The Dark Side of WANTING to Sound Like a Native Speaker RESPONSE

[@metatronacademy]

Link to the original video kzbin.info/www/bejne/qJ6cl4iwm85sbZY

[@alexmashkin863]

Metatron sounds like a weird amalgamation between British and Italian accent, very soft and appealing

[@Unpainted_Huffhines]

He sounds like an Italian who picked up his English in England.

[@PrinceAlhorian]

So, a modern day Roman?

[@Imertdane]

@@Unpainted_Huffhines he did

[@Unpainted_Huffhines]

@@Imertdane 🛎

[@elnoruego6854]

I especially like the way he says:"grammar"

[@francesbell4386]

As someone who is from just outside London, I can tell that you learnt English in the UK and that you have a slight Italian accent. I loved it when you dropped the t's. It made me smile.

[@ruialmeida7085]

i can tell he´s not brit but cant tell that the other part is italian

[@PaulMDove2]

My daughter told me that when she speaks Spanish with native speakers they hear her accent assuming she's a native speaker but from some other Spanish speaking country they don't recognise.

[@Octopussyist]

Bingo. That happens a lot with various languages - especially languages that are spoken in a widespread geographical area - Enlish, Spanish, French, Russian ...

[@VonRibbitt]

Has happened to me, and spanish is my native tongue. It because my mother is Peruvian and my father Argentine, sometimes i do this weird mix of both accents wich are WILDELY different.

[@kathilisi3019]

I learned British English in England. After being out of practice for a few years, a British person once asked me if I was from New Zealand. I think he didn't know exactly what a New Zealand accent sounded like, because my accent was nothing like a kiwi, but I guess he thought I sounded fluent enough that he believed that English was my native language, but he was confused by my accent.

[@ivanmolero7829]

It has happened to me with several languages. US-americans think I'm British. French people often think I'm French, but they cannot determine from where exactly. It happens that Italians from the South mistakenly believe I'm from Northern Italy, like Veneto.

[@noiamnotaweasley3920]

Huh. The my elementary school taught Spanish as part of the core curriculum, and my teacher (a woman from Puerto Rico) once told me that I had a very good accent when speaking the language. I never achieved anywhere close to fluency, but I've always wondered whether that compliment was just her being nice, and if it was genuine, what country/region's accent was I using?

[@jamba_d2225]

One thing this topic makes me appreciate, is what an amazing skill humans have to detect an almost imperceptible deviation from the norm of accents. It's virtually impossible to pass as a native speaker for extended periods of time.

[@arnulfotorresvalladares9680]

Hey! Guy with a Master's in Japanese Linguistics here. Just discovered your channel and really like the content. I've definitely been there and felt the things the girl and you mentioned in this video, especially for Japanese and French (since my husband and his family are from southern France). Ultimately I stopped worrying about this when I realized, if I'm going to talk to this person and actually meet them, my growing up in Mexico is going to be one of the first topics of that conversation, and they will just know I am not a native speaker regardless of how well I speak the language. In Japanese it's a lost battle from the start because I don't look Japanese, so why even try to pretend. There are also cultural references that you just have to have grown up there to really get. During my master's I did come across a few interesting papers on native-like accent acquisition. One in particular I found interesting was about English language learners (mostly Chinese) that had to listen to audio samples of people speaking English (e.g. an American, a Brit, a Chinese fluent in English, and an Indian *can't rememeber the exact nationalities, but it was something like this). They then had to identify the native speaker(s) and, curiously, quite a few of them chose the Chinese speaker and said that the American or British sounded off, and like they were pronouncing things wrong. It kind of makes sense if you think about it. What sounded "off" to them, was probably weak forms and reductions , which might have sounded like "lazy" or "clumsy" speech to them. And they naturally gravitated towards the one person who sounded fluent, but with an accent similar to theirs, which was easier for them to understand. This is what makes it hard to sound like a native speaker, because without proper training, most people can't even hear what makes natives sound native. A great book on how children acquire languages is 言葉を覚えるしくみ. It is quite technical, but really fascinating. In the previous research on how infants start listening for their own language after being born, the authors explain how children can actually hear the ryrhm and intonation patterns of their mother from the womb, and it's those patterns that they seem to pay attention to instinctively. They even seem to show less interest in languages that sound different or "foreign" to what they are familiar with. Definitely a good read if you can handle advanced Japanese. Finally, there is somethind called 臨界期. I forget the name in English, but I think it was called the "Critical Period" or something along those lines, which is the period of time between one's birth and the maximum age at which one can be exposed to a language and still reach native fluency. There's no clear consensus on what is that magical number, some people go as low as 5 years old (which I think is a bit extreme), while some go as high as 13 years old (which I would also put at 10 to 12 years old based on anecdotal experience). It highly depends on the individual and the languages involved. A study I remember discusses Chinese speakers who spoke only English until age 5 before relocating to China, and yes, by every metric they sounded native in Chinese, but they're 3rd tone always seemed to sound ever so slightly off allegedly. On the other hand studies for people who relocated to France or Japan at ages 9 to 12 found virtually no difference in pronunciation or proficiency between them and that of a monolingual of that language. It is a very complex, but fascinating subject.

[@sarahfranco6802]

Just remain ignorant if you want ​@@linusschult6790

[@arnulfotorresvalladares9680]

@linusschult6790 Not yapping, it's just writing. That's the beauty of the Internet, isn't? I can write whatever I want and you don't have to read it if you it's too long for you. You also don't have to be rude

[@ivanmolero7829]

@@arnulfotorresvalladares9680 What you wrote was most interesting and informative. Thank you!

[@davidribeiro5254]

Really informative, thanks.

[@Daiki0391]

I think of this often . I heard both Japanese and English since young but I think my adhd effected it in the process so I speak weird

[@100geemo78]

“One little mistake and BOOM, they know.” That’s exactly it, sometimes you can be talking to a foreigner for 10 - 20 minutes and their accent is sooo good but inevitably they make the slightest little sound and it just triggers something inside you and know they’re not native. This makes me think about spies during WW2, how in the hell when being face-to-face with the enemy could they keep their cool enough to maintain perfect accent? Absolute language learning legends with the biggest of cajones !! Edit - cOjones !!

[@claucemicro1080]

Cojones 😊

[@ivanmolero7829]

Cajones means drawers.

[@vlado6038]

Weren't spies who could often find themselves in such situations actual native speakers?

[@100geemo78]

@@claucemicro1080 Cheers 😂

[@100geemo78]

@@ivanmolero7829 😂

[@helenae3929]

I've been trying to learn Swedish and I once had someone say that I sounded like a Dane who was pretending to speak Swedish. I've never recovered...

[@Handle0108]

💀there's no coming back from that, it will always be in the back of your mind

[@ivanmolero7829]

Don't take it at heart. Just shrug it off. Ge inte upp, utan fortsätt framåt. Danska är relativt närbesläktat med svenska. Det är ett systerspråk. Jag själv tänker lära mig danska så småningom.

[@littlemy1773]

Hahaha. I tried to learn Danish when I was a lot younger . I was told I sound like a finn speaking Danish. Id love to know how that sounds to them. I know it made them laugh alot so I guess I sounded comical to them

[@phil2854]

Once, when speaking Danish, I was asked if I was Swedish. It's one of the bst compliments I've had when speaking any language! At least I sounded vaguely Scandanavian.

