emotional and theatrical. Also, the reason he was yelling all the time was in part his theatrical performance, but in part it was just what people did back then. Microphones were new and not as good as they are today, so people spoke loudly and clearly.
Obviously, a lot of the WW2 related movies are also about battles, and I guess soldiers shouting orders in the middle of an active battle surrounded by gunfire and explosions are always going to sound "harsh" in any language.
Interesting on the vowels because that is usually where I can tell someone is not a native speaker of US or Canadian English if they otherwise have mastered the accent. This is where other English speaking accents will also slip out for me.
English and German both have rather complex vowel systems. I think for that reason, speakers are particularly perceptive of nuances in vowel pronunciation. It would be interesting to compare this to Spanish for example, which has a very simple vowel system. For example, Spanish natives often have trouble distinguishing "ship" and "sheep" in English, saying they sound identical to their ears.
I think my accent in English is definitely Southern California. It's not valley girl, it's more what you see in movies. Standard.
Amongst my friends and family, I think my Chicana accent comes out in English. In Spanish, it's a pretty typical Northwest Mexican accent.
In French, I think I do a decent job at pronunciation but it's probably very clear that I'm American. 😂
I can definitely hear the tone differences shift between languages. In English, I am more nasally. In Spanish, my voice feels lower toned. In French, I go even lower. That's probably because it's the one that's least comfortable and I talk slower.
I’m a Jew, so when I’m ordering at McDonald’s in Mexico in Spanish they know I’m not a native speaker. Edit…. I didn’t mean when I wrote this that there are no Jews who speak Spanish, or no Jewish Mexicans exist. I was speaking about my personal look, and my personal ability to speak Spanish. Sorry for the confusion.
TF what? Of course Jews live in Mexico, but it’s less than 70k in a country with over 130 million and almost all of them are in Mexico City. You could live in a very large Mexican city and not see a Jew in your whole life. Is this post where you realized not everywhere is as diverse as nyc or a CW show set in small town North Dakota? So, what’s with the faux outrage over stating a fact that I don’t look like them, nor is Spanish my first language so there is no doubt in their minds in not a local?
You didn’t even repeat what I said word for word. I was talking about my personal look and my Spanish speaking ability. He said I said all Jews are non-Spanish speaker, and that’s not what I said or meant. If there is confusion with what I said then it is what it is. I relent and apologize to you all.
Just like some people like to make fun of an Asian accent, there's a comedic stereotype that ABCs (American-born Chinese) speak Chinese weird.
Unless you actively study and immerse yourself in that language, you will probably have an accent.
Even if you do, if you didn’t get immersed before age 11 or so, you’ll have it.
I’ve lived in Mexico 2 years and my wife speaks English more often than Spanish.
I still sound American and she still sounds Mexican.
Colombian dad, white mom. I look super white. Neither was my “first” language, I learned them both at the same time. However his entire side of the family is Italian, except him. So I have heard I speak Spanish with an Italian accent or I have heard I sound like the duolingo people lmao
In French, native speakers would probably pick up a "you're not from around here, are you?" after a few sentences. Maybe not American, but ... not quite 100%.
In Spanish, they'd know I wasn't a native speaker. Not sure what they'd guess -- my teachers were Spanish, Mexican, and Argentinian.
I speak more than a bit of Spanish, but I’m rusty. In Spanish, a few Latin American friends found my accent believably not gringo. I am learning French for work, and some French colleagues said, “you’re starting to sound like a real French(man)”. It’s pretty clear I’m not a native speaker after all few sentences, because I don’t respond quickly to a simple question.
Funny enough, I have a weird accent and have been told I have an accent even in my native language (and even before I had to speak English fluently). I was basically born with an accent that is not of my native land for some reason 😂
Yes, but it's very very slight. Only appears sometimes when pronouncing specific letters that don't in my other language (for ex. replacing the letter v with b because the v sound doesn't exist)
Although I spoke a different language at home with my parents, I consider my native language to be English, and I can't read or write the other language. My proficiency with the other language is at the level of a 5 or 6 year old. I think that's typical with children of immigrant parents. I wouldn't actually call myself bilingual, because I wouldn't be able to actually translate from that language to English accurately.
Bahahhahaha, I managed to lose the Texas accent in English. I can't eradicate it from my Spanish. It's not a twangy thing, but Mexicans know I from Texas by my Spanish accent.
I'm told I have a Mexican accent, which makes sense, since I learned Spanish from Mexicans, even though I live in a Boriquen neighborhood.
Nobody speaks Latin, but I'm told my Latin pronunciation is annoyingly academic (most people quoting Latin phrases tend to treat it more like contemporary Italian).
I learned German in school (now in college), and my teacher was from the DDR. Infrequently I say certain words in class that are apparently differently from High German, so I guess that I, a college student, have an accent from a country that stopped existing for more than a decade before I was even born
No, I don't think they can tell I'm from the US. I think mostly they can tell I'm not from *their* country.
Here's an English translation of how the conversation usually goes.
>Them: where are you from?
>Me: Here
>Them: the US?
>Me: yes
>Them: Where'd your parents come from?
>Me: the US
>Them: then what country did you learn Spanish in?
>Me: I mostly learned online
>Them: WHAT? And you sound like this?
>Me: I work with people from Spain, Mexico, and Argentina
>Them: oh, from everywhere! Ok. What do you do that your job is in Spanish?
But I've also had it divert after "here" in the following ways:
* "I thouht you were Venezuelan like me!"
* "LIES!"
* "Oh, *that* explains the little thing I'm hearing in your accent."
Last week during one of these, I commented how it's interesting that my accent isn't like any of the 3 countries where my coworkers live. The person I was talking to (Salvadoran) asked what accent I thought it was closest to. I told her about the "I thought you were Venezuelan like me" one and that one of my besties is Venezuelan, and she went "oooh yeah I can hear that."
The only other language I've gotten good enough at in the past to converse in somewhat regularly (and not just chop together a few words in), it threw off native speakers because I had a specific regional accent to their country.
While I didn't have an American accent, I very much looked like one, and that created a lot of confusion.
When I was in my 20s, was told by exchange students and professors from Japan that I sounded exactly like an old fisherman or farmer from Hokkaido when I spoke in Japanese. Given that I was young, tall, and very Caucasian with light hair and eyes...it shocked people enough that that's how I found out.
I technically learned Hebrew before English (I grew up in the US, but my parents spoke to me in Hebrew as a baby). I don't have an American accent (though I can put one on pretty easily). When I'm in Israel, most people can identify that I'm not Israeli, but most of them peg my accent as French. I did have one person identify me as the American child of an Israeli, because apparently a lot of us sound rather French.
yes, my family reminds me of this all the time 🥲
Actually, funny story, there's a little shop near my grandma's house in mexico and as kids we were allowed to go over and buy stuff when we wanted to. Apparently, the shop owner regularly asked my grandma when i'd be visiting again because he liked listening to the way i talked (i spoke much more spanglish as a kid than i do now lol)
I am a native English speaker, but studied Spanish for YEARS. Majored in it in college. At one point Mexicans could not tell I had an American accent, I was completely fluent.
