My question, For those whose first language is NOT English...?

Question

In your language, can you hear the difference in accents when others speak your language, in the same way that in English we can discern a German accent, or a Japanese accent... I know it seems obvious, but I wonder if in another language, that speaker can tell the difference between an Australian, a Brit, a Scotsman, a Canadian, etc speaking in their language. If so, tell me what language you speak, and what the differences in the other people's accents are.

Answer 1

Yeah, I can notice the difference between when a Punjabi, Gujarati, Kashmiri, Bengali, Hydrabadi, and South Indian speaks Hindi.

In Gujarati, a local would understand the differences between a Kathiawadi, and some other accents.

And theres a looooot of different accents in Arabic. Egyptian, Hijazi, Najdi, Sharqiyyah, Lubnaani, Iraqi, Yemeni, and a few more.
The Egyptian one is the most different, and at the same time the most widely recognized Arabic accent. Some even count it as another language.

Answer 2

yeah.. accent is the difference. I'm a Filipino. a lot of Filipino speak "good english". I mean, grammar, pronunciation, diction.. however, there is still that so called american accent that made the difference. If I'm talking to somebody, I can determine the language by the tone and the accent. Southerns have thick accents, New Yorkers speak fast, Brits tends to roll their tongue.

Answer 3

I'm arabic and i say there is something called (accent) and another called (dialect).
In Arabic countries,not only the accent differs from one country to another,but almost 3\4 of the words are totally different.because the arabic spoken language is different than the written one . and within each country,there are many dialects,depending on what region your'e from.i.e. villagers have different dialect from citizens which sometimes its almost impossible for them to under stand each other.
The bottom line is: We use the informal or slang Arabic in speaking,and the original or formal one (in which the qura'an written)in writing.
so spoken arabic language is different but the written one is all the same...

Answer 4

Yes, of course. My native language is Turkish. And I can easily discern German, Brit, Russian, etc. accent. You just know from the way they pronounce words, or from their intonation. Germans for example overstress the /f/ sound, or Brits tend to omit the /r/ at the end of the words, and so on.

Answer 5

My native language is romanian, but I also speak very good russian and english. So when an russian tryes to speak in romanian, I understand from the first second that he/she is an russian, by the accent, of course. And the same for an english man when he/she tryes to speak russian, I see the difference from beginning.

Answer 6

Yes, we can. My native language is Spanish, and we not only can hear different accents between Spanish from Spain, Mexico, Argentina or other Spanish speaker countries. In Spain, that is a small country, you can even say if somebody is from Galicia or other province because of their accent.
We also can easily say what a non-Spanish speaker's native language is (German that is like they where angry, French that is like from their throats, Russian that sounds like RRRR-KKKK!, Portuguese that is like... uuuing, Italian that sounds like nini-singing, American that sounds like rounded...) because of their accent.
The difficulty comes when there is, for example, an English speaker, and we have to identify his/her nationality. Not every body can do that unless they know how to speak that language or know something about it. For example, I can say wheather a Portuguese speaker is from Brazil (softer) or Portugal (stronger), or a French Speaker is from France (more rounded) or Quebec (more visceral), and an English speaker comes from US (even say of he is from NY tht sounds like water running or Texas that sounds like chewing gum, North or South...), Canada (a very nice T but not so nice R), or UK (dramatic intonation and R almost impossible to hear at endings like in "wata", or "dautha", "brotha", because I am familiar with those languages and accents so I can hear the differences. Though it is more difficult for me to tell the difference between an Australian and a British, or an Englishman and a Scotchman... And about Arabics, Chineses and Indian languages it is even more difficult, because I have cero knowledge of their languages.
I hope my comparisons are not offensive in any way to anyone, I am just trying to be graphic!

Answer 7

Yes I can tell when someone has a different accent. I speak Spanish, and when Americans speak english they speak it in an american accent. and also u can tell because spanish people speak with terms and slang as do soem americans...and when Americans speak spanish they speak it VERY proper..using words most hispanics dont even use.

Answer 8

I think most people here have got the wrong meaning/sense of the question.
My partner and myself speak several languages as we come from different countries. And we both think that when we hear someone speak in our native language, most of the time, we can perceive what language they originally speak, but not what country they come from.

Answer 9

Hi, I'm French and I can definitely guess the native language of someone talking to me in French...As for English people, I can only make a difference between Irish (I live in Ireland) and Scottish people (as it sounds easier for them to pronounce the "r" sound). With a bit of practice they can easily mess with you for a few sentences, but then you can quickly point where they're from.

Answer 10

I can.

If somebody is speaking Welsh, I can tell whether they were brought up with it, or if they learnt it by a book. Especially if that person isn't Welsh.

But as long as they learn the language, I don't mind. It's a good thing to learn!