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!

I've not read the full thread but as someone who lives overseas, when I speak to locals (in English). I speak with a local accent and sentence structure. Makes it easier to be understood.

In a professional capacity, but that would surely mean in the UK we would have to master an array of accents which isn't going to work.

Daydreamer, as the native English speaker, I can actually do different accents in English as well. When I’m speaking to an American, I have an American accent, and when I’m speaking to somebody from here, it changes. I don’t know why, but it’s a stars. One of my parents lives in the Caribbean and when I would spend time there as a child, the same thing, I would be speaking to people like I was from the Cayman Islands. Ha ha ha. I am visually impaired, and I’m terrible with music, but languages are another story altogether.

Also, with my British accent, it’s never 100% British. I’m from here, but many people would not guess it. And it’s also very difficult for me to use my British accent. I really have to think when I’m using it. And there are some things I never say correctly, zebra, apparatus, and other words, I never pronounce correctly. It’s funny how languages can be isn’t it.

You can never get rid of your accent when speaking a foreign language unless you've been brought up bilingual.

Not necessarily true, I was at a wedding in Liverpool talking to a group with scouse accents until another guest said, "oh meet x, he's Belgian too" and the person I thought was native scouse started a conversation in Flemish.

My brother once ended up at dinner in a French household, the daughter spoke English just like a native Manc, she had taught French in Manchester and said it was either have the piss taken constantly or learn to speak like a local.

I do love mixed accents, where you have a couple from different counties and one or both has a strong accent and the other pics up odd words in that accent.

I'm guessing you aren't fluent in any other languages OP. It's really hard to have a perfect native sounding accent. I speak fluent French, I don't make mistakes, (or at least if I do, I make mistakes French people would make), but French people know I'm not a native speaker. It's not for want of trying. It's just that I arrived here in my 20s, and I pronounce the words properly, even the "ou" which is really hard, like in nouilles - noodles, but the rhythm of my sentences is clearly just a little off.

Sssshhhhh is correct on this. This is definitely true with me. I don’t know why, but I just have a very easy time with languages. I always have. And I sound like a native speaker in most even though I learned them from high school or as an adult. I didn’t start learning Vietnamese until I moved to Vietnam and I was 23 years old

I have yet to meet any non native people can speak my language without accent. Once you are an adult, it's difficult to adapt, I dont understand why people make a big deal about it. I lived here for 30 years, I will always have an accent no matter how hard I try. Don't automatically think people dont respect your language or being lazy.

Ribbon Off you trot with your little digs. there was no need for that.

Hissy was there any need for your aggressive "Rubbish. Utter and complete twaddle!"? You reap what you sow around here.

As for me being able to do it proving a point, yes, it proved mine that there are exceptions to the general rule that it's exponentially harder to acquire a native accent the older you get and the less immersion you have.

Its interesting you say you are visually impaired hellokittymania, I wonder if having acute hearing helps? I have slightly poor hearing myself and sometimes mishear things like song lyrics and I do have problems understanding someone with a very strong accent, even though their English is very good.

It's always worth aiming to pronounce words as they are pronounced in the language (E.g. it took me a while to get my head around the fact that double l in Spanish makes a y sound so I'd start my order in Spanish and then say poll-low for chicken )

But in terms of trying to avoid sounding lile a Brit speaking another language then that's difficult and to me it is unreasomable to expect any non native speaker to sound like a native speaker.

The funniest thing I ever experienced was when I was doing A level German and we had to do a presentation, which our teacher recorded. Imagine my surprise to hear myself speaking German with a Liverpool accent.

I don't speak English with a Liverpool accent and have never lived there, and can't put one on, although if I've been there for some time I feel my accent travelling up the motorway. But why would I take on that intonation when speaking German?

I had a friend who studied French at uni when I was studying German and I visited her in France after we left uni as she married a Frenchman. I thought it was quite funny that when she spoke German she did so with a French accent and she said the same about me in reverse. So we obviously were trying to take on the accent of our main foreign language but it kind of took over in other foreign languages. I have no idea whether a German would have thought she was French or would have heard enough English (Welsh in her case) in her accent to know she was British.

Your OP doesn't make any sense to me, WeBuilt. Those foreigners whom you hear speaking English with a strong foreign accent are almost certainly trying to emulate whatever English accent their teacher used/of the locality they are in or the person to whom they are speaking, just the way you were taught to try to emulate a French/Spanish/German accent by your teachers. You just hear it differently because you're hearing it from the target and source-language perspectives.

