AIBU to ask if you should adopt the accent when speaking in another language?

[WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll]

Every time I hear a British person speaking a foreign language to a native speaker of that language, it makes me irrationally wince when they make no attempt to use a more native-sounding accent. I was always taught at school and college that you should use an authentic-sounding accent and hearing a Brit speaking fluent 'forrin' but in a very British accent sounds to me as though they aren't really trying.

However, this never seems to happen the other way around - and this doesn't seem weird to me at all. Regardless of how flawless and even idiomatic their English is, it's still always very clear from their accent that they ARE actually French, German, Spanish or whatever. And why wouldn't/shouldn't it be?

The only exception that I can think of is when I heard Morten Harket on the radio a little while ago, and I didn't know that it was him at first, as he sounded so very much like a native Brit - but then he might have lived here for a long time.

A Cockney wouldn't adjust their accent when speaking to a Scot or a Geordie. A woman wouldn't feel the need to lower the pitch of her voice in solidarity when talking to a man. And could it be seen as mockery or even cultural appropriation if they did? What about English people learning Welsh - should they try to emulate the accent too?

Any thoughts? Am I just being Anglocentric and/or patronising? Forriners with an alternative perspective on it particularly welcome!

Actually people do adapt their accent and pronunciation slightly even when speaking the same language. You can see it with people like David Cameron and Boris Johnson and Theresa May saying “Bridain” because using the “t” sounds a bit too “posh”. People living in different areas to where they grew up will start adapting (to a greater or lesser extent) subconsciously to fit in. I have a friend who has lived in Australia for the last 15 years who has a slight twang now that she never previously had. Another friend who is French went to work up in Liverpool and developed the accent even though she had previously lived in London. It’s called dialectism. And when people who adapt their accent depending on who they talk to in 2 different ways it’s called bidialectism. There’s an article here.

www.esquire.com/uk/culture/news/a6844/heres-why-your-accent-keeps-changing-depending-who-youre-with/

After the age of 10 your mouth muscles are all formed and so it is impossible to create perfectly the sounds in another language. Which is why children arriving in a country aged, say, 7, will be able to sound native within a year or so, while those arriving at 20 never will, even if they live in the country all their lives.

It is of course possible to improve your accent, and the aim of this is to be more easily understood and “fit in” but for people speaking a foreign language this will only ever be an approximation.

I have what most people would term to be a very "neutral" British accent - I am identifiably British but beyond that people seem to struggle; I'm actually Scottish but don't often get picked as such - more usually as English. I do however have a passable North German accent. This actually causes me issues as my German is not fluent, more patchwork - but if people think I'm actually just from a different part of Germany they speak at normal full speed to me which just sails right over my head. I'm musical though so wonder if that has helped with picking up the accent?

French people don't say English words in a london or Birmingham accent in the middle of their sentences

No, but they use Weekend and a LOT of other English words as part of the conversation. if they had only ever heard the scouse way of pronouncing a word, they'd say it that way.

You are confusing language with dialect

After the age of 10 your mouth muscles are all formed and so it is impossible to create perfectly the sounds in another language. Which is why children arriving in a country aged, say, 7, will be able to sound native within a year or so, while those arriving at 20 never will, even if they live in the country all their lives.

Rubbish. Utter and complete twaddle! I was 21 when I moved to Brazil. My accent is native standard, and was so in 2 years. STILL is 25 years on!

My DS is 12, he can mimic any accent in a number of languages. The muscles are not formed. it is not impossible to learn new languages or accents.

I was taught German by an Italian woman in America...I never quite mastered the accent for some reason.

As Blackberry says, I think intonation plays a big role too. Frequently I find that when hearing someone (who I know speaks two languages) from a distance, I often can't tell which one it is. I think this is mainly because their intonation tends to be the same in both, even if their vocabulary is excellent. With people who speak 2 languages to native speaker standard, I think it's the intonation as well as pronunciation (and grammatical accuracy, vocabulary and knowledge of slang) which makes them sound like a native of that language.

Even worse than doing a crap French accent in french is doing a crap French accent while speaking your native English.

Hissy well that’s what I learnt in my applied linguistics masters degree about second language acquisition. But maybe there have been more papers written since to refute.

Well. Another way of looking at it is that he is speaking his own version of "International English" because if he speaks in his natural way he will NOT be understood. A successful strategy it seems from the reactions and I recognise it as similar to a what I do too.

