Do you put an accent on your internal voice?
Do you put an accent on your internal voice?
(OP)
My mother is native Italian, I hear a common accent, grammatical errors and cadence in native Italians speaking English based upon their native tongue. I grew up around a family of Polish emigrants. They and their friends all spoke with a common accent, grammatical errors and cadence as well. In fact maybe as a result, I can home in on non-native English speakers and usually determine their country of origin even if I don't hear their name (a dead giveaway most of the time), as long as I have heard someone from their country speak English before.
I was reading a post earlier tonight in another forum from a Polish engineer. I suddenly realized that while reading it, I was putting a Polish accent on the internal voice in my own head as I read it! I stopped and realized that the same grammatical errors and cadence came through in typed text, so my brain then applied what I already knew about those parameters and applied a Polish accent to it.
Does this happen to anyone else? And for you non-native English speakers, did you just read my post and apply an American accent to it?
I was reading a post earlier tonight in another forum from a Polish engineer. I suddenly realized that while reading it, I was putting a Polish accent on the internal voice in my own head as I read it! I stopped and realized that the same grammatical errors and cadence came through in typed text, so my brain then applied what I already knew about those parameters and applied a Polish accent to it.
Does this happen to anyone else? And for you non-native English speakers, did you just read my post and apply an American accent to it?





RE: Do you put an accent on your internal voice?
RE: Do you put an accent on your internal voice?
RE: Do you put an accent on your internal voice?
Hg
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RE: Do you put an accent on your internal voice?
Tobalcane
"If you avoid failure, you also avoid success."
RE: Do you put an accent on your internal voice?
"Art without engineering is dreaming; Engineering without art is calculating."
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RE: Do you put an accent on your internal voice?
Jeff Mirisola, CSWP
http://designsmarter.typepad.com/jeffs_blog
Dell M90, Core2 Duo
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RE: Do you put an accent on your internal voice?
As I was telling my boss I started doing an impersonation of him! I didn't mean to it just came out when I was trying to tell my boss exactly what he'd said.
As to the accents of all the other voices in my head, well JMirisola beat me to the punchline.
KENAT, probably the least qualified checker you'll ever meet...
RE: Do you put an accent on your internal voice?
RE: Do you put an accent on your internal voice?
Tobalcane
"If you avoid failure, you also avoid success."
RE: Do you put an accent on your internal voice?
TwoBallCane - Offsensive is in the eye of the beholder and it can certainly be offsensive to mimic anyone as I'm sure you know. But a funny picture you painted about foreigners mimicing Americans in English. (is mimicing spelled right?)
The voice in my head talks just like me, even when he is narrating grammatically incorrect gibberish for me. Hmmm.
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RE: Do you put an accent on your internal voice?
"Art without engineering is dreaming; Engineering without art is calculating."
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RE: Do you put an accent on your internal voice?
I deal often with internationals and I tend to think in my head how they would say things when i read emails, mainly becuz I have had funny experiances when talking with them.
RE: Do you put an accent on your internal voice?
Hg
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RE: Do you put an accent on your internal voice?
Careful with calling people Americans, Canadians are "Americans" also and still different culture from the US.
RE: Do you put an accent on your internal voice?
Hg
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RE: Do you put an accent on your internal voice?
Back in the UK though when we said Americans we meant inhabitants of the U.S.A.
I do a lowsy american accent when I try, although apparantly I've started losing my Brit one so must be picking it up.
Just realized off topic, sorry.
KENAT, probably the least qualified checker you'll ever meet...
RE: Do you put an accent on your internal voice?
I'm not so sure about that, my English cousin can pick up on the diffences enough to have seperate fake American and Canadian accents. I'd like to hear from some of the Europeans here, can you tell a Canadian from an American someone from the USA, I mean)?
RE: Do you put an accent on your internal voice?
I can distinguish regional US accents to some extent.
However HG has a point, to the uneducated ear non French Canadian is as similar to say New York accent as say a Georgian one.
They are all different but it's not immediately obvious that Canada is a different country.
What gets me is that I get accuse of being an Aussie more than a Brit. Clean your ears out America
KENAT, probably the least qualified checker you'll ever meet...
RE: Do you put an accent on your internal voice?
Ahhh yes, been there done that...and the poor New Zealanders have it the worst.
People first think their English, then Aussie...
RE: Do you put an accent on your internal voice?
Mind you, when I get accused of being English by Americans and I explain that I am actually Welsh, I usually get a long pause, followed by "But that's part of England, right?"
The horrible mirror image of this, is when usually Americans (sorry to get on your case again!) claim to be Irish, or Italian, when they had some distant relative in the past from that country.
You aren't Irish, you're American!
I once spent a drunken 10 minutes in a bar explaining why this was annoying to a Californian girl, who responded with "yeah...but I am actually Scotch"
It beggars belief.
