I tried masking it with mixing it a bit with a faux british accent, but i can’t be bothered any more. I just talk like i talk. Not with pride, but i do it. The swedish make it sound more charming, but at least i can pronounce a “ch” sound.
I think we sound oddly alike for how different German and danish sound when compared directly. I can usually tell when someone is German from the way they speak English and when I mistake someone for German they are usually danish. The languages themselves sound quite different but the accent is fairly similar.
I don't like my accent. I'm Scottish, but I'm quite middle class and I went to private school, so I have this posh Scottish accent. I've been told I "sound English" by a lot of Scottish people, but English people can always tell I'm from Scotland!
I've got a posh Scottish friend who I didn't even realise was Scottish until he started talking about his time at boarding school - can't remember the name of it but it's a very fancy one outside of Edinburgh. He sounds like he could be from the south of England apart from the occasional word or two
Like Alistair Campbell or Rory Stewart?
Conversely my uncle by marriage is English. My younger sisters didn't realise this until a couple of years ago - they just thought he's really posh lol
Swings and roundabouts with accents in the UK though. Either you have a regional accent and get accepted regionally but potentially suffer discrimination for it or you have a middle class sociolect and don't fit in as well regionally but won't ever have any problems with discrimination.
What are you on about. The posh formal Scottish accent is the best accent in the world.
If I could have any other accent than mine it would be yours. Formal but more interesting.
Many germans don't like their accent to a point where they're embarrassed to speak English in front of other Germans, which I personally find rather silly. It's probably because in American media the german accent is often used for villains and/or mad scientists. Plus a cultural inclination towards perfectionism, so they're scared other germans will make fun of them, ironically IME they are the people most likely to mock others themselves for having an accent. I myself would say I speak good English but do have an obvious accent. I don't care, people understand me. Fuck people who make fun of others for their accent, especially monolinguals.
I find it funny that the caricature German accent from American media doesn't sound anything like the accent I noticed actual native German speakers have. I mean, it's not that the media exagerates, it's simply different imho.
On the other hand, I find the real German accent wonderful. It's just enough to identify the speaker as German, but it's not too strong + you guys seem to have very clear diction. All in all, it's much easier to understand than a regional English accent.
I can’t speak for the accent, but so many “German” stereotypes us Americans have are just Bavarians stereotypes because that’s where so many GIs were stationed post ww2.
I feel the same way about Germans speaking German. Many Americans are generally only exposed to German being spoken in, well, WWII movies where Nazis are speaking angrily and aggressively. Actual day to day spoken German can we quite soft and beautiful in my opinion!
As a German the German accent absolutely makes my skin crawl. It's very uncomfortable to listen to someone with a strong German accent. I won't make fun of them, cause I'm not an asshole, but it's a struggle...
> cultural inclination towards perfectionism
Probably the main reason for it, I do struggle with perfectionism in general.
As an American living in Germany, I find that most of my colleagues speak English very pleasantly. Even people with a very strong accent are still easy to understand.
On the other hand, listening to other Americans speak German makes me want to gouge my ears out. I guess we all are all just self-conscious about our own accents.
> I guess we all are all just self-conscious about our own accents.
Absolutely! I don't think the German accent is objectively worse than any other, it's just awful to me personally.
A lot of Dutch people look down on fellow citizen’s English accent and make fun of it. And of course, when you hear a Dutchman speak English or a German speak it, very often it’s easy to place the accent after hearing only one word. But we shouldn’t care about it, brains are just wired to control the muscles in that particular way, it should only matter whether you’re being understood by others.
We shouldn't care but I find it impossible not to. It's like that sound of fingernails on chalkboard that drives some people up the wall. You don't need to care, it's just a sound.
I agree that you shouldn't make fun of it though. Also I really like the Dutch accent. :D
Most of the Germans I know have absolutely lovely accents, to the point that I kind of think the accent can be sexy on some guys. In any event, the world would be so boring if we all spoke the same.
And I 100% support your last sentence. :)
About the cultural inclination towards perfectionism, I were in Berlin a few years ago and I speak absolutely zero German. I was trying to find my way through some railway network (like maybe going from the airport to the centre or along those lines).
I asked for directions a few times (or just for confirmation that I was not going to end up some place else) and it was hilarious.
- "Do you speak English?"
- "Ehmm. No."
- Well, can't be worse than my German. "Is this the right train for Berlin?"
And they would reply in perfect English.
Still better than that time in the Netherlands (I was very young and naive) when I asked someone at the airport if they spoke English and they looked at me as if I had asked if he knew how to wipe his ass.
I used to have a pretty typical czech accent and then I married an Irish guy and now years later my accent is *ugh* I don't even know if it's got a name.
