How are you guys? ...we're fine.

[toblix]

Last night I had my first meeting in English, which I'm fucking terrible at. I was teleconferencing with two guys in the US. It was horrible, and I'm sure that at one point one of them was about to ask if I was retarded. Anyway, there's only one way to become better at it, so in some perverse way I'm looking forward to the next time.

[Roderick]

You can write it pretty goddamn well, in any case. You should just try Skyping with English friends for an hour every day; you'll improve enormously.

[toblix]

It's really a shame. I played WoW for over a year, but I never actually got around to playing with a group using Teamspeak or Ventrilo, which'd also help. I can only imagine how much better non-english speaking people must become now that voice-chat is everywhere.

I've found that one of my main problems with speaking English is tone. I'm perfectly able to mimic tons of various dialects and ways of speaking, but when I'm trying to speak English seriously, not just joking around, I don't know what to pick. Since I'm not English or American I don't fall back to my "natural tone", and my voice instead just goes up and down unpredictably. And also I don't know any English words when speaking. It's ridiculous.

I've promised myself that when I get moved into my apartment, I'll hook up the Live headset and get my chat on for reals.

[Roderick]

It takes me a minute to switch into 'proper English' mode when surprised by it. After that I'm a steamroller but it just goes to show, there'll always be that adjustment time when you want to speak 'seriously'.

The good news is that it's totally learnable. Just speak English regularly and you'll have no problems. You already have everything you need.

[Thrik]

I'd imagine you pretty much do need to fake a particular accent, which would obviously be the one of your area if you were to immigrate. You then fake it until you make it, as they say. Accents are formed by habits and influence, so faking those habits is presumably all you can do if you're not actually living in a particular area.

Just go for a relatively unpronounced accent though, rather than one of the strong ones (ie: avoid very northern or very southern for UK, dunno about the US but I'd imagine you wouldn't want to try and emulate southern). My own East Midlands accent fits that bill fairly well.

[brkl]

Received Pronounciation is good for a couple of reasons:

* It's a 'fake' accent for everyone (received!) because people don't generally grow up speaking it

* It's very clearly defined, unlike pretty much all accents

However, even if you master it you'll just end up sounding like some Oxford asshole like me though. It's pretty much the most boring English accent out there, except maybe a Mid-Atlantic accent.

[Roderick]

Accents are fun though, and surprisingly easier te learn if it's not your own language. If I watch two episodes of Consolevania I turn into a Scotsman.

[vimes]

But only a wee bit.

[Nachimir]

Does anyone else unconsciously absorb accents? My family seem to do a it a lot; if we're around people with accents we seem to start reproducing little bits of them immediately.

[ThunderPeel2001]

Totally, for some odd reason I do that and I can't help myself. Apparently it's quite rare. Losing your accent is a supposedly very difficult thing to do.

[Roderick]

I have that all the time. I believe it's a very common, logical thing; as we are socially programmed to adapt to our environment. In my experience it's easier if

a.) you've got a trained voice (you like to act, do impressions, etc)

b.) the accent is from a language not your mother's tongue

Generally I pick up stuff fairly easily. I only need to see a single Dylon Moran show to become a convincing drunken Irish bloke.

[ThunderPeel2001]

Well, I've been told it's very rare from a language specialist *shrugs*. Really, once you're no longer a kid, it's very rare for it to be necessary for an adult to need to change their accent, so it would be odd if we were all given that ability.

I've met plenty of people who would have LOVED to lose their accent, but they can't. When I lived in LA, for example, I met two Scottish people (who weren't together), one of whom had lived in America since she was 12. She sounded like she'd just stepped off the plane (and hated it). When I was in Tunisia I met a guy in his 60s who had ran away and joined the Foreign Legion in his youth. He spoke fluent Arabic (much to the surprise of the hotel staff) but he still spoke in a thick Yorkshire accent.

Living in America, a lot of people didn't believe I was British -- they'd (suspiciously) say "If you're English, where's your accent?". (Which is how the language specialist told me it was rare -- and something they study.) I don't think you know if you've really lost your accent unless someone from the country you think you sound like actually confirms it.

Anyone hear of that woman who was reported to have magically acquired a Jamaican accent after a stroke? (Linky: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/health/article682523.ece ) Of course what really happened was that she'd lost some control of her vocal muscles/had some brain damage and only sounded Jamaican to British people. To Jamaicans she didn't sound anything like a Jamaican.

