Why you have an accent in a foreign language

[@tedbomba6631]

I had four years of intensive training in both written and spoken French and was considered to speak it on a near native level. When I joined the military my first tour of duty was, of course, Germany. I took several crash courses in spoken German so that I could travel around the country without a language barrier. As I traveled I was often teased that I was the first American they had ever met who spoke German like a native Frenchman. It was a wonderful ice breaker wherever I traveled !

[@christopher-miles]

i know how to speak australian. it's harder than you might think.

[@timostedehouder3213]

@@christopher-milesPlease upload a video, would love to hear it

[@felixoupopote]

I’m an American who speaks French like a German because of my high school teacher’s accent!

[@Henkibojj]

​@@christopher-miles You meyn it's haaade thanya thenk?

[@stuart4341]

Dude I have the same thing, I learned Polish while living in Poland and later Russian. People in Poland often think I am Ukrainian or some other Eastern European and when I travelled to Kazakhstan, Kygrystan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan many people said I speak Russian like Poles, Serbs or other Slavic speakers.

[@alanlee8590]

Interesting. I am a native Cantonese speaker. It would be in my wildest dream to imagine that Cantonese and Italian actually have something in common😅

[@coolnewpants]

Noodles

[@viktorkhan8518]

@@coolnewpants😂😂😂😂😂😂 Facts

[@daffylun]

And we’re loud but we don’t know

[@nakamura7346]

雷猴啊

[@RussellBeattie]

"Not in my wildest dreams would I have imagined that..." (Just wanted to help you with your English phrases).

[@theamesavenue9834]

Stress pattern is one of the most important aspect of an accent. I have been living in the US for 5 years now, and the stress patterns were the last thing I managed to adapt to sound kinda American. It is so important that if you do the pronunciations right but don’t get the stress & pitch right, you will never sound perfect. On the flipside, if you get the stress/pitch right and pronounce a few words the non-traditional way, you will still sound very perfect.

[@Grievance_Studies_Affair_2018]

I noticed I do more grammatical mistakes when I focus on the accent. So I either speak English with less mistakes but more foreign accent or vice versa :)

[@micahnewman]

Yes, in fact putting the emPHAsis on the wrong sylLABle can interfere with listener's comprehension.

[@franceslothian1319]

This is so true. I speak French with an almost native accent because I was sent to a boarding school in France when I was 10. If a French person speaks English with a strong French accent I can't understand them at all. The stress patterns confuse my brain and make me think they're speaking French but of course I can't decipher it! 😂

[@pamelawing5747]

I try to pronounce the sounds as the French do, KNOWING that I am falling short, but my goal is to be understood. I was in shock with I asked a cab driver a question and he understood me. You could have bowled me over. I wish I had an opportunity to live in France, either as a student or being able to stay longer and an adult. More people need to learn languages and they need to start very young. Other countries are far ahead of the US in that particular skill set.

[@KygoCalvinHarris-xu4kv]

​@@franceslothian1319indeed

[@brianmathews2926]

You have an accent all the time in any language, including your own.

[@trashAndNoStar]

Scrolled all the way just to look for comments like this, lol. Everyone has an accent. It simply doesn't stick out as a _foreign_ accent when you speak with your own local region's accent.

[@trashAndNoStar]

Scrolled all the way just to look for comments like this, lol. Everyone has an accent. It simply doesn't stick out as a _foreign_ accent when you speak with your own local region's accent.

[@deathhunter1029]

Scrolled all the way just to look for comments like this, lol. Everyone has an accent. It simply doesn't stick out as a foreign accent when you speak with your own local region's accent.@@trashAndNoStar

[@deathhunter1029]

Scrolled all the way just to look for comments like this, lol. Everyone has an accent. It simply doesn't stick out as a foreign accent when you speak with your own local region's accent.

[@FemboiMuffin]

Scrolled all the way just to look for comments like this, lol. Everyone has an accent. It simply doesn’t stick out as a foreign accent when you speak with your own local region’s accent.

[@tj2375]

I think there is something that should also be included in this article: you are trained to listen to the sounds of your mother tongue, so when you listen to a foreign language your brain is processing it like it would your mother tongue, i.e. you don't listen for example German like a German would, you listen to German like you were listening to your mother tongue and so you will try to speak the words you listen but they are not the exact sounds a German would hear. With exposure your brain can train itself to listen to the proper sound emphasis of the foreign language and that will enhance your accent but some people never have enough exposure. I think often the listening training is ignored when teaching languages and that is a shame.

[@alisondemmer4284]

Exactly, but this exposure must be in the first approximately 18-24 months of age. During this time the brain absorbs the sounds as it does for the mother tongue. After that, the ability to hear, and therefore replicate, perfectly is lost. You can still get pretty close, but you’ll likely never be perfect.

[@tammygant4216]

I was thinking about this. I grew up for several years in Germany as a child. I didn't learn the language, but I heard it spoken around me all the time. Years later, I learned German and was told my several native speakers that I don't have much of an American accent when I speak German. In my training there was lots of listening, BUT I also think it helped that I heard German spoken so much at such a young age. Just a thought.

[@Lalalauren1117]

Absolutely! We're all trying to make correlations to our own alphabet. Learning a new language through romanization I believe becomes more of a hindrance than a help. If we think about it, babies learn by listening and imitating, and THEN they learn the alphabet and reading and writing. As adults, we often learn a language by beginning with reading and writing, then we imitate, and finally start listening. We're doing it all backwards.

[@MJMCJ2002]

​@@alisondemmer4284You are so right. We're Portuguese and by brother (who teaches English in Military Academy) taught her son to speak English since he was a baby. He now speaks fluent English with the due accent, although, not sure why, he caught the American English accent 😊

[@lunyxappocalypse7071]

​@@Lalalauren1117 Agreed, and this is why I prefer to write Filipino/Cebuano in ancient baybayin even if a lot of the language has shifted from phonetic words.

[@Findalfen]

There was way more information in this short 3-min video than I was expecting.

[@tduongdang]

Reasons listed: 1) Individual sounds differ between languages 2) Several sounds are not possible in some languages -> people insert/adjust the sound to fit the the rules of their own 3) Differences in stress patterns 4) Differences in intonation/language rythym

[@danidejaneiro8378]

Also some sounds just simply don’t exist in your target language. Many foreigners struggle with the two “TH” sounds in English whereas many anglophones struggle with the trilled “R” of Spanish.