RE: Do you put an accent on your internal voice?
I agree its a sad thing SOO many Americans do, I used to do it to. It is ironic that i had to spend a year in Europe to realized I AM American. After that I started saying my Great Grand parents came from Germany.
Now everytime I hear an american using a fake Italian accent saying their italian its like nails on a chalk board...
I used to argue with people that they are american of X decent, till i reallized it didnt do any good
RE: Do you put an accent on your internal voice?
RE: Do you put an accent on your internal voice?
Also, I will, uncounciously, quickly adopt some typical sound from an other accent, along with their expressions. I experience it a lot among french canadian from different part of canada and event different part of the Quebec.
RE: Do you put an accent on your internal voice?
Cheers
Greg Locock
Please see FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.
RE: Do you put an accent on your internal voice?
I'm starting to be able to tell east Texas from west Texas, though.
Hg
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RE: Do you put an accent on your internal voice?
RE: Do you put an accent on your internal voice?
RE: Do you put an accent on your internal voice?
Hg
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RE: Do you put an accent on your internal voice?
Have you tried to read Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh-- it only makes sense if you read it with a Scottish accent.
RE: Do you put an accent on your internal voice?
RE: Do you put an accent on your internal voice?
Hg
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RE: Do you put an accent on your internal voice?
Actually I found by and large the Europeans COULD tell the difference. I couldn't though (except for the very obvious eastern Canada, Quebecois, and Southern US).
SLH
RE: Do you put an accent on your internal voice?
I have never had a conversation with a Welshman, so I get mine from Liza Doolittle’s father in "My Fair Lady".
I must admit that I have to do an Indian accent for a few seconds before calling Tech Support to tune my ear to the accent, or else I have to make them repeat themselves a couple of times. Not racist...just fact.
I had a young person of Indian descent working for me for a while and his accent was very slight, but he spoke softly. After 20+ years working around aircraft I had to have him repeat himself several time every time. We talked at length about my hearing loss, but that was just the way he spoke.
(I'm to vain for hearing aids...yet)
Rerig
RE: Do you put an accent on your internal voice?
"
Um, I assume you're talking about the film, and it's been a while since I've seen it but...
I don't think he's Welsh, it's cockney (East London/within hearing distance of Beau Bells) if I recall correctly.
KENAT, probably the least qualified checker you'll ever meet...
RE: Do you put an accent on your internal voice?
If you don't mind my asking, what part of the UK do you hail from? I'm at a loss as to what accent to put with your posts.
RE: Do you put an accent on your internal voice?
RE: Do you put an accent on your internal voice?
I'm from Basingstoke in Hampshire (South of England) and spent a lot of time in Southampton & Portsmouth too (both Hampshire).
So, if you're from London then I sound like I have a fairly rural accent, a right carrot cruncher as it were, straight off the last turnip truck. The sort what would talk of cackleberry's (or is that cackleberries) and Hampshire Hogs. (Probably influenced too by my mums accent who grew up in a small village outside Basingstoke and whos parents were from further West).
However, growing up in Basingstoke and attending the schools I did when I was younger, I also picked up some 'Cockney' as a lot of Londoners moved to Basingstoke after the war and so the local accent is heavily influenced by them. So to someone from the sticks I sound like a right geezer from the big smoke.
Then of course I've been here in the US a few years and have had relatives and a few strangers from England say I've started to lose my accent.
And all this despite my 2 sisters and Dad having far more refined accents! Oh yeah, and I have a slight speech impediment, I've got better with my R not sounding like W but my th still tend to sound like F (as in things) or D (That, The).
So, I don't know what accent you should put!
If all else fails do Hagrid from the Harry Potter movies with a touch of the Gecko from the Geico commercials!
Whenever I hear a recording of my voice I hate it, I think it makes me sound stupid/unintelligent but my US born wife finds it cute so I can't complain
KENAT, probably the least qualified checker you'll ever meet...
RE: Do you put an accent on your internal voice?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cockney
KENAT, probably the least qualified checker you'll ever meet...
RE: Do you put an accent on your internal voice?
I heard that Tom Jones (the singer) is Welsh, but probably by the time he made it big he had been Americanized and lost the uniqueness that I heard last week.
RE: Do you put an accent on your internal voice?
However as with most chanteuse, he has something of a mid Atlantic accent when singing.
Also North and South Wellian accents are different.
As to typically Brit, British is typically taken to include inhabitants of England, Northern Ireland, Scotland & Wales. All of those countries have regional variations (to the point that I can't understand half of what my relatives from Newcastle say).
Most English accents you hear in American media are either a variant of Cockney (Spike in Buffy, Geico Gecko etc.) or Recieved Pronunciation/Queens English (Maxwell Sheffield & the butler in 'the nanny', the butler in fresh prince almost every Roman in screen history etc).
