ddhr.org - Accent awareness

Date: 2007 | 11 | 07

Accent awareness (7)

Nov 7, 2007

Do people with foreign accents know they have accents?

Can people from non-English-speaking countries tell the difference between different types of foreign accents, i.e. can a German-American tell the difference between a British accent and a southern accent?

I will not rest until I can answer these questions. #language

Comments

Shara

Nov 21, 2007

Why wouldn't they be able to tell the difference? You can tell the difference between a French accent and a German accent. You can also probably hear a difference between Scottish, English and Irish accents so I would go with yes, foreigners can tell the difference between a southern accent and a British accent.

Dave

Nov 21, 2007

But that's different. I can hear the difference between a French-English accent and a German-English accent because I speak English. I doubt I can tell the difference between an English-French accent and a German-French accent.

Shara

Nov 21, 2007

Ohhhh, I see what you're saying. You're talking about some French guy speaking english and some German guy speaking English and whether or not someone from Sweden would be able to tell the difference?

Dave

Nov 21, 2007

Exactly.

Shara

Nov 21, 2007

I will ask my Swedish friend and get back to you.

Wendy Hosier

Nov 30, 2007

I went to Kenya on a missions trip. There were four of us on the team - 1 from VA, 1 from NJ, 1 from CO, and 1 from MO. All of us said things slightly differently and the Kenyans didn't notice the difference. I can't remember if they noticed the difference when our other four team members from the UK showed up.

Payal

Dec 26, 2007

hah.. that's funny. I can normally tell the different korean accents (from suburbs and seoul).. I can also tell different Japanese accents.. I can also tell different italian accents..

Does that help? I don't speak Korean or Italian.