[@6thgraderfriends]

Som en som också har lärt sig svenska...usch!

[@graceygrumble]

Metatron is extremely erudite in the English language. His accent is from the south-east of England, most likely, London. He rarely makes mistakes in pronunciation, as spoken in that area of England. But, obviously, there is an Italian accent at the foundation. If he were to have concentrated on eradicating all evidence of his native language it would, most likely, have hindered him with the actual language acquisition. And let's face it, no-one cares about your accent in London, or in most areas of England for that matter. PS. Just in case you might read this, the English pronunciation of 'interlocutor' - ɪntəˈlɒkjʊtə - is the only 'mistake' which stood out to me. I'm sure you'd want to know. Respect, sir.

[@afrocyberdelia]

Maybe he was trying to pronounce it in a posh way like a french....INTERLOCUTEUR😂😂😂

[@livrowland171]

Agree, and it's a quite rare word that many native speakers would probably mispronounce too

[@NotThatKraken]

As an American, that word sounded correct to me, but not the way we’d say it in my part of the country.

[@a.n.6374]

1:19 as a Slavic speaker(bulgarian) I have fallen in a similar situation when trying to learn another slavic language(czech) and realizing my nonslavic peers(romanians) have advanced further than me because they started from scratch and thus had put all their effort into it.

[@MrPwblarsen]

I'm a native Dutchmen, allot of people are asking me where I'm from because I have a Danish accent. Only lived in Denmark for 6 months after birth. That said if you learn a languages learn the standard languages of set country first, after that you can learn an accent if you want. Doing it at the same time it's like learning to dive while you are still learning to swim.

[@zaker721]

Whoa. I’m not a serious language student and am primarily concerned with being able to speak to people and make myself understood, so this is a revelation to me. I was very happy when, on my first day in Paris a woman complimented me on speaking “clearly” and being easy to understand. That, however, was truly my goal. I wanted to not make myself more of a chore on the locals than I needed to be, not to try to make people think I was a local so that both they AND I were frustrated when it became obvious I only have the vocabulary of a three year old. It was great fun to chatter away and ask people for words and how to say them clearly, and everyone was so kind and helpful. I love learning languages just to connect, but being obviously foreign is a lovely get out of jail free card.

[@adamleonard7097]

I think it’s actually really interesting what is considered to sound native or foreign when speaking a language. I’m English, my native language is English, but because I’m from the north east, I pronounce a number of words different to standard English, like “a’reet”instead of “alright” or “doon” instead of “down”. Despite that, my accent is unmistakably English, but I think if someone learning English as a second language were to pronounce those words like that, they’d probably be recognised as a non native speaker. I think that has more to do with the nuances of a native accent, like the consistency of those “not standard” sounds showing up and where the emphasis falls in a word or sentence.

[@napoleonfeanor]

Not really, if foreigners completely master that accent, people will think you're a second generation (or first during your childhood) immigrant to an area of England. My first gf was like that but within the German context. She's a Vietnamese born in a Bavarian town (not big city). I'm from around Hannover (a city famous or infamous for having lost its original accent so speaking standard German). She spoke in Bavarian dialect. However, when she spoke English, it sounded quite odd. Not quite German accent. I generally think it is an interesting research topic to look for third language accents of fully bilingually raised individuals.

[@MissaOftheDawn]

@@adamleonard7097 this isn't quite what you're saying, but one thing that happens to me frequently is people ask me where I'm from on account of having an "accent." 🙈 I live in the same town that I was born in, and my parents are native English speakers too so it's not like I picked up a foreign accent at home or anything. Sometimes I wonder if it might be from spending my whole childhood in choir. We always had to do the vowel sounds in a certain way while we were singing and the instructor was very fussy and repetitive about it for years so I have a feeling part of that has leaked into the way I speak a bit lol.

[@markwatson8714]

@@napoleonfeanor The trick is mastering the accent because it tends to be more than just the dialect and pronunciation. Things like breathing patterns and rhythm also play into it and adjusting your natural breathing pattern to mimic a different one is incredibly difficult. It also depends on the familiarity with that accent - as a fellow North East native if I were to hear adamleonard7097 speak I wouldn't just be able to identify him as being from my region, I could tell you to within a square mile where he was raised just from the subtle differences within the accent. So a foreigner trying to sound like a geordie would generally be spotted as a foreigner within the North East even if they happened to have learned from a geordie as they'd lack those nuances, however it's quite likely outside the North East they'd successfully pass as a geordie because the locals are far less familiar with those nuances - when it comes to the South West for example I can just about differentiate between a Cornish and West Country accent, but that's about as far as I can drill down.

[@100geemo78]

The Geordie accent is closer to Scottish than Standard / South Eastern English.

[@TheMouseandTheWall]

I’m from around the same area but my accent is a lot more general I think because my parents are from the south

[@ComradeLuxemburg]

It's a very american perspective. "I realised that I should value expressing myself above everything else. I'm making your language my own. I'll just directly convey my idioms and cultural references, and put the burden of understanding onto you. Any kind of standard is mean gatekeeping and might make someone feel bad"

[@douglassmalone-omeally1683]

TBH I had the same thought. She kinda went from one ego centric quagmire to another.

[@MW_Asura]

Complete bastardisation of someone else's language. Not surprised when Americans don't even bother to spell or pronounce Italian words properly

[@BetoElViejo]

I once struck up a conversation with a Puerto Rican lady who was married to a Colombian and she wondered where I was from. I told her I learned Spanish from Southwestern Colorado and New Mexico. Another time a guy from Nicaragua said i sounded like a Norteño (probably from an expression I used). Nevertheless, If I can understand someone else and they understand me, it's mission accomplished.🙂

[@ib9rt]

An interesting point is that there is a difference between accents and pronunciation. For example, accents add colour and interest to speech, so they are in a way a positive aspect. But mispronunciation of words and sounds is a bit of a negative, and can be jarring on the ear. To give an example, if a French person consistently pronounces "the" as "ze", it can give the feeling they are not trying to learn how to make the "th" sound. But it is no problem at all if the word "the" is pronounced with the right sound, but within an overall French accent. English already has so many regional accents that adding a French accent or an Italian accent to the mix is no big deal. And realistically, nobody is going to have a native sounding British accent unless you narrow it down to a native London accent, or a native Birmingham accent, or Manchester accent, or Welsh accent, or Scottish accent, or ...

[@GdzieJestNemo]

As a Pole living in Ireland and working in international setting my perspective on "sounding like a native" has switched since my school times. I used to see non-english accent as sign of bad english. Nowdays however, i see more and more people like non native accents (or "international english"). Students often also forget that native accents bring a baggage of their own in form of regional stereotypes and ethnic affiliation. Depends what you are aiming for.

[@nokts3823]

Native Spanish speaker here, from Spain. I also had my time of worrying and obsessing over my English accent, thinking that if I couldn't fool natives, then I still wasn't good enough. These days honestly I don't care. I can say whatever it's on my mind, understand any content I might fancy, make friends and interact freely with natives. Most of them can tell I'm not a native speaker, but they also say my accent is subtle so it doesn't ever hinder communication or, God forbid, grate anyone's nerves XD At this point in my life I mostly wear my accent as a badge of honor. I'm not a native, so what. I put in the effort to reach a good level in a foreign language. I think that's something to be proud, not ashamed of.