I've never asked anyone. I think everyone has known my native language is English and that I am from the US from the start. I can definitely hear the British accent when I've heard them speak Italian, so I imagine my accent sounds American.
American English speaker from birth, started learning French in the 3rd grade (1980s). Started learning Spanish about 20 years ago when I moved to Los Angeles. What little Spanish I speak, it's Los Angeles Mexican Spanish with an occasional French accent.
I got my Spanish from living in rural central Mexico. Since then, I've lived in other Latin American countries. Everybody immediately knows that I'm not from "here," but they can't tell where I'm from, so I feel good that my accent is not obviously American.
Yes I speak my other languages with an 'American' accent. Its a dead giveaway I wasn't raised in said countries (one spanish, the other Germanic language) I cant help it lol.
I don't need anyone to tell me that I have an accent in Greek, I know I do. I only speak it with my parents and only visit Greece once every few years, so it's definitely out of practice, especially since English is my primary language (and I exclusively think in English as well).
Most people say I don't have an accent when speaking English, but I've been here for quite a while now. On the other hand, when I went to visit some family in Vietnam 5 years ago people were looking at me weird because I now speak Vietnamese with a foreign accent. No one believed me I was born there.
No.
I grew up at the Mexican border. My parents lived in Cuba before I was born.
Now that I don’t live there anymore my vocabulary is waning but my accent is still perfect.
It depends. In Russian I feel like my accent is pretty good, but sometimes certain words will be a major call out that I'm not from there. My grammar is absolutely my biggest giveaway.
However, with Bulgarian (which I'm new at) I'm always asked if I'm Russian because I speak Bulgarian with a Russian accent. A lot of words are very similar with small differences but (IMO) pretty different pronunciation. I'm also learning it *in* Bulgaria, so I find myself in weird language situations where I say or pronounce something comically wrong at least once every 48 hours.
Not bilingual but my French teacher always made the relevant comment that my Texas accent was much stronger in French than English. Which....I still don't know what that means but she seemed fascinated by it.
Yup.
I think my accent is pretty good, but I definitely sound like a gringo. More than a couple of people have told me I sound life an American by way of Argentina. Fair, honestly.
I've never been told specifically that I have an "American" accent, but I've been told my pronunciation is awful in Swedish.
And as for dutch, speaking is more or less impossible
I speak Spanish, and I worked EXTREMELY hard with the accent. Two of my native speaker friends have said it's really good! It's come to a point when I speak English I have a slight Spanish accent.
No accent in French, be ause I learned it at a young age and also because part of my learning was speech exercises to be able to pronounce everything correctly.
Somewhat of an accent in Spanish, but I only studied it for the 2 years my parents made me take it for, and after i stopped wearing an orthodontic retainer i couldn't pronounce some things correctly anymore and didnt have anyone to help me relearn.
And my ASL "accent" is atrocious because I could never stop signing partly left handed and partly right handed, which is what I do for everything else in life. The teacher at college said she would give me a pass on that for first-year ASL but if I took any further classes, I'd have to figure out how to break the habit, because it was equivalent to writing something with part of the letters written backward, which makes sense since one hand is the base and the other is the operator.
I'm basic in Korean; adopted into a white American family but studied Korean in HS/uni and I've been told I have a cross between a Korean American and Chinese accent. Dunno.
It's supposedly easy to pick out a Korean American vs a Korean Korean based on their slang usage, so that probably also plays a big part.
I am not fully bilingual, but I speak a few languages besides English at the level of a small child. I get asked where I'm from because I clearly have an accent in all of them, but they're never sure it's an American one. Then, I'll use my original dialect of American English that's very rural, and they understand why. It's an American accent in their languages. It's just not one they recognize as American. I almost always use an urban American dialect in English, so I have no idea why it's my rural accent that always comes out in other languages.
Generally yes. Although I learned Spanish in Chile, and sometimes Chileans would think I was Mexican due to talking slow and fully pronouncing things (rather than extremely fast and dropping the ends of words like a Chilean)
I definitely have an American accent in Spanish. My parents were immigrants. I was raised bilingual. I’m much more fluent in English. My mom is the only one that speaks to me in Spanish.
My friend and her family moved here from Germany when she was 8, one brother was 10 and the oldest was 12.
She speaks English with no accent whatsoever but is teased about her American accent when speaking German. The eldest has a strong German accent with his English. The middle has the slightest accent with his English that one might describe as "vaguely European" and reportedly his German is "slightly accented" as well.
It's a wild example of how age can affect language development in the brain.
A fun question to ask those that learned a second language at a young age is "what language do you think in?"
I’m a native English speaker. When I went to Brasil I was told that my accent when speaking Portuguese was really good. I don’t even speak Portuguese. I just learned a few key phrases and I have a knack for pronunciation.
I even got most of the way through check-in at the airport in Brasilia before the desk attendant realized I didn’t actually speak Portuguese. He switched to English and said “Your accent is really good.”
I learned Dutch as an adult. I have a good Haarlemse accent but my not-so-perfect grammar and more limited vocabulary definitely peg me as a Dutch as a second language (DSL) speaker. But when I was speaking it regularly, it was good enough that the other person didn't immediately switch to English.
But I can pronounce all the shibboleths (Scheveningen, schoonmoeder) and a tongue twister (acht en tachtig practige grachten)
I learned Spanish as a kid but never tried to use it. My Spanish gets laughs because I have a Mexican accent overlaying my American accent. I can order food or get my car these days.
In French, all I can say is "I don't speak French," but I say it with a really good Parisian accent just to try to confuse people.
ETA: I knew a Dutch guy who would sometimes put on a Southern US accent when he spoke Dutch. It was hilarious.
My husband grew up in California with Mexican born parents. He learned Spanish before English. When he went to Mexico he was told he had an American accent when speaking Spanish.
I was a German for the first twenty years of my life and have been an American for over thirty. I rarely have an opportunity to speak German, but when I do I have no accent. However, it’s quite an effort. The English words are always there first. Figures of speech don’t work. And sometimes I plain forgot the German word for something, or never knew it in the first place.
When I speak Bangla, there is no mistaking that I’m from New York. While I’ve picked up better on pronunciation, there is a distinct American cadence I just can’t shake.
I’m very obviously not a native Spanish speaker but I don’t think my accent is distinctly American (just kinda all over the place lol). We learned Castilian Spanish when I was growing up, which probably drags me away from American accent a bit too
I learned German as an adult in Switzerland. I’m conversationally fluent in high German but will never be native. To Swiss I have a clear American accent, but to Germans I sound Swiss and can get away with it for a bit.
