Accents

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Cripes! How many languagues do you speak?!? Obviously Dutch, but you also speak English, Italian, German, and French? More amazingly, you seem capable of speaking all of them well. I've heard of multi-lingual, but this is another level!

 

I just listened to myself leaving a message on my home phone number and I realized I still have a Wisconsin accent, even though I no longer live in Wisconsin. Strange.

Personally, I like hearing other accents.

 

Nooo! Nonononono! No! I'm not multi-lingual. My English is decent, but my German is near rubbish and my French, not to mention Italian, even more so. I can't translate sentences just in a blink of an eye, but if I know what to say, it sounds rather good (that's what I've been told, at least...). For instance: When I ask people for directions in Italian, I usually don't follow their answer because they talk too fast. And when I explain I'm a foreigner, they say something like: Oh sorry! didn't realize that. I didn't hear an accent.

When speaking a foreign language, I tend to change my voice a little, perhaps adjusting the shape of my mouth/throat etc, copying the melody and emphasizing sounds I find characteristic for their language.
For some reason, I find it difficult for English. Maybe because it's spoken in so many different ways.

 

Note on the TOEFL

It's the "Test of English as a Foreign Language", which is actually included in your SAT. The very steady reports of amazing scores esp. from the W'n edge of the "Pacific Rim", accompanied by people with horrible actual language skills, made it clear even in the early 1980s that there was a huge problem with the test not being secure even then. (The College Board stopped its more modern, computerized administration of the GRE to a set of countries--including Singapore, Hong Kong, etc.==back on the late 1990s, because of how rampant the cheating was.)

So you might run into ppl with fake language credentials, too.

The worst thing is the technical "writing" by non-speakers; you all know what I mean!

 

Since I have only been down deep here in South GA, sometimes I really ;stand out to say the least. I surely don't have that big accent mos of these people have except it is a college town-Valdosta St. Univ. and that helps me to sound quire as weird to them. Honest I have always used southern terms, such as y'sll and so forth, but never tht sound, lol. Honestly, I have that very distinctive Baltimore, MD accent, where they say their O's as oe's haha. Not with a big O just a lil one. Also we do have that habit of calling people 'hun' or sweetheart quite a bit. At least I do. no wonder men get mad at me if I say that to a stranger I see out on one of our many travels. this southern accent talk is wearing on me though, and talking to my mom on phone the other day, she said she noticed, lol.

 

How do you call Old Gurke's(the one from Baldur's Gate) accent? Dwarvish? I like that one a lot. Made me laugh. "Me temper's bad enough, without ye bothering me!"

 

I think it's a Scottish accent, for some reason dwarves in fantasy are depicted with Scottish accent. It's weird, I mean, why? what does Scotland has to do with dwarves ? It's so arbitrary.

Also ever noticed that in the Dragon Age games elves have Welsh accent, Fereldian British Accent, and Free marcher General American Accent ? It's a nice touch to differentiate people linguistically but, they could've made the effort to make up their own accent.

 

I generally have a hard time understanding a lot of spoken language if there's any unfamiliar melody. Let alone the lyrics of songs.

It's hard to say. I had a standard RP-kinda British accent when I was in my late teens but later on two things happened: I lost opportunity to use spoken English much, and I'd been experimenting with my accent, which messed things up a bit. As a result you can tell a foreigner (generic European) and sometimes you can even tell where I'm from (that'd be Poland). Of late, I generally use American pronunciation more and more often, given that I lost naturalcy in the British accent anyway and that I have to switch back and forth when in writing, depending on the target. So I decided that I might as well adapt in speech to some extent. The largest distinguishing factor is that I don't use fall rise, so I'll sound different from most people in a British context even when not sounding different ethnically. That, and a lack of consistency. My accent may sound totally different from one day to the next even if I don't try to mix it up.

Depends. Sometimes I like them crisp and clear, sometimes I like them soft. I don't like the exaggerated ones, ones that pierce your ears or ones you just can't understand.

 

I like English, Irish and Scottish accents best and I thoroughly blame Mel Blanc and Warner Bros for getting me hooked on them...

 

That's a pretty broad range of accents, Gehennis! From Barmy Army's incomprehensible Yorkshire accent to Del Trotter's South London lilt, to The Beatles Liverpool voice, in England alone. And you can't possibly be hooked on the Birmingham accent - that's the worst accent on the planet.

 

Have you guys watched Brave(the one with the bears and stuff)? Oh my god. Everyone's accent is just eargasmic.