[@raysstlyn6346]

Spanish native here too! I got a mess of accents going on... So much that english natives can't pinpoint where they come from, me neither 😂 a product of british education, living abroad, traveling and befriending people from all over the world... I tend to blend with whom I'm speaking to, just a matter of time... An absolute mess!

[@marikothecheetah9342]

Then there's the swing of pendulum to the opposite site - ignoring pronunciation altogether. I have to deal with this on a daily basis in multiple languages and it's exhausting. Just learn the standard pronunciation the best you can, and you'll be fine (you=general, not you=op)

[@CrimsonSun-n3i]

Hopefully I am early enough to be noticed: 1st : I love the channel , this is an insightful video. She hit it right on the head especially when talking about idealism and some forms of escapism wanting to change who you are and how that will affect your passion for the language , because you are chasing an unobtainable goal. Languages help you discover more about yourself , but it will not recreate you. Also I can't help but think about some of the "youtube polyglots" who got their names with titles like "I SPEAK NATIVE FRENCH" and their videos is like of the nice locals saying "wow you sound native" how that gave alot of learners the wrong impression of what its like to really learn a language. 2nd: please bring the TMNT figurines for another video

[@betheva5917]

The only time I ever met someone who sounded like a Native American speaker was in Russia. He was a tour guide. His English was flawlessly natural sounding. I was so surprised that I asked him how he learned it. He said, ‘from watching American television’ (!!!!). Since I’ve met many Russian speakers in the US who speak good English it’s always profoundly clear they’re Russian. So I thought, OK, don’t tell me you’re KGB.

[@axelbruv]

I thought you meant an indigenous American. Was going to say, that would be quite cool.

[@Zannooda]

@@axelbruv , I suspect @betheva5917 wrote "native" with lowercase "n", but it was autocorrected to "Native American", hence the confusion... :)

[@RogerRamos1993]

Good thing I don't care much about that anymore. My main worries are increasing vocabulary, learning idioms, improving my listening and reading skills, training conversations, perfecting grammar. If you learn just one foreign language, that might a nice goal. But if you are always looking for the next fix like me, not worth the time and stress.

[@module79l28]

I had 8 years of English in school and I picked up a UK accent because that's what most of my teachers had. However, when I started using English in real life, I felt that "it's not who I am" like she said in the video because I'm not from there, so in time I lost it. What I didn't lose was the vocabulary but since I speak with a rather "neutral" accent, some of my british clients have told me that I sound like a brit without a british accent, meaning that I use words and expressions that they also use but my accent makes them think that I'm going to insert a "like" between every three words. 😄

[@insanemakaioshin]

Imagine doing the wrong accent, you study to speak American English and everyone here says that you sound British.

[@Jeffersoniananti-federalist]

As with learning many other things, the best method is to start by copying, and THEN add in your own flair if appropriate. I'm currently in the copying phase of Spanish; I'm learning Mexican Spanish, and I don't typically use, for example, the *vos* conjugation.

[@kathilisi3019]

I'm from Austria and went to England for a student exchange when I was 15, attending school in Oxfordshire for a few months. My English was already quite good before I went, and I picked up enough of the regional accent to pass for a British native by the time I left. A couple of years later, I was at a point where British people confusedly asked me where in the UK I was from, because they couldn't place my accent. Not being immersed in the regional accent anymore, I was mixing RP pronunciation with bits of regional accent, but I was also mixing in phrases that I'd picked up on TV, which wouldn't be consistent with one particular region. A couple of years later still, nobody mistook me for a native speaker anymore, but I was still able to effortlessly communicate with native speakers, which was good enough for me.

[@Germania72]

I speak with an American influence, but people still can guess I'm a Spanish native speaker. After 13 years in the UK, that has changed a bit because I've been influenced by my surroundings. When you learn new words, mimicking the accent is a given. I only try to speak correctly. As long as they can understand and don't scrunch their faces while listening to me, it's fine.

[@johnhillescobar]

26:09 That's what Stephanie was trying to convey. In a few countries in South America, as well as in the South of Spain, the letter S or D is mute. For example, Pimiento: to say Pimientos, or Salu: to say Salud. It is a common trait in many regions, so I fully understand why she said she preferred skipping certain parts of the accent and favor other accents characteristics. I do believe that the disagreement on this section is related to the subtleties on this topic. I'm not her but she might be referring to bringing features from other accents and your own culture enough to be fully understood in your context without raising any barrier, and most importantly, without leaving aside your own self. Again, this part is really nuanced and requireds an interview with her to dig deeper on the original intent of her comments.

[@atotalstranger7194]

She mentioned something I find interesting. It was about how her parents didn't teach Spanish to her. My parents did not teach me either. Many people I know that had multi-lingual parents were not taught anything but English as well. My friends and I had to seek it out on our own.

[@TheMule71]

Well, there's also a Dark Side in NOT wanting to sound like a native. Language needs not to be a way to affirm your identity, unless it's your native one. You don't get to appropriate of someone else's language for that. That is not to say that you should be ashamed if you have an accent but OTOH there are people who seems to be proud of their accent and never seem to make an effort to improve their language skills. Some celebrities made it part of their public persona. There's a fine line between enbracing the fact that you'll never sound 100% like a native and creating your own mokery of a foreing language. It's a matter of respect and decency to try hard when you're speaking a foreign language especially with native speakers. Why force _them_ to make extra effort trying to undertstand a distorted version of their own language? It's basic courtesy to try and sound as understandable as possible for them, when speaking _their_ language. Which admittedly is a slighly lower bar than passing for a native speaker, but just slightly. Your goal would be to have an accent, native speakers being able to tell English is your second language but having a hard time identifing what's your first language. That said, I wish I cared more for how native speakers sounded when I was learning English. I'm sure Metatron can relate, as an Italian learning English, RP is probably one of the hardest accents to learn, but that's what we're taught, and at the same time, no native speaker speaks that way unless they're putting a RP accent on deliberately. So RP makes it harder to learn English, and doesn't help much when interacting with native speakers (who don't speak that way in the slightest).

[@douglassmalone-omeally1683]

To your point, I'm a native English speaker and I have no idea what RP even is 😅

[@brendamaricel]

Just yesterday, I watched Stephanie’s video. I’m from Argentina, and I’m studying to become an English teacher. Of course, I agree with you that if we’re teaching a language, we need to teach it correctly. However, I think she’s talking about not being so hard on yourself as someone who isn’t pursuing a career in the language (like teaching, translating, or other related fields) when you’re speaking a language that isn’t your native one. This especially applies to using certain words that might not belong to the variety of the language you’re trying to speak. Obviously, it won’t sound natural, and it’ll be clear that their native language isn’t the one they’re speaking. But as long as they can get their point across, it’s fine. Regarding sayings or idioms, I think she’s more focused on overcoming the fear of not knowing how to express an idiom you’d usually say in your native language. You could say something like, 'In my language, we have a saying that translates to ..., which means ...,' and the listener might help you find an equivalent in their language based on what they understood. The most important thing is to communicate and not be afraid of making mistakes.

[@Sardonus-l3q]

There's also enormous variations within cohorts of native speakers. My partner for example, a monolingual English speakers doesn't voice the 's' in 'houses' (i.e housses rather than houzes) which grates on me everytime. Some people from migrant backgrounds, even born and raised in Australia, speak with what we call a 'woggy' accent - very noticeable among Croats and Serbs and more recently the Lebanese community - they're native speakers but have speech patterns that are noticeably different. Not to mention people who've moved between various English-speaking countries a kids and have weird hybrid accents that may seem non-native to some.

