What does your accent sound like?

[limitdeditionlayla]

The Irish never lose their accents - like dirty bloodsucking mites clinging to a diseased hedgehog

LMFAO

Kiwis sound like retarded Australians. Sometimes even we can't understand them. I like to pretend I can't understand Kiwis just for the fun of it, especially when I was working in retail. That'll learn them. You know New Zealand was asked to be part of Australia back in 1902, but REFUSED & now they come over here in bucketloads, eligible for our welfare & insulting our rubgy team. Booo!

Sean's grandparents are from Nthn Scotland & I have to listen very carefully to them, esp his grandfather. Half the time I have NO idea what the old man is trying to say. The Scottish brogue hurts my ears sometimes.

[sisyphus]

thick scottish accents are indeed difficult, to say the least.

[strat-0]

I'll bet Ryo has no accent whatsoever in either English or Japanese. That's just not right.

I can also now confirm that Mary indeed does not have that Baston thing going. No discernible accent at all, except maybe a little Californian style. Watch it, Mary -- you'll find that Southern drawl creeping into your speech imperceptibly, without realizing it. Before you know it, your family and friends will be teasing you about it!

[KayJay]

Watch it, Mary -- you'll find that Southern drawl creeping into your speech imperceptibly, without realizing it. Before you know it, your family and friends will be teasing you about it!

hahaha! One thing about it, though, Mary - if anyone ever teases you about any little "Suh-thuhn dra-awl" you may pick up you can always say "fuck off" with little or no accent whatsoever.

When growing up I had a relatively unique accent from southern CA. My pronunciation was esquisite, although slightly hispanic. When we moved to Missouri I could barely understand them at all, with their hillbilly slang and lazy accents. I nearly fell out completely the first time I heard someone say "Aah et lack uh hawg 't thayat sprayuhd." (meaning, of course - haha - "I ate like a hog at that spread." with "spread" being "quite a feast")

I eventually allowed the accent to creep in and found it to be rather pleasant. Eventually I moved to Illinois (just across the river from St. L) and all traces of acquired accent disappeard, being replaced with a slightly German accent.

After moving back to Missouri I quickly re-acquired the hillbilly style from working in geriatrics - there is something quite wonderful in the speech of "over-the-age-of-90" hillbillies.

However, it didn't take long living in the Ft. Worth, TX area to pick up the Texican style of speaking.

Now, after having lived in the Birmingham, AL area for nearly 6 years, I don't have a clue as to what the hell I sound like. Everywhere but here I dealt with the public. Most people I speak with here try to figure out where the hell I'm from. haha

Quite honestly, to me, it's all about communication. People must be able to understand and relate to each other. Accents are quite lovely. I love them all.

[RocDoc]

I have many of my patients telling me that they're surprised that I'm actually Chicago-born and raised when they first hear me speaking Lithuanian. Asking me how long I've been in the country and shit. Yeah right.
Lots of times I figure that they're just buttering me up, although I do know that I don't in fact exactly suck at this language which I' HAVE spoken since I was little.
Thing is, is that there was a swath of years between stopping all Lithuanian higher education and Scouts and the CYO (circa 1976) til about 1990 that the only Lith that I spoke was with my parents and that for a long time was very liberally populated with Americanisms with Lith endings tacked on.
1988-1989 I had a couple of off-the-boat Lith friends my own age who'd fled the SSRs in the face of great danger to themselves AND (very unfortunately) to the friends and families that they'd left behind for the KGB-jagoffs to fuck with.
THIS was an interesting time because I was so horribly inadequate in trying to talk to these guys, but they didn't give a shit because they themselves needed me to help them in learning English. We'd be at blues bars yelling this mish-mosh of the two languages at each other while drinking lots of beer.
We had a ball. They learned some. I learned some.

Still, I'm told (just today in fact) that I have a Lithuanian regional accent somewhere from the north of the country, a district called Suvalkija, which is known for a very proper, formal form of Lithuanian.
All I know is that I'm generally a really good mimic of accents and I'll mimic the style of speech of whoever comes into the office. There's a hillbilly Lithuanian dialect that I can do at the drop of a hat, but when I have patients from there (the 'hill country') who are coming in regularly, I can't turn it off when I get home.

In English, I often get pegged as being a native of whereever I'm at.

California, NYC, it hasn't mattered.
Ain't been in the south much at all however, so that one'd be a stretch probably.

[strat-0]

Doc, how much do you speak Lith at home? Are you going to teach the young'un by speaking both around him?

[Ryosuke]

admin said:

I'll bet Ryo has no accent whatsoever in either English or Japanese. That's just not right.

Heh, I missed this. I don't know about my English, but I don't think I have a "Japanese accent" when I speak it. Remember, I spent a big chunk of my childhood in the South, so I think I might've spoke with a little Southern accent back then! But I think I lost it when I moved up to Michigan. Not that I remember ever being made fun of the way I speak or anything there - it just kind of happened naturally.