[@macroxela]

I'm a native Spanish speaker and I struggle with trilled R's 😅

[@M69392]

Rs seem different between almost any two different languages!

[@matthewoyan]

Or the French R that's also present in some Central European language, it's very hard to replicate cleanly

[@trevoro.9731]

They are "fs" and "fz" sounds. Combine those to produce the same understandable English sound. I perceptually identify them as such, and it works on English people. English texts don't contain those probably for such reason.

[@Miguel.L]

Here’s a tip: put your tongue on the side of the roof of your mouth, the tip should be touching your upper second premolar. Now blow some air and the opposite side of your tongue should vibrate into that perfect R sound! 😊

[@stischer47]

While at a conference in Denmark, I tried to learn some phrases in Danish - primarily "I don't speak Danish, I speak English". Everyone said I spoke with a Swedish accent. Thank you "The Swedish Chef" from Sesame Street.

[@bottomless_pit]

Awesome story😂😂

[@metallsnubben]

That could also just be "speaking Danish but the syllables can be told apart" lol, the classic joke is that Danish is Swedish/Norwegian after enough beers

[@TooSlowTube]

Moip! Moip!

[@Ce0ammer]

Hold on there cowboy! The Swedish Chef is a muppet from the muppet show. Leave Elmo out of this.

[@TooSlowTube]

@@Ce0ammer Be-dish be-doo.

[@WhiteTiger333]

When I first went to India, I had a hard time understanding the way many Indians spoke English. To me, the words just ran together with no particular emphasis. Over time, my brain learned how to sort it out. Once I began learning Hindi, it made sense to me why these speakers spoke English the way they did. And it was always speakers who had learned English in school, but never traveled out of the country to be exposed to native English speakers. The same would be true, I'm sure, for any language.

[@fatimateresa19]

Yes, they speak English just like they would speak Indian. When I was in school I started watching tv shows and series and whenever I was speaking in English I started using the different musicality. Its very important to do so. It makes a very big different. If you start speaking in English with the same musicality that you use for your native language its sounds very strange

[@WhiteTiger333]

@@fatimateresa19 Yes, it's so true! Learning a language is not just learning words. We humans are so fascinating, imo, with our different cultures and mannerisms.

[@fatimateresa19]

@@WhiteTiger333 I don’t if you have notice it but one also starts to think differently when it’s fluent in another language…

[@nathanialisalongverylongname]

​@@fatimateresa19 I'm sorry but indian?

[@purplepurrer]

@@fatimateresa19 There's no language called "Indian" btw.

[@fatfurry]

they REALLY gotta teach this in language classes. this stuff feels so important to me but is NEVER taught in classrooms in my experience

[@briseboy]

Saying "must" and listening to the peculiar nonlinguistic contraction "gotta" will immediately help you begin to distinguish what you re hearing, the very FIRST step on your quest to learn.

[@Raj-yr9gt]

I’m bilingual in English and Tamil (a Dravidian language from southern India). Along the years I’ve learnt Hindi, Spanish and German to varying degrees of fluency. My struggles with these latter languages have given me new respect for people who strive to speak in languages other than own, even if their speech is heavily accented. What’s important after all is communication between different cultures, even if said communication is not perfect! 😊

[@Mike-wb3oc]

As long as we are capable of speaking english in a coherent manner, accents are irrelevant.

[@davidpo5517]

Not saying you're like this, but out of all accents I find someone with a thick Indian accent the most difficult to understand. Not sure why

[@mohandas5961]

@@davidpo5517 Indian accent sounds more clear and perfect to Indians and we find it difficult to understand British accent U find it difficult might be because the pronunciation that u r used to is different from Indian way of pronouncing.

[@liverbot4854]

@@davidpo5517 Indian accents are like a Spanish accent but with different sounds for t and d. Dravidian influence on Indian languages meant that the Spanish style t and d sounds became less favoured than the Dravidian t and d sounds, which sound easier on the ears for Indians but much worse for everyone else.

[@Raj-yr9gt]

@@davidpo5517 Thank you for your comment. I personally have a very neutral accent and haven’t had difficulty in being understood elsewhere in the world, but yes, English spoken by many Indians can be a bit hard to comprehend. If you were to travel widely in India, you’d realize that there isn’t really an “Indian” accent, any more than say, there’s an “European”accent for spoken English. That’s because there are so many languages in India and each of them leave a different imprint on the way English is spoken in my country. A pronounced “Tamil” English accent is very different from a marked “Gujarati” English accent or a “Bengali” English accent (as much as Italian accented English would sound different from German accented English or French accented English, for example). Having lived in the UK for several years before returning to India, I can say that there are many NATIVE English accents that are fiendishly difficult to comprehend for even other English people - have you listened to the Glaswegian or Geordie accents (from Newcastle) in all their rich glory? 😄 The so-called Indian English parodied in western media and stand-up comedy routines is precisely that, a parody… 😊

[@jayjack6299]

Summary: Foreign accents exist because people try to speak other languages with the stresses, timings, and intonations (and sometimes grammar) of their own language. Want to sound more like a native speaker quickly? Speak their language like how they try to speak your language. Just keep in mind what dialect of their language they speak. If you want to sound from Paris, don't copy someone from Quebec City, etc.

[@timotheelegrincheux2204]

Easier said than done.

[@Lalalauren1117]

Great advice! I've actually learned a lot about Korean vowels by imitating how Koreans speak English.

[@nilnil7325]

That's actually a great tip, thanks!

[@emteekay8418]

Am just disappointed that this video was extremely short...it was soooo engaging that I never wanted it to end❤

[@varoonnone7159]

I'm an Indo-Mauritian My native language is french based Mauritian Creole. Learnt English and French as from age four and Hindi as from age six I've lived in France since age 19 People from the Indian Ocean, Reunionese and Malagasies, immediately identify my Mauritian accent when I'm speaking French French people mistake my accent, when I'm speaking French, for a posh British accent When speaking English, my accent isn't like the French accent at all My accent when speaking Hindi is, I guess, like any Bihari accent. I've never heard a record of it and no Indian has ever commented on it All this is very surprising because when I speak French, I don't hear my own accent. To my own ears, I have a neutral Parisian accent I don't know if it is related with accents but despite learning French since age four and listening to native French speakers on television and in real life since then, I can't pronounce the french "ar" correctly I can't say "Chartres" and "Montmartre" properly because I don't naturally open my mouth enough for the "ar" syllable I actually dreaded the prospect of working at Chartres when I received an internship offer there 😅

[@BGTuyau]

Funny, smart and -as US Americans never used to say- spot on.