[@elenaekanathapetrova2282]

that's right! she's amazing to go quite deep in the process of acquiring the language I like watch her time to time

[@Kelnx]

So just as an exercise I paid close attention to your speaking. As an American with a southern/Appalachian accent you sound like an Italian speaking British English but not because of your pronunciation which is near perfect as far as I can tell. As you hinted at it is exactly the timing or rhythm of your speaking that gives it away that you're Italian. At least to my ears. I never really thought about it, but that is very interesting that a person can pronounce everything perfectly in another language and yet still not sound at all native.

[@douglassmalone-omeally1683]

Yeah there's something Italian about the rhythm and melody (prosody I guess) of his speech but it's very subtle and not always apparent. Something about timing of syllables I think.

[@RikkiestAndTikkiest]

I would also add that the cleanliness of his vowels also give away an Italian speaker. Native English speakers have far sloppier vowels.

[@Englishallthetime-qb1gb]

You and Luca Lampariello are both Italian and despite I’m not a native English speaker, the first time I listened to Luca speaking in english I could say he wasn’t a native English speaker however when I listened to you I thought you were, I found it out many videos later on because you said it.

[@YetiMusicCity]

As I commented on her video several weeks ago, the ONLY way you can sound like a native speaker is by living in the country of the target language from a very young age. I had a friend from England who lived in Venezuela since he was 4 or 5 years old, and if he didn’t tell me he was from England, I would never have known. He spoke just like another Venezuelan. I saw him speaking English with other kids (we used to skateboard), and I used to live in an area with a lot of embassies. His family were embassy workers ( England ) , so it made sense.

[@Ian_Carolan]

Exactly this. Unless you were immersed in the music of the language from a young age you will be identified as a non native speaker in a matter of minutes at the most, no matter how good your comprehension and pronunciation is.

[@francodambolena]

Argentinian and translator here. If anything, adding the 'S' we usually drop is an improvement-so good for her. It also depends on the region.

[@DandoPorsaco-ho1zs]

I have met many people who learned my native language when they were 16, and I didn't know they were foreigners after having spoken to them for hours, days or even months; all of them had attended public school, were they had to learn maths and all other subjects, rather than learning the language. I have also met a few who were 18 and even 19 whose accent was as perfect as my ear could tell, but beyond that, we are talking about very exceptional individuals. I think that the whole 3 years being the cut-off point is a bit extreme.

[@kalulu1675]

I can so identify. I spent years and years learning Spanish and people were surprised at my ability. But I got sooooo discouraged by one of my professors later on that I just quit after getting my master's degree in Spanish. In fact, my professor's advice was to "go somewhere" in order to be stamped with the dialect of a certain region. And I thought, Why?--my native American English dialect is regionally mixed and nobody questions my ability to speak English. Even after being one of the top students in my Spanish major, I came out feeling like a failure. I've thought about picking it up again, so it was refreshing to watch this video and know that I am not alone.

[@thethrashyone]

I know there's a ton in common between Romance languages but it still caught me off guard how well the 'silver lining' idiom in Italian mirrors the Spanish saying "hay mal que por bien no venga" (lit. "there's evil that doesn't come for good").

[@lannert]

Many, many years back when I first watched some of your videos I was under the impression that you are a native Greek speaker. That's how your English came through to me personally. I don't really know why.

[@nil2k]

As someone who in certain situations could occasionally sound fluent in French, I literally cannot borrow from the way people in Quebec speak. Even when I was working at a fax machine company in the 1990s (in Texas) doing tech support for French speaking Canadians, I would still practice what I learned from French teachers who were mostly from in or around Paris. Everything else just sounds "off" to my ear. This is why also, as a native Texan, I never adopted the local accent despite being quite good at what feels like faking it to me. Later in life, one of my kids (born and raised in California) realized that at least one word snuck through: I had been pronouncing "doesn't" as "dudnt" and even knowing this, I still hear myself letting this word slip out in the "wrong" accent.

[@originalbradcock]

Even for us (french here) Québécois can be difficult to understand. I heard a japanese girl learning french for years, being quite good at it, moving to Québec and not understanding a single word :).

[@6thgraderfriends]

I met an Albanian recently who didn't have much of an accent, she mostly sounded American when she spoke. It would sometimes get her in trouble because she didn't know much about American culture and history, and sometimes people would assume she's stupid rather than not native.

[@MisterTMemory]

You know metatron, to be honest when I listen to you I would 100% think that you are a native but just from a different area. There are so many different accents in both American and British English that I think most people would think you’re a native speaker just from a different, part of The country

[@MissaOftheDawn]

Completely agreed. In fact when I first found his channel I assumed he was a native English speaker until he talked about being Italian. As you said there are so many different accents in English I thought nothing of it.

[@tdoran616]

I wouldn’t think he’s a native speaker, the way his accent is all over the place is proof of that. He sometimes pronounced words that sound English and other words that sound American English

[@RogerRamos1993]

Once he says he is Italian you can notice some Italianish tinge of an accent, especially if you know Italian. But if he never said he was Italian I would just assume he is British.

[@twodyport8080]

He is clearly not a native speaker.

[@sacredscythe7979]

Agreed. Maybe because I’m American I can’t tell lmao

[@Tabatha437]

The video all came together when she shared that both of her parents were Argentinian. She wasn’t only learning a language she was trying to become a part of her parents culture so that is why she could not deviate from the boundaries of sounds from that culture. I’m glad she is less focused on that and has accepted her own identity to be unique but I do agree a clear goal of how you want to sound is great advice for language learning. I can’t wait to hear her speak Spanish at some point. Metatron your English is so good I wouldn’t be able to tell you are Italian. I also agree with you that I will always feel great joy and pride when someone compliments me on my foreign languages even though I care less if it doesn’t come out perfect. Thank you for the fun video.

[@inaanjakossowska6990]

I am a Pole and when I speak English people ask sometimes if I am a Swede, Finn or from Norway - which is a win for me already because they do not think I am Russian😂 But seriously - you want to speak clearly and be understood but do not be ashamed of your accent it is part of you😊

[@wheatoniswhat]

Native USA English speaker here! I think you're accent is absolutely beautiful as it is. I'm not sure how to put this eloquently but to be honest in my opinion when I hear slight accents of Italian or German or some other country, for some reason it sounds so much better to me and it sounds like the person is very very smart. I'm not sure why I feel this way but when I hear someone with an accent like yours with very slight differences that show you're not a native speaker it just sounds like you are way smarter than I could ever be LOL maybe it is because all of the scientists and TV shows I used to watch when I was a child where either from British programming or had some Professor from a different country like Germany or France or Italy speaking so subconsciously I think anyone with a slight accent is super smart hahaha. So in short I think you shouldn't try to master the English accent completely. Then you'd just sound like some normal dude.

[@elnoruego6854]

You are accent

[@luke211286]

I don't try to sound like a native, however I always mind my pronunciation and upset when my 'native tongue' sticks out in speaking a foreign language (mostly English). That being said, I can switch accents and subconsciously change English variants depending on the persons I speak with. When I converse with fellow Filipinos (we always do in business, education, and social settings) in English, I tend to have a Filipino accent. With foreigners in general, I lean towards American English. And for some unknown reasons, I try to speak with a British accent subconsciously whenever I am in the UK or am conversing with a Brit.