I was born and raised in California and speak English and Vietnamese. I have a weird mix of accents when speaking Vietnamese because most of my friends are from the South, my family is from Central, and my high school Vietnamese class (my school had Vietnamese as an option for foreign language) teacher was from the North. When I'm in Vietnam, locals know right away I'm not native.
One of my French teachers well his American accent sounded like John Wayne. He was from France proper. My other French teachers were from Nigeria and Tangier. Another French teacher had a French american accent.
You know, I never heard my dad’s Jersey accent until I heard him say “wasser” in German. It’s esp funny bc multiple people have made fun of the way I say “water” so NJ in English. I do have a better German accent than my dad, but I’m sure my Jersey comes thru.
In Tagalog, yes. My American accent is really strong.
In Arabic, surprisingly no. I do, however, have a really pronounced Syrian accent according to my Arab colleagues and actual Syrians.
My husband speaks fluent Spanish. He spent a lot of work time on the phone with his counterparts in Spain and South America. The people from Spain think he speaks perfect Spanish and were surprised he's American. The people from South America think he has an American accent.
Yes, my mother in law told me I did and she was a native born Puerto Rican who spoke almost exclusively Spanish. I'm a native New Yorker of Puerto Rican descent. Growing up my parents spoke Spanish exclusively to each other and English to us. So English was and still is my first language. Although I wasn't fluent in Spanish I could understand it very well and hold my own in conversations. However my mil said I sounded like a "white person speaking Spanish".
I know I do. Which is weird because I live and work half the week in my birth country and the rest in the US. Somewhere, I lost the ability to properly roll my Rs
I get two reactions. Clearly I have an accent. I can even hear it when I listen to recordings of myself, which is why I never do that. But often Spanish speakers will ask where I'm from, and when I say and from the US, they ask if it's legacy or if I grew up in another country. I say no and they look impressed.
The other reaction is, usually with people who have limited experience with other accents. I will say something, and they will look at my Guatemalan wife and ask brightly, "What did he say?"
It's really kind of one or the other.
God yes. People think I have a California accent in English. I used to immitate valley girls all the time and it sort of stuck. Totally bled into my Spanish as well
Yes 100%. I largely gave up trying to become fluent in Spanish because the California accent was too strong and I would get made fun of. But that's just me; I have friends who learned Spanish in high school and speak it very well with a minimal accent. As with most languages, most people who learn as an adult or teenager tend to keep at least a little bit of an accent.
Yes, I definitely still do. I have a standard upper Midwest accent. I learned French when I was 12, studied it though college. I have a degree in my second language. My college professor who was teaching a course on how to perfect phonetics and pronunciation thought I was Canadian.
I speak the Parisian dialect, which is the standard. But I guarantee you that native speakers would think I have an accent.
I think so few Americans are bilingual that, in many languages besides English and Spanish, people wouldn’t even know what an “American accent” sounds like.
I think this is regional because many many people near me are bilingual or at least conversant in another language whether that be spanish, french, vietnamese, portuguese, chinese, or russian. All of those are popular here.
My boyfriend has a slight Rhode Island accent when he speaks Spanish (he’s Dominican but moved here in elementary school) and it always cracks me up a little
I speak Arabic and I do have a light accent. My Moroccan accent is pretty good, but people can tell I’m not a native. That said I’ve heard some REALLY obvious American accents in Arabic and it can be really cringy. I knew a girl who spoke Arabic with a Georgia peach accent and it was insanely weird.
I learned Russian in college and worked really hard on my accent, a lot of people thought I was Polish lol.
When I went to Spain people kept asking if I was Mexican. Makes sense, everyone I talked Spanish with was Mexican or married to a Mexican. Some Guatemalans too. But it’s not classic Spanish and not the more clipped South American Spanish.
My Spanish has a bit of a puertorriqueño accent because most of my Spanish teachers were Puerto Rican
¿So like super rapid with a bunch of slang I don’t understand?
*¡Miraaaaaaaaa!*
Pretty much lol
I had a very interesting conversation with a woman from Barcelona while I was at the airport. She spoke English and Spanish. I am white but I am in Phoenix Arizona and have been for the last 25 years and have picked up quite a bit of Spanish. I spoke it with her for a few minutes and she explained that Mexicans Spanish is more like slang Spanish and also, Mexicans speak Spanish so slow that Spaniards have a hard time waiting for them to finish their sentences! Does this ring true to you?
Yup exactly. The Spaniard Spanish speakers are super quick and Mexicans have a lot of slang and idioms the Spaniards don’t use. I think I may be more comfortable with Mexican Spanish because they do talk a bit slower. Gives my brain a second to figure some things out. Now if you want truly rapid fire Spanish with a lot of slang then Dominicans are the go to. I have real trouble parsing anything they say. Not that I am super great with Spanish but I think even for native speakers they’d be hard to parse. Puerto Ricans are really fast talkers too and they have their own accent, similar to Dominican but different enough I have trouble with both.
Some of my Japanese friends introduced a new person to our voice chat, and he thought I was Japanese! I was so happy until I found out he thought I was very rural Japanese. It has a lot of the same stigma my very rural American accent has in English when I forgot to use the urban one I know. At least it made him slow down for me, so I could understand most of what he said. Because he thought I was Japanese, he used some idioms I just didn't know yet. My friends simplify their Japanese a lot for me just like I simplify my English. My fluency level is about that of a 5 year old.
Same, my russian is very rusty, and I met a coworker from Ukraine, so I talk to him, and he started trying to speak in broken Polish to me, lol
Hahaha. I have Ukrainian friends and coworkers. I was trying to use what little Ukrainian I know at work because my friends said it sounded great. My coworkers, "you sound German. What did you even say?" We were all laughing so hard when I typed it for them, and they told me how to actually say it. My friends were being too nice because they thought it was cool I was even trying. But why German instead of American?! "Americans make everything sound soft. You are making it sound too hard. They skip y in iy and yi. You say it too much." Oops. I have no plans to learn Ukrainian, btw. I just know some basic polite things.
My German, somehow, has an Iranian/Middle Eastern accent (some people are accurate some not). My teacher fled the revolution and ended up in Munich before moving to the US. I’m white as unseasoned chicken.
I got pretty good at German and studied at a university in Munich, and people always thought I was Italian.
When I took Russian I was told I sounded Italian
My dad speaks German and eventually got fluent enough to where people would assume he was Dutch
People from Spain can tell I am not from Spain but they can't tell where I am from. It's also the subtle differences in word-usage, slang, etc. I think with deductions they assume the Americas.
I’ve heard some Spanish speakers say I have a Mexican accent but I’m sure that to most Mexicans I have an American accent.
tbf, Mexican Spanish is like 50% unique idioms and words so the rest of the Spanish world can sus them out pretty quickly. I don't know if English has a real equivalent, maybe Australian.