[@WhiteTiger333]

Haha - I love picking up phrases like that from English speakers in other countries. Sometimes I baffle who I am talking with by popping out a word or phrase I learned, and like, from British or Aussie English.

[@oscarrivero6060]

As someone who has a master's degree in applied languages, during my studies I learnt that the phonology of our native dialect entails a social identity. Therefore, we are hard encoded to show this identity with our phonology, in such a manner that hearing ourselves in a foreign accent seems wrong and It deters us from doing It.

[@Xiroi87]

Hearing ourselves in a foreign accent seems wrong? That's beyond ridiculous, not to mention the fact that many people grow up using 2 or 3 languages prove that preposterous statement wrong.

[@joaquingonzalez5095]

As a matter of fact I think people try too hard to sound native

[@Xiroi87]

@@joaquingonzalez5095 what? You think the way to go is not even trying to get the best possible pronunciation?

[@BlondeQtie]

i learned a lot of languages and enjoyed doing so. i always made it a point to try to imitate the sounds and pronunciations as closely to the original as possible. people tell me i speak excellent italian and a lot of english speakers believe i am native or have been living in an english speaking country for a long time 😊 the best thing was to read texts out loud, listen carefully and try to nail the intonation 🎉

[@eugeneylliez829]

As a scholar of Italian linguistics, allow me a correction (if it is such). Actually, Italian distinguishes length for both vowels and consonants (long and short), not only in word morphology but also and especially at the prosodic level. (Nespor, 2014). The reason why English speakers notice that syllabic homorhythm is, in my opinion, due to two main causes : 1) the fact that the stereotype of the Italian accent is actually drawn from Neapolitan, 2) the fact that an Italian locutor has a tendency not to distinguish long and short vowels in English because simply from the point of view of the Italian source phonology, English words almost never present that structure that triggers vowel elongation in Italian instead. Rather, English words invite, if anything, an Italian to double the consonant and/or add a final schewa. None of this, however, implies that Italian always has syllables of equal length, for such is only a foreign ear's impression of the Italian language.

[@kulik03]

I was confused too, I think he meant French not Italian

[@troiscarottes]

@@kulik03 French also has long and short vowels. Normally you should be able to make the difference between a short /a/ as in "patte" (English paw) and a long one as in pâtes (Eng/It. pasta). If you don't you might end up being served pig's trotters instead of spaghetti ! 😋

[@kulik03]

@@troiscarottes I'm French and I would pronounce these two words the same way

[@linguafiles_]

Very interesting.And first time I see a citation on a KZbin comment. I like it!

[@cafe_boyout]

​@kulik03 i'm a French speaker and I make the difference between "patte" and "pâte". Try to put them in a sentence, you will notice a little difference.

[@tofer2152]

This is pretty funny because I have just started learning Spanish to connect with my family from Peru and I don't want to butcher their language so I say a couple sentences in English like my dad would with his Peruvian-accent before speaking a sentence in Spanish. It really helped! But then my family in Peru mistaken me for being fluent because my accent is polished, haha. And now I understand it's due to the stress my dad put on words. How neat!

[@ItalMiser117]

Peru has the most accent free spanish though

[@stevenschilizzi4104]

Very true! And it’s rarely taught in language courses, let alone in schools. It’d be great to have more of these videos on specifics for different languages, at least for native English speakers. Cheers!

[@OutragedPufferfish]

School can't teach you everything.

[@aparnaviswanathan4484]

how do you have so many friends

[@DarkPesco]

That was fun! Wish it was longer and more in depth. I'm sure different languages have their own idiosyncrasies beyond the few you mentioned here. Even this superficial understanding would be of benefit for people seeking to understand more about other cultures. This would be of benefit to the WORLD!

[@Machecatz]

I'm Italian and I used to live in Manchester, UK. I'm not very fluent in English and my grammar isn't so accurate, but I actually can speak. Well, for some reason British people often mismatched my accent calling me a Swedish or Dutch. Very funny! My theory: Italians are usually depicted as tanned guys with black mustaches and dark eyes... but I'm pale and I've got blond hair and blue eyes. I think the sight took over the listening.

[@kyled2153]

It might also be due to the timing and intonation of Swedish! K Klein (a linguistics KZbinr) made a video on how Swedish can sound like Italian and why

[@David-yw2lv]

You must be from Northern Italy.

[@Machecatz]

@@David-yw2lv Actually, yes I am 😆

[@luisguilhermeoliveira5794]

This is all really interesting to know. I wish sounding like a native speaker weren't such a goal for many language learners. I think these differences are actually pretty charming and I love when I meet someone who speaks my language in a very different way.

[@anonglakmoonwicha2726]

My Dutch has a slight English accent. (Englsh is my first language) My father once joked that I speak English like a foreigner. My German friends tell me I speak German with a Dutch accent. My French friends tell me I speak French with a Dutch accent. My Thai friends tell me I speak Thai like Thai people. (I'm not entirely convinced) My Spanish friends tell me I speak Spanish like a Peruvian (that's where I learned el Castellano) I rarely speak Italian, but I rather suspect it sounds not like an Italian.

[@I-am-Joe-Po]

English, Dutch, German, French, Spanish, they're all very close to each other. Try to speak Russian

[@anonglakmoonwicha2726]

@@I-am-Joe-Po I fully intend to. Starting soon.

[@syntheticfun]

It seems like you're also fluent in the art of subtly bragging

[@Ce0ammer]

​@@syntheticfunIs it really fluid when it doesn't seem that subtle though? 🤔

[@santorasampson3430]

​@@syntheticfunAs many languages he speaks, I'd brag too. 😅

[@lisab3287]

Yes yes and yes! This is one thing that I am always paying close attention to. (So far I have learned with varying degrees of fluency English, Spanish, Farsi and now Arabic as a native German-speaker). Recently I was speaking Farsi with somone (actually I learned around afghans, hence I speak more Dari) and the amazing thing was that her immediate response was that I am speaking with a Dari accent, which blew my mind. For me the most important thing to avoid an accent (not that theres anything wrong with accents per se) is the stress of words combined with proper pronounciation. And here the importance is on listening carefully how people are speaking and repeat. When taught a new word or sentence, I always repeat them, especially because of the proper stress. And when people correct me, I repeat after them (you can even do it in your head if you're not comfortable saying it out loud). But this makes for decent progress.