[@jacobparra4570]

I am a native spanish speaker and I know I have to improve my pronunciation or the way I communicate myself, it's hard since I'm not used to talk too much even in spanish, but that's changed over time and I really stop caring about thinking if other natives or better english speakers realize about i am not that fluent or accurate with pronunciations, I've spoken to many people from different countries and what really impressed me was the fact that people don't care about it, what matters is communication. Daily I avoid using regional words or idioms because I don't like them I think languages are perfect without using invented words, but it's okay to learn them, you have to so you can understand meanings and how those words act in a conversation, same in english. So I just started enjoying all the process... otherwise it'd turn stressful!

[@Moises_505]

I think this may have to do with a phenomenon among the children of immigrants. There is sometimes a crisis of identity with these children because they want to be able to proudly represent the culture and community their parents come from only to be rejected by both the community they’re trying to represent as well as the ones they’re currently in. They then tend to obsess about fitting in or take the opposite stance of just doing it their own way even if it’s low level or incorrect. I believe this is what she really made the video about. But I could be totally wrong. Anyway, it’s nice to keep in mind.

[@malcolmschenot6352]

I speak only English and I'm in the US, but I find myself code switching a lot. I speak differently to my African American friends than I do with Latinos. Sometimes it's the same, depending on what neighborhood they're from. There are some codes I can't speak (the LA Chicano accent in English completely eludes me but I have no trouble understanding it). When I do code switch, I'm not pretending to be anyone other than who I am and no one is ever confused. I'm from NY originally and I found living in different cities around the US (Queens - Manhattan - Miami - Phoenix - now LA) that I've had to change my speech quite a lot just to make myself understood by other Americans. Even when I moved from Queens to Manhattan a lot of people couldn't understand me until I made adjustments. When I get off the phone with my sister, my accent is very pronounced for about a day. I tell people learning English in America that the accent is way less important than the ease with which you speak. People with very strong accents can be unbearable or delightful depending on how easily it comes out. Metatron, I find your speech great and very listenable to the point I forget you have an accent until you mention it. Most big city Americans (I can't speak for anywhere else) are completely comfortable with a great variety of accents because we hear them daily.

[@RichardDCook]

Another American code-switcher here! Originally from West Virginia, came to Southern California where I ended up immersed in the local Scottish community, where in my late teens and early 20s was surrounded by people from Glasgow three to five days a week. (Large numbers of Scots came here in the 1950s.) Floating between hillbilly, SoCal, and British-tinged English is a normal thing.

[@danieldelaney1377]

Code switch is cringe imo. No need to imitate blacks when speaking to them

[@RichardDCook]

@@danieldelaney1377 Interesting, neither I nor Malcolm mentioned imitating black people. I had assumed that Malcom is black, and you assumed that he's not black, so we read his comments in opposite ways.

[@eclecticdreams]

​@@danieldelaney1377 code switching isn't always about Black ways of speaking and chaning that. It can be about various Asian ways of speaking and switching to "White" ways of speaking. Or it can be switching from a Redneck way of speaking to a more "standard White" way of speaking (I've heard of a fair amount of White people from the South US talk about having to code switch so people don't think they're "dumb rednecks"). Or going from a less cockney style of speaking to something more posh. Etc.

[@malcolmschenot6352]

@@RichardDCook Referring to the other reply: I hate the Internet Police. They cringe here, they cringe there and make all the KZbinrs dumb down their videos by having to apologize for God forbid not washing their hands or saying something cringeworthy that triggers some asshole who never goes out.

[@petermatthewnewman6120]

12:41 As a Brit that sounded so much like us that it threw me off a wee bit 😂

[@jennifermarquess8145]

I feel this. I'm learning Arabic and my ultimate target it Egyptian/Cairo, but all my early learning materials, which I seem to handle well, are MSA. I have an Egyptian Arabic course and I find I have to stop/start a lot because I don't have his vocabulary, so here I go with the MSA learning tools to try to reinforce the vocabulary words...pronounced in a totally different accent. I feel like it's going to take me forever. I should add, considering the context, that my purpose isn't to be mistaken for an Egyptian. It's to communicate in a particular area of the world. Some of the pronunciations are so different that, even though they are written exactly the same, they don't sound like the same word at all.

[@jennifermarquess8145]

Now, when I learned Latin, my teacher was Italian, from the Calabria region. In college, my professors tried to teach everyone to use Classical pronunciation and I resisted, even telling some of my TAs that I wanted to keep the pronunciation I'd learned originally. Going forward to graduate school, I had a professor who wanted to test us on a reading of a passage that my high school teacher had us memorize. I sat down to do my reading and when I was done, he asked where I had gotten the Italian accent to my Latin. I imagine that wouldn't be the case if I did the same reading in Italy, but it was kind of fun.

[@sazji]

She makes some good points about the mindset, especially the fear of judgment, which is often a projection of our own fears of judgment. We can be quite unfair to ourselves in that way, and hold ourselves to impossible expectations. I did learn to pronounce Greek pretty much natively because I heard it growing up (even if I didn’t speak it) and got immersion when I was 16. Now it takes me a month or so to settle in, but the most people will say is, “did you live outside the country for a while?” And that’s just fine for me. BUT - Because Greek came so easily, I expected to progress in Turkish at the same rate and ease, and that absolutely did not happen. Objectively, my Turkish usage and vocabulary is probably better than my Greek at this point because I lived there for 14 years, but I will always have an accent. Not necessarily a typical American accent, most people can’t place me at all, but they will always know that I’m from somewhere else. And beating myself over the head about that would just be negating all the work I did to get where I am. Now I’m working on Vietnamese, and I found myself dealing with the same trepidation at first; even getting pronunciation to the point where people understand you without having to think about it, is a challenge. And yes, it was kind of a blow to the ego when I would work on saying something and then say it and have people stare back at me blankly. 😅 But learning to let go of the ego and appreciate the work for its own sake is really important. (And as a 6’2” white guy, nobody is going to mistake me for a Vietnamese person anyway! 😅) The regional usage thing is a bit interesting in Vietnamese because the “official“ form is northern, but I’m learning southern. I know lots of people who grew up in the south but had northern parents, etc., who do have kind of a mix of pronunciations and usage. (Do they pronounce all their Vs as Y? Do they never use a Z for an R or D?). Maybe, in the unlikely event that I end up living there long-term, it will be worth being concerned about that. That failing, I will be perfectly happy for people to recognize that I’ve put in the effort and learned to communicate well.

[@CeciliaPMiniatures]

When she speaks about argentinian s, I don't think she means retractive s like you mean it, metraton (piedmontese speaking here and I confirm we have that exact s like they have in Spain or greece). In Argentina I believe they just drop it and there's a sort of h sound, I heard someone say deh-pueh for después, i think that's whatt she refers to

[@VampireGranny]

I've lived in South East England my entire life. I can tell you're not native HOWEVER it absolutely shows that you've lived here. Your pronunciation is clearly from here, and the odd word or sound you pronounce EXACTLY as a native. To my ear it comes in waves; parts of a sentence you say sound native and parts don't. Interestingly as well, you speak more consistently than I do. For example, when I say 'debris' I stress the second part of the word which is NOT consistent with my local accent - I'm pronouncing it "incorrectly" despite being a native.