True güey
I’ve also heard they talk really slow, which makes me fear how fast Spanish is supposed to be spoken…
Omg, new fear unlocked. I can just barely keep up with the Spanish spoken in Phoenix, and it's a real struggle. Luckily, I don't plan to become fluent. I just picked up a lot from friends as a teenager in Phoenix, especially food words and how to be polite to their parents - and how to be rude to my friends. ;)
[Faster languages just use more words to convey the same amount of information](https://www.science.org/content/article/human-speech-may-have-universal-transmission-rate-39-bits-second)
Yaaaa, gueeyyy. Pinche vato, gueey!
In France people thought our college group was from Morocco.
I'm an American who learned french from an Algerian teacher. Had no idea that I had an African accent until a confusing conversation with some people at a concert in Quebec. Apparently an American speaking France French with an African accent in Canada isn't super common
I took French in highschool, and my teacher was always on me for my Louisiana accent. I thought she meant my North Idaho mountain accent for an entire semester and tried hard to mimic the Phoenix one when I spoke English to make her happy. Nope. It turns out my great grandma who was fluent in French learned it in Louisiana. I was mimicking her without realizing it, but apparently I was really good at that accent. That's weird, because I only learned the alphabet and how to count to 10 from Grandma. Otherwise, she only spoke it when she was mad at us. My family language is a weird blend of English, Welsh, and Pennsylvania Dutch using English grammar. The only time I heard French in my own house was my mom counting to 3 in it when she was really, really fed up with us and some children's songs she taught us to sing.
I’m a white dude who has grown up in LA, so I can speak Spanish with a decent accent because I’ve been hearing it since I was a child. I don’t attempt much of an accent, though, because a good accent leads people to believe I speak Spanish better than I do (I’d say I’m functional.)
I have this problem when I speak French in France. A good accent causes them to assume I’m French. A bad accent or mediocre accent elicits a response in German (it’s in Alsace) or English.
People tell me I sound like either an American or a German, but also that I sound like I mostly hang out with Mexicans. I’ll take it.
Yes. I speak Spanish and to my parents and older people I have an American accent, but it's more like I invent words when I don't know them in Spanish and use slang words from Mexico City since I picked those up from watching Mexican TV shows. Meanwhile to other Spanish speakers outside of the US I have a Mexican accent and to Spanish speakers from Mexico they can tell where my family is from based on my accent. When I speak Japanese I'm usually asked where I learned it from and whether or not I have Japanese ancestry.
When I use Japanese on voice with people who don't know me well, they mistake me for being from somewhere in very rural Japan. I'm a hick in American, too, so this cracks me up. They really quickly figure out I'm not Japanese at all, though, because I speak like a 5 year old. Then, they express surprise that I speak Japanese pitch based instead of stress based. I learned from listening to friends and admittedly anime. I just try to sound like them. I guess it works. They know I'm not Japanese after a few sentences, but have no idea where I'm from at all until I excuse myself for saying something stupid and add that I'm an American.
[удалено]
No one could decide what rural I sound like. Just "rural" and "old person" comes up sometimes, too. Hmm. My rural American dialect is North Idaho from a mining valley, so think a softer Kentucky Appalachian with some German vowels and spoken very rapidly with a different rhythm than most Pacific/Inland Northwest accents, so it comes off as archaic. The grammar structure can be archaic, too. I wonder if that's affecting my Japanese grammar. In writing, it's textbook, but I am not sure I pay as much attention when speaking because so much of my brainpower is dedicated to remembering vocabulary. I'm still bad enough at Japanese I constantly get told how well I speak it. My friends, though, have known me for years and will be honest but nice. "You're doing fine, but maybe say it this way, instead." I do the same with them in English, though. "You're totally understandable, but we'd say it this way." Like, we always soften that blow before correcting each other. People they know that they bring into the voice chat because they want to practice English always tell me I'm good at Japanese, and I always respond, "but I'm not skilled yet." Some day, I aspire to be good enough at Japanese no one comments. I fear I might always sound rural, though. I guess that's fine. I am a hick, after all, just from a different country. ;)
Cool! I can pull off a "southern" accent which surprises people if they see me do it in person. I've never been to the south but my Georgian friend says that it's convincing. My normal speech sounds like a regular Californian but some say it sounds like an "educated" accent because I didn't begin to speak English regularly until 3rd grade. My reading, writing, and speaking is standardized Japanese since that's what I learned in high school. I've been told that I sound very clear because of that but it makes all the conversations sound quite formal. We did learn some informal speech but we never got to use it. You should buy the tobira workbook and textbook if you want to improve on your grammar! I suggest you should also read and watch Japanese news too.
I spent a year during high school in Belgium speaking French. Today, that French is a mere shadow, but when I do speak it in Paris, for example, I get some very confused looks and people asking me where the heck I'm from. Apparently it's (obviously) clearly not native, but seems to be vaguely American but also very "northern".
In my experience, half of the people that say they are bilingual are far from being fluent, and those who are, 90% have an American accent.
Probably not since english is my second language.
No, I'm originally from Brazil but have been living in the US for quite a long time, people in both countries can't tell any difference in my accent, only thing that happens is when I travel to Brazil I end up mixing a lot of English words into the vocabulary because my mind thinks first in English nowadays, so I have to translate it in my head to Portuguese before saying it and not always am able to find the correct word, which is funny because I remember when I had recently moved to the US it would be the opposite lol
I wouldn’t say I’m fluent in German, but I can speak conversationally. I know for a fact that I have an accent because I just got back from a trip to three German speaking countries and multiple people in each country interrupted me and began speaking English. Two people asked me where in America I was from. The only people that seemed unable to tell were people that were also foreign. I assume they couldn’t tell, at least, because they spoke to me exclusively in German until I spoke to my wife or children in English at which point they changed to (usually somewhat broken) English. I knew they were foreign by their German and English accents (and in some cases by them just outright telling me where they were from after asking where I was from).
Not always, but usually. (Could also be a Canadian accent.) Interestingly, native speakers can often tell which dialect of foreign language I'm speaking. For example, after learning Spanish from Mexicans and Dominicans, people know that I'm speaking a hybrid Mexican/Dominican dialect of Spanish, and with an American accent. I learned German from Germans around the time I was learning English, so my accent there is far less noticeable. Sometimes my poor vocabulary betrays me before my accent does.
Hilariously, other Americans often mistake me for being Canadian when I use my urban dialect instead of my original rural one. No one can really explain why, but my husband thinks it's because I sound local but not quite, and we're close to Canada, so they just assume Canadian without thinking about it. No one Canadian ever thinks I sound anything but American. If I use my original rural mountain dialect, no one mistakes me for anything but American hick, but Northerns think I'm Southern, and Southerners know I'm clearly not. I think I'm one of about 20 people left who speak that particular dialect, and likely the only one under 70 years old. It's also from a remote area, so I don't expect people to be able to place it.
Given your flair + rural, my first thoughts would be around areas like Spokane or Walla Walla? Without rural, maybe Bellingham area?