[@hoi3299]

I am a native Mandarin speaker from Malaysia. My friends from China usually find my accent strange/funny. Even I try my best to speak in "standard Beijing accent", but to no avail. It's still wildly different from theirs (especially those from northern China). Nonetheless, it's COMPLETELY MUTUALLY INTELLIGIBLE as long as we speak in the standard Mandarin regardless of accents. My advice is... just make sure you pronounce clearly in the standard varieties of your target languages, accents don't really matter.

[@zo3478]

Even as a non-mandarin speaker, it's very easy to distinguish a mandarin speaker from China with those from Malaysia.

[@hoi3299]

@@zo3478 yes, especially the third tone😂

[@nirutivan9811]

I don‘t speak mandarin at all, but have similar experiences: I‘m a German speaker from Switzerland and whenever I (or many other Swiss) speak Standard German it‘s usually quite obvious where I‘m from. Also funny: There are a some Germans who think they can understand Swiss German (German dialects spoken in Switzerland) perfectly, while in reality they only ever heard Standard German with a Swiss accent.

[@konradcomrade4845]

Speed plays a role, too. Now I, a native German can understand most English, except New Yorkers; they are too fast! The 0.75% speed feature on KZbin is very helpful.

[@M69392]

Actually, the line between mutually intelligible and not is very fine and depending on many parameters including... background noise. Nothing is simple and accents do matter.

[@julianaylor4351]

As an Art student from London, living in South Wales in the early eighties, in what used to be Monmouthshire, with a lot of other students from the west of England, I picked up a west country twank, which took weeks to disappear, when I left college and returned to London. My normal English accent is North West London middle class. So I can see how what is being spoken about could happen.

[@vintage0x]

this is fascinating. I was born in NW london. How would you, a welsh person, say how a north west london accent differs from a north london accent? or even a south london accent? Is it possible to explain here without audio examples?

[@julianaylor4351]

@@vintage0x Most British people who don't live in London, don't know one London or even surrounding counties like Essex's accent from another, which I and another girl at art school thought was hilarious. She was from West Essex near London and all the west country students, thought we sounded like Cockneys. We could tell the differences between them and us, but they couldn't tell us apart or realise that we didn't sound like real Cockneys. 😁 Most home counties especially London accents are more subtle than other British accents.

[@chrissinger24]

Mainly these are the things that foreign language learners neglect when they learn a new language. If you study opera, you have learn to sound like a native in whatever language you are speaking.

[@shaunmckenzie5509]

Funnily enough, it's easier to sound more native when you're singing

[@rahileshanbi5551]

What's funnier is that you learn to sound the same even if you don't understand what you're saying

[@eksbocks9438]

I noticed this whenever I speak Japanese. The only language we know is what we were taught in school. So when you're learning a new language, practicing is important. Because the way they vocalize things can be different from what we're used to.

[@its_gabs]

It's easier to sound like a native when you're singing

[@antoniozavaldski]

​@@shaunmckenzie5509Probably because the stress pattern when singing always lines up with the music, and therefore is less influenced by the stress pattern of your native language.

[@FannyPlusvi]

Ì think that having a foreign accent doesn't matter. What's importante is that people understand you and you understand people. I like accents.

[@ronaldonmg]

I'm missing two crucial factors in this video 1 your speechmuscles are trained to pronounce certain sounds - even in your native language(s) 2 if you don't hear languages as an infant, you can lose the ability to hear that some letters are different. That's why some Anglo's have trouble distinguishing french "vous" from "vue" , or think that spanish J sounds like H - or how some Asians have trouble with R/L, B/P, K/G...

[@Amuzic]

I am a native bengali speaker from India, and even though Bengali is an Indo European language, like all other North Indian languages(Hindi, Punjabi etc), it's pronounciations of words are completely different from those languages even though most words are just the same, so the Schwa sound is not there in Bengali which is replaced with Awe sound(as in awesome) and other languages that are in Eastern part of India and the reason is the influence of sino tibetan languages(which are prevalent in north eastern regions). So, Assamese is east to Bengal and has even though it's very similar to bengali it has more sino tibetan influence, On the other hand Odia which is south of Bengal has more dravidic influence even though it's similar to Bengali. The equivalence can be found in Hindi sister languages such as Nepali which is somewhere between Hindi and Bengali and have both the schwa sound and the Awe sound. Now, if you consider the bengali language of Bangladesh, the accent has more austro asiatic influence...and you go further east towards Sylhette, Tripura and Chitagong, in addition to the austro asiatic, you also get additional sino tibetan influence and even though it's bengali, it becomes completely unintelligible. So, aforementioned Assamese or Odia is more intelligible to a Bengali speaker of Indian Bengal than the Bengali speaker of Syllhette, Tripura and Chitagong...

[@Shaktobengalee]

Ghoti Bangalira schwa sound jothesto bhalo bhabe bolte pare, bengali jara ektu low leveler hoi jara 's' tane kotha bole tarai akmatro schwa sound korte pare na

[@greshmaclement]

My native language is Malayalam. It is a South-Indian language, which is usually considered as the most difficult language in India. The way we speak Malayalam is extremely different from languages like English. In Malayalam, clarity and stress are given the most importance. Since birth, we are always advised to speak each and every word clearly and rigidly. Unfortunately, it is the opposite way of speaking musical and floating languages like English.

[@harryh.1704]

Breath control is also huge! In English (especially American English) we stereotypically let out one constant stream of air and squeak out several nasally words that run together, but in German, you use all the air in your chest to really vocalize your words, taking pauses and making several glottal stops

[@AlexVinder]

YES! That's why it can help to first immerse oneself in the plain listening to a language, without intent of understanding it. Take in the rhythm, cadence and stressors, before going in for actual grammar and words. I see it like choosing and preparing the soil before actually planting the seeds which then of course need nurturing to grow. Sure plants could grow in the soil you've always used, but imagine the full potential if you chose and prepared the specific soil for the specific plant you wanna grow 🌺

[@ersrvd]

I liked this video because I'm a spanish speaker and when I speak english I have a very strong latino accent. Not as strong as Sofia Vergara though haha. 😅

[@kamiyama-chairdesklamp]

Native Japanese speaker; English is my third language. I was hoping you'd go into why people can speak a nonnative language for a long time and *still* have trouble with the pronunciation like the intro seemed to promise.

