Do people with strong accents KNOW they have strong accents?
2007-02-07 10:29:05 · 41 answers · asked by Snowth 4 in Entertainment & Music ➔ Polls & Surveys
I thought I had a neutral accent until I went to America. Apparently I have an accent that puts me in the same category as James Mason...Noel Coward and Hugh Grant!
Elderly ladies in Bloomingdales would ask me to repeat myself at the sales desk just to get their friends to confirm that I was 'British'... Drop dead gorgeous mexican girls in New York coffee houses would find it safer to ignore me than to ask me to repeat myself...and taxi drivers would consistently seek translations from my Iranian companion rather than get me to repeat the anglo saxon garbage I had just served them!!
There is no such thing as a neutral accent...there is understanding...and there is nothing!
2007-02-07 10:48:07 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
I believe I have a pretty neutral accent only because I have lived in so many different places in the world and you seem to pick up a bit of a twang from here and there by accident.
I certainly don't sound like friends and family back home anymore but I don't sound like the people here either.
Also I have found that people with strong accents can't understand why you can't understand them. When in Ireland I could never get the contraction can't I had to make them say can or can not! Weird!
2007-02-07 10:35:18 · answer #2 · answered by Maple Leaf 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
People say I don't have an accent until I am speaking to someone with a really strong accent and I start to sound like them. I don't realise at the time that I am doing it.
2007-02-07 21:46:32 · answer #3 · answered by Jo H 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Yeah. I grew up in Chicago, so I didnt really have an "accent" but I did talk really really fast. However I went to college in LA and have spent the last 3 years living in Santa Barbara so I have a pretty neutral accent by now. I dont think people that have strong accents notice it. I have relatives in Texas and they dont seem to realize they say y'all every 3 or so words.
2007-02-07 10:33:39 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
I think I have a neutral American accent. I was a military brat and grew up in several different parts of the country.
I don't think people realize they have a strong accent until they hear themselves on an audiotape.
2007-02-07 10:33:47 · answer #5 · answered by Haley 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I was born in Scotland and had a scottish accent until I was in my mid teens. I was very aware of this at the time. Now I am in my 20s, I have spent lots of time in England now and (apart from the occassional slip up) I know I sound english... I have been told I sound London, which is the 'neutral' accent in these parts.
2007-02-07 10:35:57 · answer #6 · answered by Kirralilly 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Yeah I know I have a strong accent. When I talk I can hear my accent. It's even worse when I listen to a recording though. I live in South Wales.
2007-02-07 10:33:22 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
No I have a broad Lancashire accent. I sound like I'm in Coronation Street. So I have to put on an accent speaking to customers so they know what I'm saying.
2007-02-07 10:33:07 · answer #8 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
I've heard that the midwestern accent is considered pretty much the standard American accent. Mine has a bit of Midwestern, New Yorker, Bostonian and something else I can't always identify LOL.
2007-02-07 10:32:42 · answer #9 · answered by Thunderman9 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Everyone could right away tell I'm a native New Yorker by listening to my accent. I and others who are from here can't hear our accents.
2007-02-07 10:35:35 · answer #10 · answered by Bazinga 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