My Japanese definitely doesn't have an accent. I speak standard, Tokyo Japanese. I spent three years in Shizuoka before coming up here to Tokyo, but thankfully never picked up the dialect there. I think we might be worse than Americans when it comes to judging people by their accents. I do have to confess that when I hear someone speak with a thick regional accent/dialect, I find myself thinking "yikes." Except that never seems to happen with Kansai people, with me or most Japanese people. They have this "this is the way I speak you got a fucking problem with it?" attitude that shows in their speech. Those bastards.

[RocDoc]

See, we had two periods of native Lithuanian speakers living with us since Matas was born, he's VERY solid in the Lith language.
My wife's Mom showed up on July 7th, 3 days after the boy was born and stayed a year (minus four days thanks to the idjit INS who don't know what the fuck 365 days means) and the thought is that its' extremely rude to speak in a language other than the one you ALL know when you're in that sorta mixed company.
So Lithuanian was the order of the day..tho my wife and I normally speak English 98% of the time. Even with her being from 'there' and only having been here 12-13 years.

Her Mom AND her Dad came back 5-6 months later on Dec 15th and we had them with us for another 6 months before they went back to look after their purchase of a downsized condo 'back home'...so Matas has had seriou Lithuanian thrown at him for extended periods.

BUT with breaks when he needed to go to daycare, for the 5 months after Gramma left and then the time from JUne 13th til now when everyone from 'the Old Country' left our house.

Tho we ae still going at about 75% Lith with him in anticipation of Gramma coming back.

So now he's sorta stuck between the two languages, tho he tries SO fucking hard to conquer English, and DESPITE the fact that so many in this daycare of his are Mexicans who barely seem interested in moving beyond their lovely effing Spanish.
This is helped along by the fact that (in addition to their parents) 99% of the staff are Mexican and they speak to those kids in Spanish. The sort of a 'feeling right at home' that our kid has never felt there. Y'know, when you're forced to se it this way every day, well you can just fuck this so-called 'diversity'.

But this IS our old neighborhood and this is precisely why we've moved out. He's still reveling in this diversity because the daycare's near my office and on the way home for my wife.

We've still got loads of Lith friends with kids with whom he's 'play-dating'...

[rockysigman]

Does he know that they are two different languages, or does he sort of go back and forth between them?

Just curious. I have a couple cousins who are half Lebonese, and who always spoke Arabic around their dad's family...when they were really little, they'd sort of go back and forth, not really realizing that it wasn't all one language.

[skvorisdeadsorta]

I have a nice Southern Drawl that makes you wet.........

[RocDoc]

Uh-oh. A wet spitting lisp?
Like Sylvester Cat on the cartoons...(thufferin' thuccotash!)

Be warned folks! When we meet skv, I'm gonna wear a friggin' raincoat... ;D

_{Does he know that they are two different languages, or does he sort of go back and forth between them?}

In his case right now, he's been trying to exclude the Lithuanian because he needs to be understood by the aides at the daycare for 5-6 hours a day.
But my wife and I are still working him with Lithuanian translations right after he tries to say something in English.
We don't want his Gramma heartbroken that she can't communicate with her dollface grandson anymore, when she comes back here.

Adults (and adolescents) are different.
Adults blending English and Lithuanian is pretty much what I myself grew up with. Instead of searching for a proper Lithuanian word, you use the english word that popped into your head IF everyone else is speaking at that level...

Matas HAS started putting Lithuanian endings onto English words, Lithuanianizing them.
And when I was growing up and didn't really give two shits how I spoke the language, I (and all my friends) did the exact same thing.
We were casual and it showed we were 'cool' (as if to say 'we-don't-really-give-a-shit-we're-American-anyway')about this Lithuanian-ness hanging over our heads.

Now I am definitely doing my damnedest to try to keep up with the new folks coming over and coming in as new patients, in a sense of 'Look, I can communicate with my Doc just as though I was at home'.

And when you're in pain, the way that I see a LOT of them are, that bit of familiarity, of 'Hey, he's OK'...I feel that goes a long way toward comforting them and calming them down.

[strat-0]

I think you are doing it right, Doc. Youngsters are hard-wired for language acquisition. It's a strong part of early human development. Matas can learn both at the same time without much confusion, unlike an adult. It's very hard for an adult to learn another language. I don't know if they can ever really learn to "think" in the language they are trying to learn like they can in their "native" tongue.

[RocDoc]

When I start to think in Lithuanian on occasion (honestly, it probably happens on a 1 : 3 basis/proportion lately, it's that strong), I know I'm starting to nail that language....

The total immersion when vacationing in Lithuania for 3 weeks at time, helped that lots.

[KayJay]

It's very hard for an adult to learn another language. I don't know if they can ever really learn to "think" in the language they are trying to learn like they can in their "native" tongue.

I'm not so sure about that, strat. I think it depends on the language, to be honest with you. Spanish was my second language and for many years, even far from Los Angeles, I thought in Spanish a LOT... in fact, I still do at times.

Am I strange? Oh, yes! But not necessarily for that.

[kmc]

As Portuguese is my first language, my accent sounds like a mix of cajun/french and west indies. It's always been a great conversation starter.