[@noiamnotaweasley3920]

6:40 I am American, and have never lived outside of the US, but I have an interesting take regarding adapting how you pronounce certain things to "sound native." I grew up in a state with a pretty "standard" American accent but moved to a southeastern state as an adult. My new city has a good range of how strong the "southern twang" is from person to person, but in most cases, there's at least a little bit. To fit in better, I've adapted my accent away from my native one to be closer to someone who grew up here. It started mostly with just adding "y'all" to my vocabulary, but it's become a little more than that. The other day I was having a heated discussion with my husband and I noticed I was speaking in a much stronger SOUTHERN accent than I used to (and it wasn't intentional). It still wasn't super strong, but it surprised me that I've changed how I speak like that.

[@RichardDCook]

At 5:50 for anyone wanting to learn American English it's far better to go with "General American" which plays well everywhere. Here in the Southern California tourism industry we talk to people from all over the US every day and most Americans we meet don't have a trace of a regional accent- they could be from anywhere in the US. Believe it or not we meet people born and raised in Texas with no Texas accent, born and raised in New York with no New York accent, etc. Or someone will have a single vowel which gives a clue, perhaps they have the New York "caught", or the Midwestern "hat", or the Southern "right", or what have you, the rest of their speech being General American. On the other hand you meet, for example, people born and raised in San Francisco with a New York accent, people born and raised in California or Utah with a Southern accent, or unique accents like some people from rural northern Illinois, a bizarre blend of Canadian and Chicago.

[@Mazorca-qq3li]

In Spanish, young people often use many expressions from other dialects and countries. We can use Spanish, Chilean, Mexican, Argentine slang in a few minutes, even more so on the Internet. Nowadays, it is more important to only focus on the pronunciation of one region.

[@Argenswiss]

Where are you from? Because I fully disagree, as an Argentinian I would never use slang from other Latin countries (specially not Mexico or chile) unless I’m making fun of my friends from those places. We use more Italian words than slang from other Spanish speaking countries

[@BRiter-ep4mv]

Maybe on the internet, I usually use mexican slang. But as an Argentinian I would never use it in real life, is just not natural as someone who lived all her life in Argentina and probably is the same for other latam countries 😂

[@karliikaiser3800]

Recently I watched an old video from you from 7 seven years ago. You sounded way more british back than. Language accent mixing up is quite common here in Austria, the biggest group of foreigners here are Germans. If a German moves here most of them will loose some of their "germanness" and some of them sound when they are back home with their family they sound Austrian to them back home but to us Austrians they will still be obviously Germans. One of my bosses is from the west of Bavaria. His normal language is mixing his west Bavarian dialect with standard German of Germany. But some words he does pronounce a bit like an Austrian would... So he is a accent/dialect/ language mixer. In the start it was very weird sounding to me but now that I am used to it it´s kind of normal to me. I learned English in school I´ve got close to fluency in school. I´ve reached fluency some years after school without actively trying to learn, I had to speak it a lot in 2017 and the following years. I speak clear but I want to be heard as what I am. I would consider my accent somewhat british but due to my native soft German here from Austria I sound possibly american If you´d had to choose a native accent. In the past I got offended from people asking me if I was German because a German Accent is soo different from an Austrian, at least for me. Now I know they don´t know better, and do not care to much anymore. I have luck that there are lots of paralells in grammar between english and my native tongue, In doubt I can use my native grammar.

[@nothingbutmilk6576]

I can tell that you're not a native speaker but I can't tell that Italian is your native language. IMO learning a language well enough that a native speaker can't tell what YOUR own native language is, is the most realistic goal a language learner can reach.

[@Viva-Cristo-Rey-]

I stopped trying to mime accents some time ago. For me it is more fruitful to spend my time learning new words and grammar. And a conversation about where you are from can be very nice also. You will never be able to fool a native anyways.

[@Sourcoolness]

There's a difference between accent and pronunciation. They are related obviously but I personally think concentrating on correct pronunciation is a lot more important than having a native-level accent. I am someone who is often complimented on my Italian pronunciation but when I ask Italians what I sound like they can never tell me. They can tell I am a foreigner, from an English speaking background, but they cannot tell where. So the fact that my own accent doesn't intrude on my Italian pronunciation and that I pronounce it correctly most of the time is what I am proud of, and my focus is to improve and perfect that pronunciation, not worrying about acquiring a Roman or Milanese or Neapolitan etc accent, I actually don't see the point in that and alot of English learners get bogged down in trying to sound American or British when they could be working on other areas in their English. Btw my favourite Italian equivalent of an English saying is "arrampicarsi sugli specchi" (climbing on mirrors) which is what we would call "clutching at straws" in English.

[@paulwalther5237]

I wonder what would happen if I went to England and did my best to imitate a British accent. Would they be happy I was trying to sound normal or would they think I was making fun of them or would they even notice?

[@NicholasproclaimerofMessiah]

Her use of "fooling" didn't refer to any negative connotation, just the notion of causing another to believe an untrue thing (the untrue thing being that she is a native speaker). That's just one of the ways we use that word.

[@RichardDCook]

At 8:49 Being American I watched quite a few Metatron videos before I realised that he's not a native of southern England. He's non-Rhotic, does "linking R" and the clear "K" at the end of words like "thinK" (but not "finK") etc. It appears that there are many other things that flew under my radar.

[@livrowland171]

As a British person, I agree you sound pretty British and I agree you have a very slightly Italian intonation, and that's fine

[@dactylntrochee]

Nice video. I have a few observations of my own that I don't notice in the comments. My native language is Mid-Atlantic English (newscaster). My sound doesn't change with location. My second language is Spanish and, even though I didn't start to "learn" it until the 7th grade (and I always did poorly), I had memorized songs when I was younger -- based only on sound, without knowledge of what I was saying. Eventually, I got the hang of speaking by using vocabulary and grammar from songs I knew, merely changing words to fit the topic. This resulted in a lopsided situation where my sounds are reasonably Spanish, but my understanding is limited by my vocabulary. I have to let people to speak to me as if I were a child, because I won't understand local terms or idioms. OTOH, if I'm speaking and see a word coming up that I don't know, I'll use a circumlocution that, if I'm lucky, will mask my ignorance of the word I actually want. If the other guy uses the truly appropriate word, I might miss its meaning altogether, until I add it to my vocabulary. BUT, the interesting part for me is, as is the case with The English Coach, psychological. Specifically, I'll easily and fluidly imitate the sounds of my Spanish interlocutor wherever I am, and I just think of it as building some local muscle. The regional and class accents all occupy different places in my ear, so I don't mix or confuse them. However, I'd never do that with English, for fear of being somehow insulting. No matter where I am, I'll always speak like an upper middle-class New Yorker. This had a curious side-effect: standard English has neither a plural nor formal "you", while regional or nonstandard might. In NYC, a plural "you" can be heard as "yous". South of Virginia, we hear "you all", often pronounced "y'all".* Because of its utility, I'll use "y'all" when speaking to a faceless bureaucrat whose organization is hurting me -- but that individual isn't responsible. If I say "you hurt me", it can seem to be directly aimed at the poor guy at the help desk. "Y'all" helps to deflect and diffuse that. Alas, the expression, while gaining adoption, is still considered [southern] regionalism, so I NEVER use it if I'm in an area where it's common -- for fear that people will think I'm mocking them. I DON'T use "yous" though, because it sounds low-class or even gangster. Still, my main point about psychology is that I can and will "chamelionize" my language in L2 -- people can hear both that I'm not local, and that I enjoy picking up new things. There's no chance that my intent will be misunderstood. But I don't use "Y'all" in its native territory, for fear of being perceived as an interloper. *A curious parallel exists between "y'all" and the voceo of Spanish used in the southern cone of South America. In the southern US, "Y'all" can also be used as a mild honorific for a single person, similar to southern cone "vos". To get a true semi-informal plural, you say "ALL y'all". Something like that goes on in Argentina and Uruguay, but I still don't have a feel for it.