[@mobusy]

Great video!! I will consider showing it to my childiren.

[@andreavaleri0]

This is actual a brilliant short explanation. Kudos to you

[@StillAliveAndKicking_]

Excellent video, people tend not to talk about accent in such depth.

[@drahcirnevarc9152]

I'm a native English speaker. My English accent is basically Southern posh with probably a hint of Canadian left over from my early childhood. I speak French with the accent of a Parisian fonctionnaire. However, my spoken French actually isn't quite fluent. I can participate perfectly well in conversation, but make lots of mistakes and often find that I lack vocabulary, which is the source of a great deal of mystification. I also speak appallingly bad German with, apparently, a Prussian accent, which I think must be the result of the war films we used to watch on Sunday afternoons at boarding school 50 years ago.

[@miracleman.]

so?

[@robertrobert7924]

I am an American Mid Atlantic English speaker who took German language classes from middle school thru college. I have also watched 60 years worth of WW2 movies with German actors speaking English and German. When I flew back to the USA via Lufthansa, I only spoke a few polite words to the Attendant in German. She thought I was a German national and gave me the incorrect US Customs Questionaire to fill out. Ich bin ein Amerikaner.

[@craigcorson3036]

"Ich bin Amerikaner", I am informed, is more correct. There was a minor kerfuffle when JFK went to Berlin in June of 1963, and said "Ich bin ein Berliner." Worded that way, what he said is "I am a jelly doughnut".

[@GettNumber]

⁠@@craigcorson3036except no, his audience understood him perfectly in the way he wanted them to. it was everyone outside of berlin that made fun of JFK for this "mistake". berlin calls the jelly doughnut in question a pfannkuchen, or some other regional word. never a berliner though

[@craigcorson3036]

@@GettNumber I know very well that the audience understood his intent. My point stands. The correct German is "Ich bin Amerikaner"

[@KonradTheWizzard]

@@craigcorson3036 German speaker here, both are perfectly alright. "Ich bin Amerikaner" means "I'm American" (unspecific), while "Ich bin ein Amerikaner" means "I'm AN American" (specific). The only thing why a native German would perhaps not use "ein" in this sentence is because it becomes slightly ambiguous - in some regions "ein Amerikaner" can refer to the baked "Pfannkuchen" or to the nationality, while without the "ein" it can only be translated as the nationality. However, if the joke were not that pervasive in Germany we would not even think about it - there is for example no problem in saying "Ich bin ein Franzose" (I'm a French man) with or without "ein" - nobody even thinks about it also meaning "I'm an adjustable wrench" - we know that a wrench looks quite different from a French man. PS: I'll grant you it gets more dicey if you proudly pronounce "Ich bin ein Pariser". (I'll leave you to google it...)

[@xapaga1]

​@@KonradTheWizzard A minor correction here. You don't describe Berliner and Pariser as nationalities, because Berlin and Paris are no countries but cities. "Demonym" is the correct word here in both English and German when you describe the designation of a people, natives or inhabitants of a certain country, region or city.

[@diyabadoune]

Well for your information, we, french, also pronounce MBAPPE as EMBAPE because the letter M in the french alphabet is pronounced EMM

[@Alteo147]

Your choice of using Kylian Mbappé as an example is very interesting, especially for the French I am. Actually, you are right, his name is pronounced "mbappé"... but many French people do not pronounce it correctly and say.... "embappé", like the English speaker. :) This comes from the fact that the Mbappé name comes from Cameroon, and like many other african names, it uses a combination of consonants at the beginning that the French language does not have. So we don't always know whether the 'M' from "Mbappé" is an independant consonant that we should spell (as if it was "M-Bappé") or if it is a combination with the following 'p' that has to be pronounced together (which, thus, is the correct way). So, sometimes we say "Embappé" whereas we are totally able to say "Mbappé". :)

[@oleksiyborshchevskyy3757]

My mother tougue is Ukrainian but the language I use most is English as I grew up in Ireland. I find myself sometimes speaking English with an accent out of no where if i haven't spoken it on that particular day. Usually at work due to me working with Ukrainians so I spend most of the day speaking in Ukrianian. Due to this I start trying to speak English as it was Ukrainian. Then stopping myself and quite literally freezing up in my head because I can't speak normally with my Cork Accent. I do not have this issue when I switch over from Polish though most likely due to learning later on when I was older. Now I understand how to explain this issue when it happens.

[@pwp8737]

I taught conversational English in a European country, and when I was asked how to lose one's accent I replied "stop using the rules of your native language and listen to how the other language's natives speak theirs". Not sure if my students listened to my advice, but as I was teaching English I was also learning their language and have achieved virtually zero accent, though my vocabulary is merely adequate.

[@fatimateresa19]

I had the same advice given to me by my English teacher back in Spain. I started watching tv shows and series and whenever I was speaking in English I started using the different musicality. Its very important to do so. It makes a very big different. If you start speaking in English with the same musicality that you use for your native language its sounds very strange.

[@alejandra4466]

My mother tongue is Spanish (I'm mexican) and I once traveled to the U.S to meet for the first time some relatives from there. On of my cousins from there is married to a Sweden woman. Obviously I could only communicate with her in English. The funny thing is that I understood way better her accent than my cousin's. My cousin's native language is English, he even speaks better English than Spanish, but it really amazed me the fact that it was easier for me to understand his wife just because of her accent.

[@michaeldeierhoi4096]

That was both amusing and insightful!!

[@nela277]

I’m peruvian, I speak Spanish and I learned English while living in Peru. I have lived 2 years in Italy and I moved to France 22 years ago and now my English have a Spanish/French accent, my Italian has a French accent too and my French has a little accent… the Frenchs always ask me if I’m Italian! 😂 What a MESS !