I find accents easy enough, to be honest -- and it's worth concentrating on them, because the best vocab and grammar in the world is not going to be comprehensible without.

runningkeenster That's funny! One of my Spanish teachers at A' Level was from Liverpool and as a bit of a natural (and often unwitting) mimic, I picked that up as I was learning. I had to work hard to eradicate the Scouse when I went to live in Spain though I had no problem suppressing my native Yorkshire.

Mr. bean, it probably does have something to do with it. Most of my friends are very good at music, something which I'm not. I can't sing, or anything like that. But when I was younger, I had one of those toy pianos, and I could play a song on it, even though nobody had taught me how to play. I just could pick up the notes and play them. I can't really explain it. But it's the same with languages.

I think some people have an "ear" for languages and others maybe don't.
When I was at school, I was entered into a regional German spoken word competition because my accent was good enough. My friend, whose mother was actually German, spoke German with a completely British accent.

Another friend - we went to France together as a group. My French vocab is limited but my accent is ok (outside of Paris - no one speaks French properly for the Parisians! ) and I asked a lady in a supermarket where to find the mushrooms (in French) - she rattled off directions and I looked confused because she must have assumed I'd understand them. My friend went to the bank - he has decent vocab but a very British accent - he asked things in French and the teller responded in English, but he didn't notice and kept talking to her in French!

I "acquire" accents when I talk to people from other places. My mother used to get very upset with me but I found that it helps with communication - if the other person is hearing words in the same cadences and tones that they use, then they understand them better than when the tones and cadences are very different, in my experience.

Interestingly, I have very limited ability to "do" an accent unless I'm actually talking to someone with it, or in that region and hearing it all around me.

And yes, I am musical and a good singer. I think that may have something to do with it.

Ribbon, you are rude AND wrong. There, go pin your own badge on and pat yourself on the back.

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.

I also have an MA in Applied Linguistics but I have never heard any academic claim that the 'muscles in your mouth are formed by the age of 10' so you'll never get a perfect accent after that. The 'muscles' in a Chinese speaker's mouth are no different whatsoever to the 'muscles' in an English or Spanish speaker's mouth - at any age. And the whole debate over age and language learning is a highly controversial one, but centres on cognitive functions, not 'muscles'.

It is in fact very very difficult for a non native speaker to ever 'pass' for a native speaker in terms of accent. They may have impeccable grammar and vocabulary but almost always (yes I know there are exceptions, but not many) have at least a trace of their native accent. On some level this is because speakers don't want to sound 'native'. Accent is a part of identity. That's why I always feel a bit uneasy when I hear non native speakers try to adopt say, a Scouse or a Cockney accent. It just feels like mimickry to me. Much better, imho, to speak with a clear, unobtrusive non native accent.

My friend went to the bank - he has decent vocab but a very British accent - he asked things in French and the teller responded in English, but he didn't notice and kept talking to her in French!

Good for him. It annoys the hell out of me when you make an attempt to speak the local language and they insist on speaking English back to you. So rude and patronising.

My accent definitely wanders, I won't deny that, you pick up say some local dialects, I'm actually native to this wee country. I've heard people from different countries speak with the regional accent and unless they had said oh I come from this place, I'd never believe it.

It's definetly pronunciation that you mean op, it does irk me a little when I hear someone for example speaking or attempting to speak Spanish but not pronouncing correctly and essentially speaking the words with an English tongue.
But they may just not know how to actually pronounce words properly.

I speak Spanish and do my best with pronunciation. I've been told I have a cute Spanish accent by a native but I doubt I have any kind of Spanish accent that is known or regional.

The MFL teacher at the school I work in speaks 5 languages fluently but speaks them all with a very broad Lancashire accent! He is an excellent teacher but the first time I heard his lesson I could barely keep a straight face it sounded so odd.

If you’re fluent or trying to be then you should definitely be aiming to pronounce words like natives do.

I do cringe at people who know all of a dozen words and insist on saying them with a full-on accent.

Good for him. It annoys the hell out of me when you make an attempt to speak the local language and they insist on speaking English back to you. So rude and patronising.

It's actually a hard one to call, if they speak your language better than you speak theirs sometimes it's just easier as long as you're not being snotty about it. Where I work we often have walk-in visitors, vendors, job applicants and the like who are immigrants from South America - we live in an area of the USA where there are a lot of Spanish speakers - and if their English isn't that strong I will offer to speak Spanish if they'd prefer to do that. And I can kinda understand why in a bank the teller would want to get things across as precisely as possible.

It can be rude when people come across all impatient because you're not getting your words out quickly enough or quite perfectly enough and they insist on breaking in and talking over you - I've come across this on my travels. To me it's a bit like prompting a person with a stammer and supplying words for them needlessly instead of taking the time to let them finish.