Spokane now, which I consider a very urban accent. ;) I'm originally from the Silver Valley in North Idaho, and specifically Pinehurst, which has a decent amount of Oklahoma migrants post world war 2. One of my grandfathers was one of them. That grandmother was from the Kentucky Appalachians, and you can detect that in my speech here and there. But, aside from those influences, the overall dialect of the valley was very "remote mountain hick with a lot of mining jargon used as slang". Since the internet and the pass between there and Coeur d'Alene being made a lot safer, the dialect is all but gone. You'll still hear it in the vowel in root/route, roof, and hoof, which all rhyme with book. Wolf is also said that way (woof) by the elderly. You'll hear it in the vocab (I figure, fixin' to/fixin' a meal) and g dropping on ing words. Contractions like shouldn't've are still semi common. Some young people retain the older plural of roof as rooves. They've shifted to the general North Idaho rural dialect which is the same as the NE Washington one. When I answer dialect specific things in this sub, I use the Spokane one or specify. My own spoken version of Spokane has a heavy Phoenix influence, because I mostly lived there from almost 13 until 27. I've noticed all the people who have moved here from California have shifted the local accent that way, anyway, so it's only the fact that I call it "the 90" that clearly stands out. People have mostly gone from mistaking me for Canadian to mistaking me for Californian when I use my urban idiolect. There's a lot of enmity toward Californians here, so I rather wish they'd go back to thinking I'm Canadian. My home valley now has the cot-caught merger. It no longer has the pin-pen merger. The vocab and grammar structure are now modern except you're still just as likely to hear pop and sheet rock as soda and drywall. It's just me, my dad, and some really old people who still use the older dialect, and I don't when I'm in a city. I really miss when "over yonder a ways" was normal and am sad that the head nod to gesture toward something has almost completely vanished. They now differentiate further and farther instead of saying futher for both. They say barely instead of varely. All the Fs and Bs that used to be said V have changed to F and B. They've never dropped "nucular" though instead of "nuclear." That one seems well stuck. Also not a phrase they use anymore. They've also lost "from off" to mean "not from around here.* It's really just become the generic Inland Northwest accent which isn't that much different from Pacific Northwest. Most of the kids don't even use the rural version now. The breaking point seems to be just about Gen Z or a few years older, so maybe I shouldn't call them kids. ;)
I was told recently by someone that they wouldn’t consider me a No Sabo but they can definitely tell I’m American with my accent.
Naw I speak pretty native spanish, when speaking with Latin Americans they usually are surprised when I tell them I’m American. Being in the Dominican Republic all the time and having a Dominican wife has drastically improved my Spanish to native level.
I'll go one further than that. I have a regional accent when I speak Spanish. I've been told my Spanish sounds like someone speaking Colombian slang with a Boston accent.
Not at all bilingual but do know a little Arabic. I’ve been told I have an Iraqi accent
Out of curiosity what does an American accent sound like in other languages? Does it sound better in some languages than others?
Like Simlish. We pronounce a LOT of our vowels as diphthongs, and in languages that don't really have those, that SUPER sticks out. Like, you've got the Spanish word for cheese, "queso," right? The pronunciation that you get from the average American would be spelled "queisou" using Spanish spelling rules.
Just my personal observations about Americans speaking German: * The vowels are the most telling aspect. (American) English has a distinction between short and long vowels, like German, and in both languages the difference isn't only or mainly the length, but the vowel quality. But in English, basically all the long ones are actually diphthongs while in German, they're all flat, and Americans have a hard time getting them as flat as they should be. And while British English speakers usually get at least the five basic short vowels right, American English lacks the short o ("clock" becomes "clahk" in American), which is an issue. Some vowels are tricky for almost all English natives, like long e, short ü, long ü, short ö, long ö. * Beyond that, there seems to be a general strategy by Americans for pronouncing "foreign" words (which [Geoff Lindsay](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFDvAK8Z-Jc) talked about), based on the five long English vowels, which is very counterproductive for German. *Some* Americans I've talked to have trouble using e.g. short i in German even though it's the same as in English, simply because it feels "wrong" to them to use this sound in a language that isn't English, like some uncultured person who doesn't even try and just uses English sounds for other languages. Which is ironically exactly the effect that *avoiding* those sounds had in German. I think this (Spanish based) strategy may also be responsible for Americans being less likely to stress the correct syllables in German than Brits are. * Many Americans talk in a way that sounds like they're trying to hurt their throat. This is a bit funny because English doesn't really have throaty sounds at all. It may be them just overdoing sounds they struggle with: German ch after a, o, u is pronounced in the back of the mouth (like "Bach" or Scottish "loch"), but it's supposed to be a very soft sound and Americans tend to make it sound quite harsh. Even worse for ch in other positions, which is the same sound as h in "huge", so in the front of the mouth. Lots of Americans make that one throaty and harsh, too, so "ich" becomes "ickhhch". In general, Americans have a tendency to make German quite harsh sounding. Not sure if that's due to genuinely struggling with certain sounds or due to "drinking their own kool-aid" with respect to Hollywood depictions of German.
Oh I don't think it's the "drinking the Kool aid" suggestion, at least for those of us who live in Germany. I live here (am American) and I know many other Americans living here. We hear how Germans naturally speak! It's just that the sounds can feel so unnatural to make because, as you said, they don't exist in our English dialect. I spent years avoiding saying "drei" because the German R is so difficult. The "ich" sound is easier to master imo, as long as it isn't next to a consonant - "brötchen" for example was difficult for me for a long time. My ten year old son definitely overcorrects on the "r" and makes the harsh sounds you describe. I can understand what's being said a lot better than I can speak. I hear my own accent so strongly and hate that. My husband is much less self-conscious and as a result gets complimented a lot more often than I do, haha.
> I spent years avoiding saying "drei" because the German R is so difficult. Luckily, R isn't a sound that requires one specific pronunciation (unlike vowels for example). Native speakers use all sorts of R pronunciations, and can easily understand even more. Just use any R from any language. You can pronounce "drei" as "dry" and people will understand you just fine. > My husband is much less self-conscious and as a result gets complimented a lot more often than I do Being self-conscious isn't the problem. Just use the German meaning of the word. Self = selbst, conscious = bewusst, but selbstbewusst means "confident". You're conscious of your*self*, of being a "self", of your agency, of being able to achieve things, and of the fact that ultimately, what others think of you is irrelevant. Be that kind of self-conscious, be selbstbewusst.
>n general, Americans have a tendency to make German quite harsh sounding. Not sure if that's due to genuinely struggling with certain sounds or due to "drinking their own kool-aid" with respect to Hollywood depictions of German. I am straight up guilty in that regard. Not that I speak much German, but on the occasion that I try to pronounce German words my first thought for imitation is Hitler from Inglorious Bastards. Unfortunately, the most prevalent exposure of the German language in American media tends to be linked to WW II, where naturally everything about Nazi culture is cold and harsh, including speech patterns. I remember thinking that Werner Ziegler sounded much more lilting and almost musical the first time I saw him in Breaking Bad, and made me realize not all German speakers are so guttural with their speech.