[Roderick]

Oh, that's interesting; in my experience, most of the (young adult) people around me pick up accents like there's no tomorrow. Even little stuff. A friend of mine who has a 'soft R' effortlessly assimilates a scraping variant when he speaks to people from Amsterdam (note: the Amsterdam accent is the most grating one we have in the country; it sounds like fossilized babies rubbed on chalkboard).

Could it be linked to us Dutchies hearing so many different languages in our everyday lives (mostly English, but also German and French)? I'd like to find out.

[vimes]

My mom is from Corsica and my dad is from the lorraine region, so even though I've lived in the South for years, I only have a hint of southern French accent ... but it does go into full throttle mode if I'm speaking with people from Toulouse or Marseille.

As for my English, I don't know : I take pride in the fact that most people mistake me for a German guy but I know I pronounce the 'H' sound where I shouldn't and sometimes put s's in places they clearly don't belong. Plus I tend to use 'like' a lot, which makes me sound like a retarded cheerleader and I hate it.

Someone told me it's very difficult to lose your accent in a foreign language after you're 20 because people put up with it and don't correct you anymore.

You dutch people are really lucky to be exposed to so many languages at once and to have a national language that seems halfway from German and English.

[Roderick]

Retarded cheerleader?

Here's Dylan Moran on the American language: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6K8yfQYOTQ

[vimes]

I sometimes totally sounds like this.

On an unrelated note, I didn't know he did stand-ups : I thought he was too fucking drunk to do anything else than telly and movies.

[ThunderPeel2001]

Aye, my gf and I saw him in London about a year ago. He was very good, but his set was very short. My favourite observation was how "A grown man is simply a child holding a beer". Very true

Don't know what to make about you and your Dutch friends? Maybe the Dutch are especially adept or maybe some people just find it impossible to change their accent? Who knows. The only online information about it is from people who offer courses to change you accent. Of course, according to them, it's exceptionally easy to change your accent... with the help of their tuition

Can I Change My Accent?

Yes, with lots of hard work, practice, and the help of a qualified speech-language pathologist (SLP), you can learn how to change your speech pronunciation. Changing your accent is also known as "accent modification" or "accent reduction." An SLP can provide services to speakers who want to modify or reduce their accent.

[Thrik]

I'm going to throw out a totally uneducated guess and speculate that if you consistently fake another accent, you will eventually modify the way you talk. Everyone can fake another accent, so it wouldn't be much of a stretch to imagine that if you forced yourself to fake another accent all the time you'd eventually begin to use it automatically.

It'd be difficult though, and you'd probably have to apply the same accent faking to your non-spoken thoughts too (We all think with an accent in our heads, right?).

Maybe that's all these accent modification tutors teach. Heck, perhaps doing it regularly and not all the time is enough to make changes. In reality, the vast majority of people will never put such effort into changing their accent and might even feel stupid doing so, thus why it seems so difficult — and yet easy if you're shown that this what you need to do.

[DanJW]

I remember when I was about 12 an Australian family, friends of my parents, came to stay. After a day or two of hanging out with their son I had to make a concious effort in order to not speak with an aussie accent.

I also tend to inadvertently pick up accents if when I'm getting drunk with the locals while abroad. So far this han't got me into too much trouble.

[ThunderPeel2001]

Maybe some accents are addictive? I still sound American...

[Roderick]

Sure some accents are easier than others. American is a very simple accent because it's very sloppy. You just swallow a quarter of everything you're saying and you're done. Of course, there are wonderful variations there; Brooklyn accents, Southern accents, that typical Jewish accent...

[JoannaDark]

my mother is in her fifties and utah jehovah witnesses came to the door the other day with the strongest accents ever...i was in the sitting room creasing up with laughter as i heard my mother explain in the same utah accent that she was jewish and, as such, didnt really have any need for different interpretations of jehovah. i do it too, to an embarrassing degree, i just got back from a conference in hamburg where my accent changed every five minutes. its definitely easier for me as a native english speaker i think to modulate my accent when talking to non native english speakers, as in i would think it would be harder for say a finnish person to modulate their accent when talking to me than vice versa. i speak almost fluent italian and i certainly can barely tell the difference between different italian accents.

i notice other people doing it too, especially around english speakers from other countries - my sister works in london and speaks in this weird london-irish accent when in work. i think its definitely a conformity thing.

yes.