[@magyarbondi]

In Britain, “yous” is mostly heard from the Irish. “You lot” is an informal expression for the plural you, but it's informal to the point of being derogatory in a context (e.g. “you lot never did it properly”) so I use it very carefully.

[@dactylntrochee]

@@magyarbondi Wow. "You lot" sounds harsh. I've caught a few "you people"s in my life, which I always understood to refer to my ethnic group. It's not a phrase I've ever cared to use myself, although "you folks" doesn't set off any alarms for me.

[@johnhillescobar]

Just for context. Stephanie picked Argentinian accent and she sounds great (I'm a native Spanish Speaker myself). I highly recommend look for her video in which she shows her progression from someone with a strong American accent to someone with an impressive Argentinian accent.

[@jenpachi2408]

What is metatrons native language?

[@PedroMachadoPT]

The software you’re using is causing a small delay between her image and her voice, the image coming first than audio.

[@piokul]

It is my fantasy, to speak English in all accents. Or at least the basic 20... I just enjoy the sounds of different accents so much, that it's hard to choose a favorite. South African, Scottish, Australian, Irish, a multitude of British accents, Latin America Spanish, Norwegian or Swedish, several American ones... the list goes on and on.

[@zuzannarim4449]

I'd say that mixing dialects happens quite often in Arabic, especially between speakers of different dialects. It's a kind of strategy users of more obscure dialects, especially Moroccans or Algerians, employ while speaking to Arabs from the Eastern part of the Arab World. I'm half Polish, half Sirian. Polish is my native language, Arabic is not although I speak it very well, I have an MA in Arabic studies, studied in Egypt and worked as a translator in various parts of the Middle East. Usually my interlocutors think I'm a native Morocan/Algerian/Tunesian speaker of Arabic who is just choosing to speak a mixture of Standard Arabic and Egyptian (Egyptian variety is considered the most widely understood Arabic dialect) to facilitate inter-dialectal communication. I consider it a complement.

[@Yotanido]

Obviously you don't want your accent to be a giant mish-mash of different dialects, but picking some features from other dialects can absolutely work and is done by native speakers. It's not too uncommon for speakers of British English to adopt American pronunciations of individual words, or take expressions predominantly used by American English speakers - simply due to the prevalence of American English this is going to happen. You might also have cases where accent is associated with class. Northern English accents are generally considered lower class, so someone from around there might choose to adopt a more southern accent. This will inevitably lead to a mostly southern accent with some northern bits mixed in. One of my best friends is actually in that exact situation. Originally from northern England (Yorkshire), he speaks essentially RP, but you can definitely tell he's from the north in some cases. (Words like "been", "glass", or "garage") And personally I'm in a similar position, with my accent being mostly RP with some northern influences... and the remnants of my German accent.

[@paulwalther5237]

I've met several Europeans (not native speakers) who mix American accents/vocabulary with British accents and vocabulary when talking to me all the time. I'm totally used to it. But that's me. I remember a German girl I did a language exchange with in Boston who said she got funny looks if she spoke English to people but in the British way. And not good looks either. Although I think she spoke English quite well it probably wasn't advanced (hence she was doing the language exchange with me) and her mixing up the accents was clearly just a result of her mixed background learning English. But in America, at least at that time I don't know about now, there was a backlash against people who tried to change their accent - in particular to British - to sound more sophisticated (or maybe just because they liked it but anyone being critical of them wouldn't be thinking anything so open minded). In her case I think she was happy to sound American but the British English just came out sometimes and she was mind blown that anyone would look on her critically for that.

[@paulwalther5237]

I don't know if anyone else gets this but when I leave the States it's not uncommon for some people to hear me speak English and think I'm not American. IE they think I'm someone like Metatron who learned English as a 2nd language just really well. Damnit I hate that.

[@paulwalther5237]

Wanting to sound like a native and making that your actual goal are two different things.

[@jeffberhow]

As an American, I couldn't tell at all that you weren't a native speaker of English.

[@afrocyberdelia]

It's a childish complex! It's better to channel that energy into learning a third language. Personally, I take pride in the diversity of my accents and vocabulary. My Spanish has a touch of Italian, Brazilian, Ecuadorian, Venezuelan, etc. My French features a correct pronunciation of its Italian borrowings (panino), German (diesel), and English (spiderman), adding some Arabic elements. Similarly, my Italian has many English borrowings, just like my Bulgarian and Russian. In summary, I have a soft spot for the carioca accent, but I also enjoy the forró, bregadeira, and pisadinha from the Brazilian Northeast. I love my mix of all my accents and vocabulary while maintaining fluency in each of my 6 languages

[@EmpressKadesh]

My Spanish teacher who was from Spain was always so frustrated that here in Tacoma Washington in the U.S. people sound Mexican when they try to speak Spanish. I was also going to school during a time when it was a woke issue to try to mimic someone else's accent, they saw it as disrespectful. So it's like no matter what you do you are wrong.

[@axelbruv]

It must be particularly difficult for English as well because a London accent/Thames Estuary is quite flat I think. I have a South-East London accent, although it's not alwaays easy for me to tell the difference between someone born north or south of the river. There are differences, though. But regional accents are becoming more and more homogenised with each new generation of speakers.

[@ramonek9109]

Sounding native is more helpful in some languages than others. In English it is basically useless. It is such a wildly spoken language with such a large number of inherent accents anyway that foreign accents really are not considered a problem. English speakers hear their language spoken in such a variety of accents anyway that their tolerance for them is very high. With a smaller language that is only spoken in one specific language in a smaller community this might be different. These people are often unused to hear foreigners speak their language so their tolerance for foreign accents might be very low. This is often coppled to some national pride about their language being very difficult or not learnable for foreigners and they would cling to everything that would confirm their preconceived notions that this foreigner does not actually speak that language. So mistakes or accents that would go unnoticed in a language like English will be a real big deal in these kind of cases. How much of a native like accent you need is dependend on how open and welcoming the language community you are trying to enter is.

[@danieldelaney1377]

Yeah I think the frebch are especially bad for that

[@douglassmalone-omeally1683]

Gotta say though that if you are actually trying to integrate into society in any meaningful way, the way you choose to speak can have a huge effect on how people perceive your ethnicity, education, etc. I know a lot of native speakers who are clearly held back or underestimated by their inability to speak "standard english".

[@lordbyron9950]

I saw a video with a very similar title the dark side of native speakers that you somehow racist that you want a native speaker to teach you your new language leaning heavily into English of course

[@michaelgalbato]

Spanish may be a unique example here because if you live in the US, you are speaking with Spanish speakers from different parts of the world. So your Spanish then becomes a mix. And it’d feel very unnatural to say “I’m learning Spain Spanish”, hang out with bunch of people from Mexico, form new emotional associations to those words, but then say “nope I can’t use those, not said in Spain”.