Vor example His native way of saying "a little bit of" could be quite a challenge to catch. He slows it down and put the t sounds in and it's comprehensible!

Agree with cauli.

Especially people with strong regional accents - lots of people can drop in and out of a thick accent because they've gone through life having to repeat themselves and it gets tedious. When I lived up near Newcastle locals would also go extra Geordie if they wanted to tease you (or genuinely to exclude you, I guess!).

Speaking of footie Harry and Paul's dressing room sketch is quite funny with the multi lingual manager.

'May wee, Rodney....'

Always pronounce the language you're speaking in, the best way possible, irrespective of whether you're fluent or know only a few words, IMO.

Morten Harket is danish and i find the scandinavians tend to speak with american accents.

I speak 3.5 languages and make no effort with the accent. As you say others don't in english so fuck it. But people are dead rude and often refuse to speak their native tongue with me as a result (particularly the french). Despite the fact my french is grammatically very good. I read a study by linguists taht said those who speak with a good accent but shit grammar are received more warmly by native speakers than the other way around. That is definitely my experience.

I’ve thought this too op. I lived in France for a while and spent the whole time trying to emulate the accent. A friend of mine who’d been there many years and married a Frenchman spoke French with an Irish accent and made herself understood a lot more easily than I did. I think speaking another language, making yourself clearly understood, but also managing to keep your own accent as far as possible is, for me, the ideal. My multilingual friend speaks perfect English, (in fact it’s her first language but it’s very, very close to one of her other languages). But she speaks with an accent. Her English is probably better than mine though !

It's to do with immersion and the age when the 2nd language was learned. Sounds are formed in different parts of the throat and mouth, lips are shaped differently, the jaw muscles are used differently and the tongue positioned differently from language to language. In a native speaker these movements and positions are learned reflexively from very young and it's harder to learn them and overcome our own learned patterns the older we get.

Some sounds and the way they are formed are completely alien to other language speakers and try as we might we can't get our tongues and lips around them, so we do the best approximation we can. Some people are better mimics and better able to make the throat, mouth and jaw movements necessary, some just aren't.Hearing a sound and then reproducing it are two different things.

I give a massive pass to anyone making a sincere effort to communicate with a foreigner in their own language in the areas of accent in the same way I give them a pass on grammar and syntax, they're trying and deserve a pat on the back for that alone.

I am from a EU country and have lived in England since I was 20. I am in my mid 40s now. My accent is getting stronger the older I get. I hate that, but I seem to have no control over it.

Morten Harket 😍😍😍

Hi. Of course, It's good to do but it might be very hard. Generally only bilingual people or people with lots of exposure and practice can do this. You might think your accent is great, the native might privately disagree.
Think about non native English speakers who speak the language well, their accent may have softened over time but generally is still there.

I feel sorry for that footballer you do start to speak in that bananas way if you spend enough time with globish speakers.

Hissy then you and your prodigious children are among the lucky few who do have the capability to overcome learned vocal muscle memory and develop new areas of flexibility, so am I, many aren't, it's an actual thing like some being able to do the splits or the lotus position - but hey, you go, give yourself a big gold star.

Ribbon yes that was my understanding from what I’ve learnt.

I have basic Spanish but my accent isn't native, doesn't mean I don't try I just don't succeed. My DC have native accents even after leaving the country several years ago, they don't have the fluency they once had but their accents are flawless. I think what age you learn and who you learn from have a massive impact.

TBH, I quite enjoy an accent - I work with people from all over, and having the right words bothers me less than how the person says it - I can generally figure it out, and get better as I get used to a particular accent. Besides, which accent would they pick to speak English otherwise?

In return though, I've found that other languages seem more strict about pronunciation - what sound like slight mis-pronunciations to me completely baffle the person I'm talking to, who'll then repeat it back to me correctly, and I'll be virtually unable to hear a difference.

I wonder if it's the sheer volume of different native speaking accents that does it - imagine if your English teacher was Glaswegian, how different you'd sound to if you had a Singaporean English teacher, or an American, or a Kentish teacher - so many ways of saying the same word.

My kids have grown up all over Europe, and have different accents from DP and I, and even from each other, depending on where their friends and teachers come from!

cauliflower massive derail but curious.... did you end up doing something related to your MA? I did that course too.