[@victorpaesplinio2865]

In Brazilian Portuguese we don't have syllables that ends on a consonant other than L, M, N, R or S. It means that we tend to add a vowel sound to English words that ends on a consonant. Like, "internet" is often pronounced \interne tchi\, where the final T is pronounced as Ti. "Facebook " is often pronounced \feicibuki\ sometimes with a hard K in the end, totally different from what a native speaker would expect. Also, English has 20 vowels sounds. Portuguese has only 7 or so. It is often difficult to know what is the right way to pronounce something. On the other hand Portuguese has nasal sounds that we don't find in English, making it difficult for non native speakers to pronounce words like "mãe" (mother), "pão" (bread), or "chão" (floor). I love the ideia that we have accents, it is part of our own identity

[@materiaisdeestudos9219]

Amigo, o inglês não tem 20 vogais enquanto o português tem apenas 7. Você provavelmente está contando ditongos e tritongos do inglês como se eles fossem vogais isoladas. Se você contar os nossos ditongos e tritongos como se fossem vogais, o número seria alto também. E vale lembrar que os sons nasais, que você mesmo menciona, são vocálicos. Ou seja, eles precisam ser contados como vogais também.

[@victorpaesplinio2865]

@@materiaisdeestudos9219 eu me refiro aos sons de vogais mesmo e não as letras em si. As letras são 5 apenas, aeiou. Mas elas tem vários sons distintos. São 20 sons distintos de vogais. Só dar uma procurada sobre o assunto que vai ter vários exemplos. É bem confuso. Já ouviu falar sobre o "schwa"? Esse é um exemplo de som de vogal que não tem no português mas tem no inglês.

[@pinkskiestoday]

I LOVED THIS. Please make a longer video with more examples.

[@abiofficial-ws7pn]

Thank you, Colin Firth.

[@theultimatereductionist7592]

I am bilingual in English and mathematics. My brother, who is 6 years older, is multilingual in English, C++, Java, Python, scripting languages.

[@leandrotami]

In my case the explanation is simple: little contact in real life with native speakers AND the fact that many times I cannot hear the difference of two different sounds so I can't even try to imitate them. Also English I think makes very little sense phonetically so I basically need to hear all the words multiple times in order to understand how they should be pronounced.

[@iboKirby]

When I was studying in Austria, it was so interesting to hear the other students speaking German with French and Italian accents. I’m sure we all had foreign accents speaking German, but theirs were the most pronounced.

[@KO-ov6kg]

Old ESL teacher here. You forgot that students tend to pick up on the accent of their teacher, I can almost always tell (with more fluent students) if their teacher was American or British. Except Scots, never heard a student end up with a Scots accent from a Scots teacher. But I have had students email after arriving in Glasgow for uni, to say, "I know they are speaking English, but I can't understand a word they are staying."

[@Dingdong3696oyvey]

I’m from NY and have an accent in English. Native speakers also have accents, just different.

[@MsPataca]

Of course they do. When people say "he has an accent", what they really mean is "he has an accent that is different from ours".

[@elizabethwall8063]

I learned many years ago in a college linguistics class that people’s tongues actually develop a certain shape based on the accent they grew up with, and that’s why we have a particular accent that is hard to change. I’m not sure if that’s still a prevailing theory though. I feel like there has to be more to it than just paying attention to stress and intonation, because there are plenty of people who try very hard to lose their native accents and just can’t do it.

[@jewersp]

Brilliant explanation. It's interesting, how these things are becoming quite obvious once you know about them. I haven't given this much thought before. Thank you for teaching me something new within such a short time. Three minutes well spent ❤

[@AbAb-th5qe]

There's nothing wrong with speaking with an accent. I find it makes people more interesting

[@Warriorcats64]

Unless you're an Anglophone, then you have to work ten times harder than anyone else because all people want to do is speak English with you.

[@AbAb-th5qe]

@@Warriorcats64 I don't get what you mean. If someone has a heavy accent it can be hard work to understand them, but it's still better that everyone wants to talk in English. More diverse ideas are available to us as a result.

[@manuelcapela7620]

Some accents do have a charm of their own!😊

[@rohan34]

A very well made linguistic video ❤❤

[@mariaaraslanova3737]

Trop cool! J'adore!

[@Vaniapsyche]

I speak 3 languages, and I don't care about my foreign accent. It's a charming ❤ I prefer don't judge just because, it's cute listening the foreign accents foreign people speaking my native language. I'm a interpreter, and communication is more important than accent. I'm leaving in US, and I'm brazilian. I never gonna be american and any point to try to looks like one 😂😂😂😂😂

[@ArikCool]

This video was so well made, it felt like 15 minutes of information but in 3 minutes!

[@bbygrlpt2]

I speak fluent Spanish and can tell when someone has a Spanish accent while speaking English lol I cant tell the country theyre from but can tell their first language is Spanish🥰

[@bhson95]

You should stay in your Country to Listen to the Real Spanish everyday

[@bananenmusli2769]

@@bhson95 don't do that

[@romanicvs]

@@bhson95 no

[@FannyPlusvi]

Is odd that you cannot tell the difference between spanish accent fron Spain and spanish accent from Latin America. They are very different. With the exception of andalousians people from Spain have a very hard "h" sound in english and the "s" is stronger too. Sometimes it sounds as "sh" . "Shometimesh" And people from Spain have a similar accent in english as greeks. It's curious.

[@bbygrlpt2]

@@FannyPlusvi They both sound the same bc its the same language.

[@AugustusAsgeir]

I'm American but speak French, Russian, some Turkish, German , Norwegian, Danish, Czech and dabbled in Arabic, Greek so my accent is interesting lol

[@imaginative-monkey]

In Farsi, we don't have short vowels. So, for example, we pronounce pitch as peach. Probably, the most famous one is "Sun of a beach"! 😂

[@heinrich.hitzinger]

Oh sheet... Here we go again...

[@imaginative-monkey]

@@heinrich.hitzinger Hahaha

[@mr-vet]

Native English speaker (American English), here… former Spanish and French linguist. Learned Spanish years and years before French. When I speak French, I’m told I speak with a Spanish accent and people don’t’ initially know I’m from the US.

[@farihamohamedhilmy4700]

Oh now I get it! So the reason why foreigners have various English accents is because of 1. The way they were taught to pronounce in their own language 2. Stress on certain vowels and consonants

[@AnaRodriguez-ve5fq]

So it is all about vowels and tone 👌 I think it is more complex than that. Someone told me that accents come directly from the mouth, like an exercise, that’s why you can never be bilingual even if you train it very intensively

[@Silver0426]

When one learns a language under age of 20 the probability to have an accent in that language is very slim. The younger one is learning a new language the better one is not to have an accent. That is because the vocal cords are fully developed by age of 20. I have been told by British ppl that all of us Canadians, Australians, Americans…have an accent 😅So there!