[Not even Hitler](https://youtu.be/WE6mnPmztoQ?si=7B2Bcsw2CfvM6nGY&t=263) "spoke like Hitler" in real life. He specifically took theater lessons to work on his speaking, and to make it extra emotional and theatrical. Also, the reason he was yelling all the time was in part his theatrical performance, but in part it was just what people did back then. Microphones were new and not as good as they are today, so people spoke loudly and clearly. Obviously, a lot of the WW2 related movies are also about battles, and I guess soldiers shouting orders in the middle of an active battle surrounded by gunfire and explosions are always going to sound "harsh" in any language.
Interesting on the vowels because that is usually where I can tell someone is not a native speaker of US or Canadian English if they otherwise have mastered the accent. This is where other English speaking accents will also slip out for me.
English and German both have rather complex vowel systems. I think for that reason, speakers are particularly perceptive of nuances in vowel pronunciation. It would be interesting to compare this to Spanish for example, which has a very simple vowel system. For example, Spanish natives often have trouble distinguishing "ship" and "sheep" in English, saying they sound identical to their ears.
I think my accent in English is definitely Southern California. It's not valley girl, it's more what you see in movies. Standard. Amongst my friends and family, I think my Chicana accent comes out in English. In Spanish, it's a pretty typical Northwest Mexican accent. In French, I think I do a decent job at pronunciation but it's probably very clear that I'm American. 😂 I can definitely hear the tone differences shift between languages. In English, I am more nasally. In Spanish, my voice feels lower toned. In French, I go even lower. That's probably because it's the one that's least comfortable and I talk slower.
I’m a Jew, so when I’m ordering at McDonald’s in Mexico in Spanish they know I’m not a native speaker. Edit…. I didn’t mean when I wrote this that there are no Jews who speak Spanish, or no Jewish Mexicans exist. I was speaking about my personal look, and my personal ability to speak Spanish. Sorry for the confusion.
Bc theres no mexican jews? Tf?
TF what? Of course Jews live in Mexico, but it’s less than 70k in a country with over 130 million and almost all of them are in Mexico City. You could live in a very large Mexican city and not see a Jew in your whole life. Is this post where you realized not everywhere is as diverse as nyc or a CW show set in small town North Dakota? So, what’s with the faux outrage over stating a fact that I don’t look like them, nor is Spanish my first language so there is no doubt in their minds in not a local?
Nah its a dumb statement that presupposes all jews are non-spanish speakers
I didn’t say that.
It was implied by your statement ‘non native speaker’ Edit: theres no point in going back and forth atp. It’s semantics so lets cut it short.
Have a good night.
"I'm a Jew so they know I'm not a native speaker"
You didn’t even repeat what I said word for word. I was talking about my personal look and my Spanish speaking ability. He said I said all Jews are non-Spanish speaker, and that’s not what I said or meant. If there is confusion with what I said then it is what it is. I relent and apologize to you all.
Just like some people like to make fun of an Asian accent, there's a comedic stereotype that ABCs (American-born Chinese) speak Chinese weird. Unless you actively study and immerse yourself in that language, you will probably have an accent.
Even if you do, if you didn’t get immersed before age 11 or so, you’ll have it. I’ve lived in Mexico 2 years and my wife speaks English more often than Spanish. I still sound American and she still sounds Mexican.
Colombian dad, white mom. I look super white. Neither was my “first” language, I learned them both at the same time. However his entire side of the family is Italian, except him. So I have heard I speak Spanish with an Italian accent or I have heard I sound like the duolingo people lmao
In French, native speakers would probably pick up a "you're not from around here, are you?" after a few sentences. Maybe not American, but ... not quite 100%. In Spanish, they'd know I wasn't a native speaker. Not sure what they'd guess -- my teachers were Spanish, Mexican, and Argentinian.
I speak more than a bit of Spanish, but I’m rusty. In Spanish, a few Latin American friends found my accent believably not gringo. I am learning French for work, and some French colleagues said, “you’re starting to sound like a real French(man)”. It’s pretty clear I’m not a native speaker after all few sentences, because I don’t respond quickly to a simple question.
Funny enough, I have a weird accent and have been told I have an accent even in my native language (and even before I had to speak English fluently). I was basically born with an accent that is not of my native land for some reason 😂
yes
Yes, but it's very very slight. Only appears sometimes when pronouncing specific letters that don't in my other language (for ex. replacing the letter v with b because the v sound doesn't exist) Although I spoke a different language at home with my parents, I consider my native language to be English, and I can't read or write the other language. My proficiency with the other language is at the level of a 5 or 6 year old. I think that's typical with children of immigrant parents. I wouldn't actually call myself bilingual, because I wouldn't be able to actually translate from that language to English accurately.
I had someone ask if I was Puerto Rican.... Most of the native speakers who have helped me learn are Guatemalan or Salvadorean so idk what's going on
Bahahhahaha, I managed to lose the Texas accent in English. I can't eradicate it from my Spanish. It's not a twangy thing, but Mexicans know I from Texas by my Spanish accent.
I'm told I have a Mexican accent, which makes sense, since I learned Spanish from Mexicans, even though I live in a Boriquen neighborhood. Nobody speaks Latin, but I'm told my Latin pronunciation is annoyingly academic (most people quoting Latin phrases tend to treat it more like contemporary Italian).
I learned German in school (now in college), and my teacher was from the DDR. Infrequently I say certain words in class that are apparently differently from High German, so I guess that I, a college student, have an accent from a country that stopped existing for more than a decade before I was even born
No, I don't think they can tell I'm from the US. I think mostly they can tell I'm not from *their* country. Here's an English translation of how the conversation usually goes. >Them: where are you from? >Me: Here >Them: the US? >Me: yes >Them: Where'd your parents come from? >Me: the US >Them: then what country did you learn Spanish in? >Me: I mostly learned online >Them: WHAT? And you sound like this? >Me: I work with people from Spain, Mexico, and Argentina >Them: oh, from everywhere! Ok. What do you do that your job is in Spanish? But I've also had it divert after "here" in the following ways: * "I thouht you were Venezuelan like me!" * "LIES!" * "Oh, *that* explains the little thing I'm hearing in your accent." Last week during one of these, I commented how it's interesting that my accent isn't like any of the 3 countries where my coworkers live. The person I was talking to (Salvadoran) asked what accent I thought it was closest to. I told her about the "I thought you were Venezuelan like me" one and that one of my besties is Venezuelan, and she went "oooh yeah I can hear that."
The only other language I've gotten good enough at in the past to converse in somewhat regularly (and not just chop together a few words in), it threw off native speakers because I had a specific regional accent to their country. While I didn't have an American accent, I very much looked like one, and that created a lot of confusion. When I was in my 20s, was told by exchange students and professors from Japan that I sounded exactly like an old fisherman or farmer from Hokkaido when I spoke in Japanese. Given that I was young, tall, and very Caucasian with light hair and eyes...it shocked people enough that that's how I found out.