[@overlordartorius6688]

This is what I really like about Mandarin: most native speakers have accents. However, this is also what makes it really hard to understand Mandarin in China, as you need to listen to a lot of different accents. Most learners will tend to focus on Standard Mandarin, Beijing, or Taiwanese accents.

[@arealgoodguy]

I personally wouldn't worry about sounding native. They can look at me and know I'm not a native.

[@lellab.8179]

This was interesting. I don't think I've ever tried to sound like a native. I've always tried to sound natural. But what I do know is that my pronunciation, now, is all over the place and it doesn't bother me. In school I was taught British English, but we had a conversation teacher from Florida, so we often heard American pronunciation. I have a good ear and I usually have no dificultiy understanding and even imitating native people from different places, unless they have a very particular or thick accent. I think my INTONATION is now more generic American than British, but I could pronounce or use some words in a phrase in a British way (but keeping the American intonation), when I'm speaking without paying attention (and sometimes even if I pay attention). By the way: why did you translate "silver lining" with "contorno d'argento"? I've always translated "lining" with "fodera" or "rivestimento", but maybe it's just my sewing experience talking.

[@microcolonel]

"I got obsessed with something that was more work than I signed up for" is different from "This is something nobody should do"

[@sachaehn4924]

Metatron, I thought you were British at first, lol. I enjoy all of your content btw. Tyvm!

[@angelwings1979]

I did too!

[@sachaehn4924]

@@angelwings1979 😀

[@Blues_Light]

Glad I'm not the only one. Especially earlier on, honestly did think he was a Brit!

[@cloudisfast3361]

Yeah and as a Brit, Americans think I'm Australian!

[@llamallama1509]

To me he sounds 80% British, but there's a fairly consistent 20% that I wouldn't be able to place.

[@RichardDCook]

The channel Feli From Germany often features her friend Josh, an American who learned German quite fluently then moved to Germany to work. His German work-mates will forget he's not German and make some pop-culture reference that all Germans know, only to see Josh's blank face. Josh has also purposely put on an American accent when in a situation where all Germans would know what to do but he needs assistance. (I suppose it's better to be taken for a clueless foreigner than an idiot native.)

[@SirNervinJacinto]

In my case as a learner of Sicilian language, but I chose to learn the Palermitan variety and accent.

[@novikane14]

As an American you sound completely native like 99% of the time. But I notice that whenever you speak quickly and the sentence has a lot of Latin derived words, your cadence switches to an Italian cadence. I first noticed this when you said characteristics. And it almost sounded like you were speaking Italian for a second. Also it will always be more difficult to trick the natives from the accent you acquired. They spent their whole life listening to their particular accent and so can pick out all of the little idiosyncrasies in your accent. But other countries and regions won't have the same ability. So you sound completely native to the majority of Americans and probably Canadians.

[@danieldelaney1377]

As a non American English speaker he clearly sounds like like a continental European with very good English. Not native sounding tho

[@novikane14]

@danieldelaney1377 makes sense

[@ctcladdagh2000]

I think the comment about using out of region words is more about code switching. I am an American English speaker. In the UK, I would use the local words if they occurred to me. I aim to be understood.

[@quaseminimalista]

To be honest, I'm portuguese, I never knew of someone non-native that could pass as a native in Portugal, the only exception being children but even then it depends because i know kids that came to live in Portugal with 3 or 4, now late teens or young adults and still have a non-native accent. I think is almost impossible to develop a native accent as your default accent. If you really study the language you can mantain a native sounding accent in a conversation but you have to constantly be aware of it. Of course I don't know about other languages, I'm speaking about the portuguese language. Maybe other languages are easier to "mimic".

[@Shadefinder1]

18:46 i do this with English its my native language and I liked how the Canadians pronounce out about and other words as oot or aboot. Even soory i would prefer to say rather than sorry.

[@Bozpot]

16:43 Re "blinkers". We normally say "indicators". I think "blinkers" is more of an Americanism.

[@marianne6373]

You know what, I’m not ashamed of being Norwegian, accent or not! :) I don’t think I could fool anyone into believing I’m Spanish, even if my language skills were to improve drastically. 😂

[@amacater]

I couldn't place Metatron's accent - not necessarily Italian or Sicilian, certainly. Londoner, maybe, but not consistently posh and sometimes slumming it :) Southern British English speaker here - I don't know Metatron's full background but certainly passing for a native British speaker. One word - interlocutor - had a non-English emphasis on syllables but I've no other specific that would make this non-English. I'm currently learning Italian and probably sound like a southern Italian - I'd be quite happy to be understood in Montalbano's Sicily or anywhere south of Naples :) Children: I know one child who teases one parent by using the other parent's pronunciation - two pronunciations of the word bath.

[@petera618]

Interesting. I am a native speaker of American English from California but I was raised in a Sicilian immigrant family. I was taught Sicilian since childhood in fact, our Sicilian is very similar to Metatron's, my family coming from the province of Palermo. I later studied Italian in school. In Sicily, they think I was born there and in continental Italy, I've been told I speak with not an American but with a Sicilian accent.

[@SuperErickelrojo]

I moved to London 15 years ago and got used to all sorts of accents. However, there's one I just cannot stand, a non-native speaker attempting a 'British' accent (and I'm a non-native speaker myself). Please kill me if you ever catch me trying!

[@soluna2252]

From previous videos it really impressed that Metatron's Italian is almost as good as a native speaker! 😜

[@ninner196]

Well it is sad to become obsessed , which I have seen but I do admit that when I converse with others in another language and we are friends with different accents it does rub off on each other and not on purpose but we would just laugh and have fun with it or I would encounter racism out and about being so light skinned that I wouldn’t be viewed differently because I would match accents. A tendency that I had noticed as an instructor is for more advanced students to stop and correct themselves during a conversation when it was just a natural accent. Music instructors will always say to not stop and scold oneself when a note was missed because it only hinders learning. Where music and language are usually processed is very close in our brains. Some are exceptions and the language area might be rarely on the opposite side. I found that out due to brain mapping for a brain surgery and that I see well read language and music in color. Yes weird.Spanish has so so many dialects that we still learn them, different expressions, colloquialisms but it’s all in fun. Native Spanish speakers, yes we make up words just to fit a poem or song. I do agree that it is most important to sound natural and understandable. Sayings do not always match at all and do not create the same meaning. If you speak properly in any language, not worrying about an accent will endear other native speakers como un anillo al dedo. Also, yes babies in útero know and recognize the mother’s native tongue and even music that was played in the womb but not again for many years. When more than one language is spoken around an unborn or very young child then the languages develop on the same track in the area of the brain known as the Wernicke’s area. As one gets older and learns more languages then that track lays next to in and so forth. So yes you were right😊

[@Shablagoo7861]

I had fun learning Russian during COVID. I have ties to there. I did not learn it. I have the vocabulary of a toddler. However, I loved the ease of sure, there are regional accents and dialects but Russians will not teach you them, there’s only one to learn, lol the only regret was out of my control anyways. Nobody for saw what happened. Side note, I have a Neapolitan friend ciro who has lived here for a very long time and if I had worked with both of you at the same time I would have thought you were from a British region I just hadn’t heard but never thought Italian lol