[@gizbox2]

Most Italians have started learning English, and sometimes other languages, under the age of 11, usually around 5. But most of us keep some or a lot of Italian accent in our speaking...forever! :-D It really depends on how you learn a language, rather then at what age. Also from my direct experience, I had never heard Welsh language until a few years ago, and started learning it quite a bit past age 20. However my accent with Welsh is much better than my English, even though I've studied and used it constantly since I was a child!

[@PierredeCur]

You also can have a local accent in a foreign language if you integrate and use it long enough. For instance, despite being French my mother language, I speak Spanish with an accent of Seville, which is where I learned it when I was 18. In English, however, I have no specific recognizable accent, as I learned it in many different places.

[@fatimateresa19]

Its true though. I have lived in Cataluña and Andalucia( and people speak very differently).

[@gamechep]

The algorithm has blown me away by suggesting this video. Nice going, mister algorithm.

[@zaboutata]

I speak Spanish (mother tongue), English and French but I've been living in France for the past 9 years. I learned English before learning French but now I have a French accent when I speak English, it's so weird, haha, people must think I do it on purpose or something but it just comes out like that naturally. My theory is because the foreign language I speak the most is French, so my brain goes on French mode more easily. I'm also learning Italian and instead of going to the Spanish intonation which is more similar to Italian I go with the French one. I gues it has become such a big part of my life that it's taking over, I kind of like and hate it at the same time.

[@Valerio_the_wandering_sprite]

Here's a polyglot. Usually, people don't immediately guess that I'm Italian until I say my name or birthplace. At least in English, my accent is neutral enough to confuse most foreigners (I've been called German, Irish, Scandinavian or even Russian). In German, I still retain my Romance pitch, but I'm usually mistaken for a Romanian or a Frenchman. In Russian, people tend to say I sound like a Western European, but that's it (if it has any meaning in the first place). In Serbo-Croatian, my newest foreign language, my accent was at first blatantly Russian, but it slowly became more and more Italian over time. At any rate, my accent has never caused problems so far, to the point that I can converse with native speakers for hours.

[@gardenjoy5223]

Very nice short video! I learned several things in under three minutes.

[@PatBreitez]

Amazing video! Thank you!

[@justjane2070]

After 40 years living in German it seems I have a German accent now when speaking my mother tongue !

[@thekingsdaughter4233]

Quite possible. I heard an expat US-American speak English; and I could tell that he hd lived in Spain for years. Likewise, hearing the Tasmanian born Queen Mary of Denmark speak English - yes, certainly got a slight Danish accent going there. Cute. But annoying... I have been told I have a foreign accent now, too; when I speak my native language. 😞🤷

[@feynstein1004]

Interesting. I always thought it had to do with phonemes being pronounced differently. The same way that visually, we are able to distinguish different fonts. I think perfectly replicating a native accent is a Herculean task. It might be more labor-effective to get just close enough 😅

[@IsabellaGagnon-u4b]

YES! That's why it can help to first immerse oneself in the plain listening to a language, without intent of understanding it. Take in the rhythm, cadence and stressors, before going in for actual grammar and words. I see it like choosing and preparing the soil before actually planting the seeds which then of course need nurturing to grow. Sure plants could grow in the soil you've always used, but imagine the full potential if you chose and prepared the specific soil for the specific plant you wanna grow

[@DocaTafner]

How P is different in those two examples (English/French)? I'm a native (Brazilian) Portuguese speaker and fluent in English and, to me, they sound the same. My method for trying them was typing them on Google Translator, selecting the language and clicking on Play 😀 Sorry if that's not OK... And one curious thing we are taught when learning Portuguese: there is only one stress syllable on every word and there are diacritics to boot. I never ever thought that in English there could be a primary stress and a secondary stress. Really interesting short video.

[@c0ronariu5]

English P is plotive, which means there is a puff of air produced by your mouth when you say it. Whereas French and other Romance languages do not produce that puff of air. It’s a softer P sound than the English P. I must add, if you are a native romance speaker who learned English later in life (not from birth) you are most likely using the non-plotive “French” P even when you speak english. Because your mouth isn’t used to making that sound. The plotive sound is actually very rare. It is only the Germanic languages (English, Dutch, Swedish etc) that use the plotive P, T and B sounds.

[@DocaTafner]

@@c0ronariu5 oh, so that’s what it is. Thanks for taking the time to answer, I’ll look into that. My self-taught English is much similar to accent-less tone without the biases from my native language, I’ve been told, and I have never tried to learn French. Again, thank you.

[@yomama...isaverynicelady]

Well, in my humble and always right opinion, most Americans don't do those heavy airy obnoxious P or T sounds. That's just people from LA and on TV, both of which are fake. When people like the guy in the video talk about how Americans allegedly talk, they are just talking about fake newsspeak/television character speak. It is best to listen to real native speakers talk to each other in a non scripted situation.

[@Doscar90]

Languages are for communication somebody told me, if you see people who speak English have different accents, that's their identity...

[@MichaelChristensen13]

I know using the aspirated plosive "P" as an example was just that - an example - but a *much* bigger accent problem for English to French would be VOWELS and, like the video said, prosody.

[@AnA-yh2zn]

I did not expect it to be so easy! Thank you.

[@bazingacurta2567]

I'm glad pronunciation, stress and rhythm are not taught. I love to hear people speaking with different accents.

[@robynwilliams6215]

Me too!

[@shaunmckenzie5509]

It is often taught. But even if you teach it, many people will never be able to sound native even if they try. Whereas other people can have a knack for speaking foreign language and can sound almost native.

[@Chickaqee]

Yeah I think fluency is more important, I can forget about an accent a few minutes into listening, but I can't really ignore bad sentence structure and grammar.

[@ami4511]

​@@shaunmckenzie5509 It is taught very minimally. And it also just depends why you're learning the language, if it's part of your school curriculum, they don't place much emphasis on accent reduction because the purpose is communication, whereas I would say people who study languages at an academic level do focus more on how they sound and are probably more sensitive to the phonetics of the language. You would have to invest additional time to training to get rid of your accent unless you are naturally gifted. Oral exams also do not test accent, they test your pronunciation and articulation.

[@pabloa..]