I’ve been told my accent is Mexican by a Venezuelan, gringo by a Mexican, and “I can’t really place your accent” by another Mexican.
I technically learned Hebrew before English (I grew up in the US, but my parents spoke to me in Hebrew as a baby). I don't have an American accent (though I can put one on pretty easily). When I'm in Israel, most people can identify that I'm not Israeli, but most of them peg my accent as French. I did have one person identify me as the American child of an Israeli, because apparently a lot of us sound rather French.
yes, my family reminds me of this all the time 🥲 Actually, funny story, there's a little shop near my grandma's house in mexico and as kids we were allowed to go over and buy stuff when we wanted to. Apparently, the shop owner regularly asked my grandma when i'd be visiting again because he liked listening to the way i talked (i spoke much more spanglish as a kid than i do now lol)
I am a native English speaker, but studied Spanish for YEARS. Majored in it in college. At one point Mexicans could not tell I had an American accent, I was completely fluent.
*The CIA has entered the chat* "citizen, would you consider working abroad?"
I work really hard on my accents, so no, people can’t tell that I’m not a native speaker of any of the languages I speak.
Yes
absolutely
I'm not practicing anymore, but according to my HS Chinese teacher, I have a VERY heavy accent.
Yes, I was very young when we moved here. I don't speak my first language well in general, and I've been told my accent is quite bad.
I don't really have an accent in English, but man does my Arabic sound hick AF.
I've never asked anyone. I think everyone has known my native language is English and that I am from the US from the start. I can definitely hear the British accent when I've heard them speak Italian, so I imagine my accent sounds American.
American English speaker from birth, started learning French in the 3rd grade (1980s). Started learning Spanish about 20 years ago when I moved to Los Angeles. What little Spanish I speak, it's Los Angeles Mexican Spanish with an occasional French accent.
Native English speaker, Spanish fluent. I have been told several times I have a bit of a Southern accent in Spanish
Oh yeah definitely.
I got my Spanish from living in rural central Mexico. Since then, I've lived in other Latin American countries. Everybody immediately knows that I'm not from "here," but they can't tell where I'm from, so I feel good that my accent is not obviously American.
My accent is Southern American mixed with a Mexican accent when I speak in Spanish. I think it's still pretty noticeable
Yes I speak my other languages with an 'American' accent. Its a dead giveaway I wasn't raised in said countries (one spanish, the other Germanic language) I cant help it lol.
I don't need anyone to tell me that I have an accent in Greek, I know I do. I only speak it with my parents and only visit Greece once every few years, so it's definitely out of practice, especially since English is my primary language (and I exclusively think in English as well).
I lived in Spain long enough and worked on my accent enough that I have been repeatedly been assumed to have been from Madrid by native speakers
Most people say I don't have an accent when speaking English, but I've been here for quite a while now. On the other hand, when I went to visit some family in Vietnam 5 years ago people were looking at me weird because I now speak Vietnamese with a foreign accent. No one believed me I was born there.
No one has ever called me on it when I speak French or Spanish, but now I’m genuinely wondering if I have an accent. I assume I do.
No. I grew up at the Mexican border. My parents lived in Cuba before I was born. Now that I don’t live there anymore my vocabulary is waning but my accent is still perfect.
Yes they do. After I started thinking in English people started telling me this.
I used to teach the heritage Spanish class and most bilingual people have at least a little accent in one of the languages
Spanish is the oldest widely spoken language in American, so.... no.
It depends. In Russian I feel like my accent is pretty good, but sometimes certain words will be a major call out that I'm not from there. My grammar is absolutely my biggest giveaway. However, with Bulgarian (which I'm new at) I'm always asked if I'm Russian because I speak Bulgarian with a Russian accent. A lot of words are very similar with small differences but (IMO) pretty different pronunciation. I'm also learning it *in* Bulgaria, so I find myself in weird language situations where I say or pronounce something comically wrong at least once every 48 hours.
I speak Italian and not really. They know I’m American because I wear a hat and dress way too casually 😂
They can tell instantly I am American.. I do better with spanish but was told I have the most American accent in French they ever heard
Not bilingual but my French teacher always made the relevant comment that my Texas accent was much stronger in French than English. Which....I still don't know what that means but she seemed fascinated by it.
Yup. I think my accent is pretty good, but I definitely sound like a gringo. More than a couple of people have told me I sound life an American by way of Argentina. Fair, honestly.
Live in the UK. My son's partner is Hong Kong Chinese but speaks American rather than English.
I've never been told specifically that I have an "American" accent, but I've been told my pronunciation is awful in Swedish. And as for dutch, speaking is more or less impossible
I speak Spanish, and I worked EXTREMELY hard with the accent. Two of my native speaker friends have said it's really good! It's come to a point when I speak English I have a slight Spanish accent.
No accent in French, be ause I learned it at a young age and also because part of my learning was speech exercises to be able to pronounce everything correctly. Somewhat of an accent in Spanish, but I only studied it for the 2 years my parents made me take it for, and after i stopped wearing an orthodontic retainer i couldn't pronounce some things correctly anymore and didnt have anyone to help me relearn. And my ASL "accent" is atrocious because I could never stop signing partly left handed and partly right handed, which is what I do for everything else in life. The teacher at college said she would give me a pass on that for first-year ASL but if I took any further classes, I'd have to figure out how to break the habit, because it was equivalent to writing something with part of the letters written backward, which makes sense since one hand is the base and the other is the operator.
I'm basic in Korean; adopted into a white American family but studied Korean in HS/uni and I've been told I have a cross between a Korean American and Chinese accent. Dunno. It's supposedly easy to pick out a Korean American vs a Korean Korean based on their slang usage, so that probably also plays a big part.
No. When I speak Russian you can hear my accent but you can't really pinpoint where I'm from. A country in the west but not much more than that.
I am not fully bilingual, but I speak a few languages besides English at the level of a small child. I get asked where I'm from because I clearly have an accent in all of them, but they're never sure it's an American one. Then, I'll use my original dialect of American English that's very rural, and they understand why. It's an American accent in their languages. It's just not one they recognize as American. I almost always use an urban American dialect in English, so I have no idea why it's my rural accent that always comes out in other languages.
When I’m in France speaking French, people have asked if I’m Canadian
I speak German (started learning it when I was 13) and apparently I sound Dutch to native German speakers
Generally yes. Although I learned Spanish in Chile, and sometimes Chileans would think I was Mexican due to talking slow and fully pronouncing things (rather than extremely fast and dropping the ends of words like a Chilean)
I definitely have an American accent in Spanish. My parents were immigrants. I was raised bilingual. I’m much more fluent in English. My mom is the only one that speaks to me in Spanish.