KENAT, probably the least qualified checker you'll ever meet...
RE: Do you put an accent on your internal voice?
Quite right about the North and South Walian accents, to my South Walian ear the North Walian accent is pure comedy, it is very nasal, but then I dare say that they might find my accent equally amusing.
There is also a discernable difference between South and West Wales accents, and I can also usually tell if someone has Welsh as their first language by the way they speak English.
If you started out in West Wales, and drove towards London you would pass through West Wales, South Wales, Bristol, Westcountry, Home Counties, and Cockney accents (apologies if I have missed anyone) all in the space of a 3-4 hour drive.
You could also find a similar diversity of accents if you travelled that distance in a straight line anywhere in the UK, are there any other countries that people know of with the same density of accents?
RE: Do you put an accent on your internal voice?
Note also that if you started out in Bristol and drove south west (towards Penzance) you would also pass through various different regional accents - each distinct (e.g. Plymouth has a distinct accent).
RE: Do you put an accent on your internal voice?
To hear Charles Aznavour or Julio Iglesias, singing in English, are good examples of peculiar French and Spanish accents.
luis
RE: Do you put an accent on your internal voice?
Just ever so slightly back on topic I know but:
Seen on a T-shirt recently: "I do whatever the voices in my wife's head tell me to."
RE: Do you put an accent on your internal voice?
RE: Do you put an accent on your internal voice?
Waitress: Gee, you have an accent. Where are you from?
SG: Think of a country that speaks English?
Waitress: Uh, Australia??
SG: The answer is in the question.
Waitress: Uh?
SG: Ok, I'll have 4/5 of a pint of ice cold horse p155 then.
RE: Do you put an accent on your internal voice?
KENAT, probably the least qualified checker you'll ever meet...
RE: Do you put an accent on your internal voice?
singing "Eeeeemanuel Kant was a real pissant ..."
RE: Do you put an accent on your internal voice?
RE: Do you put an accent on your internal voice?
RE: Do you put an accent on your internal voice?
ewh, ignorance prevents me from responding to your post I'm affraid.
KENAT, probably the least qualified checker you'll ever meet...
RE: Do you put an accent on your internal voice?
Great British rock - better than Tommy IMO.
RE: Do you put an accent on your internal voice?
RE: Do you put an accent on your internal voice?
Inexcusable ignorance
KENAT, probably the least qualified checker you'll ever meet...
RE: Do you put an accent on your internal voice?
Probably a bit of a stretch for a Geordie schoolteacher.
Cheers
Greg Locock
Please see FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.
RE: Do you put an accent on your internal voice?
RE: Do you put an accent on your internal voice?
RE: Do you put an accent on your internal voice?
Maybe when I read text in english, I have an internal CNN newsreader doing it for me. As a spanish native speaker, I can hardly tell the difference between AU,CA,UK or US english flavors.
Personally, I've found asian speakers easier to understand by phone. Of course, this is just a personal impression from the english level of those customers.
Some AR customers are funny on english ('goose-talk' for Woodstock), with a strong italian accent. Fortunately, I got them and offer switching to spanish.
RE: Do you put an accent on your internal voice?
And, yes, find myself replying in text to Italians in a broken-English fashion.
Or talking to the gentlemen working on our house siding in Spanglish.
But, so far, I have managed to avoid the classic fatdumbyankee method of dealing with furriners, which is to talk to them in slower, LOUDER american-talk, so they can understand...
Recently the wife forced me to watch "Mr. Bean's Vacation" or "...Holiday", or whatever. There were subtitles for the French being spoken on-screen, and Mr. Bean would occasionally reply to questions with "Oui". The French person would then say "Your French is very good". He would always reply, "Gracias!"
RE: Do you put an accent on your internal voice?
- Steve
RE: Do you put an accent on your internal voice?
I grew up in Ottawa and my young son of 6 is pure Harry Potter.....You really don't want to know anymore! Ok my vife is Danish...You vill comply.
I read almost everyhing in an accent of some sort. Ever tried Tis by Macourt? It's very easy for me to laugh aloud.
RE: Do you put an accent on your internal voice?
LEVEL 1: Courtesy, assistance, talk repeating slowly, politely. Sense of humor from both sides.
LEVEL 2: Patience tank draining out, the other guy is now mentally challenged. Talking louder, hoping that volume helps in decoding.
LEVEL 3: Patience is over, attempts to get rid of the guy, nervous search for other people to pass over the language problem. Help turns into direct orders "Follow me. that person could help you", "I'm sending an email to you later"
Of course, the level reached depends on your language skills, the culture towards foreigners in your location, the context of the meeting, education, etc.
Regards,
GonzaloEE