It IS taught. It's very hard to get there though, and it's much more important to be understood clearly by others than getting rid of your accent, unless, for example, you're a professional actor trying to get a career abroad. The effort (in time and money) needed to get there is useless for most people. If you're so in love with this 2nd (or 3rd or 4th...) language, you probably will gain more learning other aspects of it (literature, regional variations, etc), than getting rid of your accent.

[@maliab608]

This was a great, informative and entertaining video. Really enjoyed it! Thank you.

[@nullstress]

Really wish I could remove my accent completely. Most of my friends from England really despise the way I speak as it's unintelligible, but Americans seem to have no issue with it. Like, it's not that my English proficiency is terrible... it's just that I'd love to speak it as well as native speakers out of respect for their native language.

[@MauriceTituer]

The stress syllable in French is only for the last word of a sentence.

[@PLuMUK54]

I am a native English speaker. I was fluent in French and Spanish, though losing now through lack of use. When in France, native French speakers assumed that I was also, because I naturally pick up the accents of native speakers. Although I have a distinct Madrilenian accent when speaking Spanish, I have, outside Spain been asked if I was Argentinian. However, Spaniards outside Madrid usually assumed that I was from the capital. Even in languages where I can only make myself understood, Dutch, German, Italian, and Welsh, I take on the accent. Sometimes this is not helpful though. People assume that I know more of their language than I do. The only other time that I have problems is when the same occurs with English accents. I find myself using the same accent as the person that I'm talking to in lots of cases. Even though that person rarely notices, I have been criticised for mimicking by those who have overheard me. I am not, I just pick up the subtle clues naturally, and without thinking adjust my speech pattern.

[@KonradTheWizzard]

I'm native German. This happened to me in English - I worked with Americans a lot and after a while people who came over from the US started to ask me what US state I was from and were quite surprised when I told them I was from Germany. Unfortunately since I work mostly with other Germans now I regained a bit of that "foreigner" accent.

[@xapaga1]

That "people assume I know more of their language than I do" also happens to me when I utter some Russian phrases on my visits to former Soviet republics. This sort of mimicking ability can be both a gift and a curse.

[@simonledoux8519]

I am experiencing the same loss of fluency in Spanish. I used to speak it well and with such ease but in the last 10-15 years, I just haven't been speaking it as often as I once did. Another reason too is that I've become proficient and maybe fluent in Portuguese. I tested at a C1 level. Still I feel sad that I lost that ability to really speak well in Spanish. When I go to a Spanish speaking country, it does come back to me but I don't feel quite so confident as I once did. I speak French too and maybe about the same level as I my Spanish used to be. I heard a polyglot recently say that our level of language can fluctuate.

[@hamsterama]

@@simonledoux8519 I'm in a similar situation with you, but with German. I'm in my late 30's now, but when I was in high school, I spent a year in Germany as a foreign exchange student. Lived with a host family and went to school there. I became fluent in German. I returned to Germany twice after my study abroad year, but the last time I was there was in 2006. Since 2006, I've been losing more and more of the language. Now, I speak at best broken German. It's very rare to come across a German speaker in the US. So, there are no opportunities to practice speaking German. The reality is, the enormous amounts of time and effort I put into learning German when I was younger was a total waste. I have nothing to show for it today. I wish I put that time and effort into something more useful. Actually, I wish I learned Spanish instead. There are tons of native Spanish speaking immigrants in the US, so there are always opportunities to practice the language.

[@franceslothian1319]

The same happens to me. I think some of us just have a more natural ear for languages than others. When I was travelling all over the UK delivering training courses I was always mimicking the accents of the people I was speaking to. I think as a communicator I wanted to make myself as clear as possible for them.

[@mariaelenavasquezgarcia5225]

What an excellent video, so informative, perfectly summarized and entertaining execution, thank you!

[@omg.mesohungry]

Another aspect is tone. If your native language has tones (Cantonese, Mandarin, Thai, Vietnamese to name a few), you're more than likely to subconsciously add in the tones to any non-tonal language you're trying to speak Also, native English speakers will naturally reduce many vowels to the "schwa"-sound (/ə/ - "er"), which their non-native counterparts often fail to do. Check out Tom Scott's video about it.

[@Berniebud]

The editor was absolutely fighting for that paycheck.

[@saintlucia1596]

😂😂😂

[@LudoLustig-b1c]

Berlusconi is a bad example when it comes to listening through walls these days.

[@julianaylor4351]

😁

[@geokon3]

💀

[@ritaamor283]

This was a great video!

[@alphaTrader.oo1]

Native speaker should appreciate the effort others for learning & using your language

[@byronwilliams7977]

If they don't learning the musicality (prosodic features) of the languages well, they'll butcher the language. I'm not going to clap for that.

[@GorilieVR]

This is delightful 😊

[@jaxonmattox9267]

As a native English speaker who has studied many other languages and speaks Spanish the best of all the languages I've learned, properly rolling my R has been the absolute most difficult thing I've ever tried to accomplish. Despite being able to roll my Rs briefly, I cannot sustain a smooth R roll and when saying words like "Carro" it sounds more like "cardo" even though I do technically roll my R, I just can't lose the stiff English tongue. Thank goodness for Chinese

[@HolgerJakobs]

In have the same problem with rolling the R, which is necessary in Turkish, Arabic and Spanish, but optional in German, where is characterises a Southern accent. I wonder whether it's still manageable for an adult to learn how to roll the R. In most languages it's only a heavy accent when you use the _wrong_ type of R, but in Arabic both uvula-R and tongue-tip-R exist and are different letters, so you might say something totally different when you use the wrong type of R.

[@craftah]

natives with speech impediment can't pronounce the rolled R either. so if you as a foreigner can't pronounce it natives might think you just have some speech impediment. that means you can sound like a native speaker even if you can't pronounce it but ofc it still doesn't sound right and i guess we can still hear your accent is foreign @@HolgerJakobs

[@susanarodriguez6352]

I have the same problem with the German and French gutural r. I just can't do it! Can trill my r just fine...

[@FannyPlusvi]

​@@HolgerJakobsSame happens in spanish. Carro (car) and caro ( expensive)

[@hamarana]

A difficult side of learning a language is speaking out of synch with your own natural rhythm... consonants and vowels spoken at different intervals of your breathig rhythm... worst still is when you have to link words to make you sound natural.. .when you try to do that forcebly you may end up with a total different word you never intended to while just trying to link simple words.. lol

[@theeternal6890]

*That's why I love Sanskrit. U can't have much difference in accents when speaking sanskrit accurately.*