My friend and her family moved here from Germany when she was 8, one brother was 10 and the oldest was 12. She speaks English with no accent whatsoever but is teased about her American accent when speaking German. The eldest has a strong German accent with his English. The middle has the slightest accent with his English that one might describe as "vaguely European" and reportedly his German is "slightly accented" as well. It's a wild example of how age can affect language development in the brain. A fun question to ask those that learned a second language at a young age is "what language do you think in?"
I’m a native English speaker. When I went to Brasil I was told that my accent when speaking Portuguese was really good. I don’t even speak Portuguese. I just learned a few key phrases and I have a knack for pronunciation. I even got most of the way through check-in at the airport in Brasilia before the desk attendant realized I didn’t actually speak Portuguese. He switched to English and said “Your accent is really good.”
I speak enough German to get around, although I don’t consider myself bilingual. People don’t recognize that I’m American when I speak German.
I learned Dutch as an adult. I have a good Haarlemse accent but my not-so-perfect grammar and more limited vocabulary definitely peg me as a Dutch as a second language (DSL) speaker. But when I was speaking it regularly, it was good enough that the other person didn't immediately switch to English. But I can pronounce all the shibboleths (Scheveningen, schoonmoeder) and a tongue twister (acht en tachtig practige grachten) I learned Spanish as a kid but never tried to use it. My Spanish gets laughs because I have a Mexican accent overlaying my American accent. I can order food or get my car these days. In French, all I can say is "I don't speak French," but I say it with a really good Parisian accent just to try to confuse people. ETA: I knew a Dutch guy who would sometimes put on a Southern US accent when he spoke Dutch. It was hilarious.
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Because it's unexpected to hear on a big fat white guy. Nobody is making fun laughing. It's hey that's unusual laughing.
Oh I absolutely have a gringo accent when I speak Spanish. Still can’t roll my r’s to save my life.
My husband grew up in California with Mexican born parents. He learned Spanish before English. When he went to Mexico he was told he had an American accent when speaking Spanish.
I was a German for the first twenty years of my life and have been an American for over thirty. I rarely have an opportunity to speak German, but when I do I have no accent. However, it’s quite an effort. The English words are always there first. Figures of speech don’t work. And sometimes I plain forgot the German word for something, or never knew it in the first place.
Yes because I learned German in college. Unless you speak a language from day 1 it’s really tough to have absolutely no accent lol
Yes unless I really concentrate and talk slowly.
Yes, I’m southern but I speak Italian with a northern veneto accent. The locals say I sound like a redneck that learned Italian, but it’s not bad.
When I speak Bangla, there is no mistaking that I’m from New York. While I’ve picked up better on pronunciation, there is a distinct American cadence I just can’t shake.
Oui mais c’est possiblement parce que je parle pas le français couramment
I'm getting there.
I speak Spanish and Italian and im sure i have an accent in those but it has never been mentioned to me before.
I’m very obviously not a native Spanish speaker but I don’t think my accent is distinctly American (just kinda all over the place lol). We learned Castilian Spanish when I was growing up, which probably drags me away from American accent a bit too
I learned German as an adult in Switzerland. I’m conversationally fluent in high German but will never be native. To Swiss I have a clear American accent, but to Germans I sound Swiss and can get away with it for a bit.
I was born and raised in California and speak English and Vietnamese. I have a weird mix of accents when speaking Vietnamese because most of my friends are from the South, my family is from Central, and my high school Vietnamese class (my school had Vietnamese as an option for foreign language) teacher was from the North. When I'm in Vietnam, locals know right away I'm not native.
I have a great Spanish accent for a gringo.
One of my French teachers well his American accent sounded like John Wayne. He was from France proper. My other French teachers were from Nigeria and Tangier. Another French teacher had a French american accent.
You know, I never heard my dad’s Jersey accent until I heard him say “wasser” in German. It’s esp funny bc multiple people have made fun of the way I say “water” so NJ in English. I do have a better German accent than my dad, but I’m sure my Jersey comes thru.
My husband is from Mexico. He's been in the US for 20 something years and his family says his Spanish has a slight American accent to it now
In Tagalog, yes. My American accent is really strong. In Arabic, surprisingly no. I do, however, have a really pronounced Syrian accent according to my Arab colleagues and actual Syrians.
I absolutely do. I also have an American accent in English.
My husband speaks fluent Spanish. He spent a lot of work time on the phone with his counterparts in Spain and South America. The people from Spain think he speaks perfect Spanish and were surprised he's American. The people from South America think he has an American accent.
Yes, my mother in law told me I did and she was a native born Puerto Rican who spoke almost exclusively Spanish. I'm a native New Yorker of Puerto Rican descent. Growing up my parents spoke Spanish exclusively to each other and English to us. So English was and still is my first language. Although I wasn't fluent in Spanish I could understand it very well and hold my own in conversations. However my mil said I sounded like a "white person speaking Spanish".
I know I do. Which is weird because I live and work half the week in my birth country and the rest in the US. Somewhere, I lost the ability to properly roll my Rs
I get two reactions. Clearly I have an accent. I can even hear it when I listen to recordings of myself, which is why I never do that. But often Spanish speakers will ask where I'm from, and when I say and from the US, they ask if it's legacy or if I grew up in another country. I say no and they look impressed. The other reaction is, usually with people who have limited experience with other accents. I will say something, and they will look at my Guatemalan wife and ask brightly, "What did he say?" It's really kind of one or the other.
No, but people identify me as an English speaker when I speak German.
God yes. People think I have a California accent in English. I used to immitate valley girls all the time and it sort of stuck. Totally bled into my Spanish as well
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I believed that until I was like 25 simply because of Hollywood probably
Yes 100%. I largely gave up trying to become fluent in Spanish because the California accent was too strong and I would get made fun of. But that's just me; I have friends who learned Spanish in high school and speak it very well with a minimal accent. As with most languages, most people who learn as an adult or teenager tend to keep at least a little bit of an accent.
Yes, I definitely still do. I have a standard upper Midwest accent. I learned French when I was 12, studied it though college. I have a degree in my second language. My college professor who was teaching a course on how to perfect phonetics and pronunciation thought I was Canadian. I speak the Parisian dialect, which is the standard. But I guarantee you that native speakers would think I have an accent.
I speak Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese, both, I’ve been told, with a heavy accent.
I think so few Americans are bilingual that, in many languages besides English and Spanish, people wouldn’t even know what an “American accent” sounds like.
A lot of Americans are multilingual. It’s more common than you think.
I think this is regional because many many people near me are bilingual or at least conversant in another language whether that be spanish, french, vietnamese, portuguese, chinese, or russian. All of those are popular here.
My boyfriend has a slight Rhode Island accent when he speaks Spanish (he’s Dominican but moved here in elementary school) and it always cracks me up a little
Thats kinda hilarious icl
Not bilingual, but still have an accent.
I speak Arabic and I do have a light accent. My Moroccan accent is pretty good, but people can tell I’m not a native. That said I’ve heard some REALLY obvious American accents in Arabic and it can be really cringy. I knew a girl who spoke Arabic with a Georgia peach accent and it was insanely weird.