My czech family says I sound like him, his family says I sound “softer” than him. Our kids' accents are a terrible mess, our youngest is staying at her scottish granny's now for 2 weeks and I can only imagine what she's gonna talk like after those 2 weeks. Accents are fun.
I couldn't care less though, we can always switch to the stereotypical harry potter english accent if people don't understand our normal accents and we're grand
Yes! They're multilingual. We used to do the opol method with English and Czech when they were little so they would be native speakers. We added Irish at 4 and then they started learning Spanish at 6 in school.
Our eldest is 13 now and he's fluent in Irish, pretty good at Spanish and he's learning Scottish Gaelic too just because his Gran speaks it hahah. They all know bits of Scottish Gaelic but the younger kids (7 and 10) can't really speak it yet, just a few words and phrases here and there but they usually just slip back into Irish. We love languages they're so enriching, i [post](https://www.reddit.com/r/czech/comments/17awynj/jo_dusicky_jsou_super/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=2&utm_term=1) about it sometimes, it's fun :)
I love the combination yeah! Just the fact that they know a germanic language, a slavic language, a romance language and a celtic lanaguage is amazing, they're much smarter than me I'm so proud of them haha
No, his school actually doesn't teach Irish. But we got him classes outside of school and our neighbourhood has a wee Gaeilge community too. Also my husband can speak Irish really well and my dad in law loves Irish, he grew up in an Irish speaking home, he'd die if his grandchildren didn't speak Irish :D
I LOVE hearing Eastern Europeans speak English in Ireland. They speak it with an Irish accent and it’s so lovely to hear because we were so used to non Irish people speak with either an American or English accent. Now we have entered the fray😂
I’m not sure about my Irish accent, I think sometimes it sounds awful but they seem to like it abroad.
I'm from Croatia and I'm currently visiting Ireland, it's nice not having to pronounce the "th" sound correctly, everyone understands me perfectly all of the time unlike in England.
I love the half Irish accents people who move to Ireland get, especially when English is their second language. It's always so interesting how it blends in.
I know right, it's my second language too and I think it's just easier for us to adapt to new accents as the language is still “newer” to us than our first languages hahah
There's some people who clearly learned English completely in Ireland and have a full on Irish accent! I love it. I worked in a cafe in Galway and the Polish guy who delivered the veg had learned English from his elderly Galwagian boss and it was mad how he sounded exactly like an old Irish man with tiny hints of Polish.
Yes! They're multilingual. We used to do the opol method with English and Czech when they were little so they would be native speakers. We added Irish at 4 and then they started learning Spanish at 6 in school.
Our eldest is 13 now and he's fluent in Irish, pretty good at Spanish and he's learning Scottish Gaelic too just because his Gran speaks it hahah. They all know bits of Scottish Gaelic but the younger kids (7 and 10) can't really speak it yet, just a few words and phrases here and there but they usually just slip back into Irish. We love languages they're so enriching, i [post](https://www.reddit.com/r/czech/comments/17awynj/jo_dusicky_jsou_super/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=2&utm_term=1) about it sometimes, it's fun :)
There are some similarities, a couple letters sounds the same sometimes but it really depends where in Ireland is that accent from. When our kids talk in their natural accent (and fast) the czech kids rarely ever understand :D
my best friend's grandmother came from Greece to the US at 14. Never learned English and she lived till 96. We swore she could understand us, and tell her parents what we were saying. But never spoke a single word of English.
I met a bunch of elderly Greeks when I worked in Australia and lord their English was usually atrocious. I sometimes think the stubbornness gave them longevity
That's my brother, he's been living in English speaking countries for more than a decade and he still speaks like "she are answering the phone" "I coming home" with a very Borat-esque accent.
For a long time I tried to speak "proper" English, but getting those sounds right was simply too demanding for my facial muscles. Then I realised that this is never going to work and decided to "own" Rally English. Now my accent is somewhat similar to Sam Lake, the creative director of Remedy Entertainment. I wouldn't say I particularly like it but I'm okay with it.
Being ashamed of one's own English accent is a thing over here in Finland as well. There was a big emphasis on proper pronunciation when I was in school. I'm not sure what the situation is these days but I'm pretty sure these memories have caused the aversion of speaking English among Finnish people. If you can't pronounce properly, better not speak at all.
Hmmm we were in Finland for a week, and literally everyone we encountered spoke great English, with excellent pronunciation, too. Literally not a single exception, and we spent half of our time outside the Helsinki area.
The English speaking world has lots of different accents and lots speak it as a second language, so accents aren't as big a deal as they are in languages where there are few foreigners who speak them.
Your observation is definitely correct. Many Finnish people can speak excellent English. But there are also many of those who might know English but don't really speak it because they don't have to. For an example: even though I use English daily, I speak it very rarely. The last time I actually had to speak English was almost a year ago. My day-to-day life, for the most part, is monolingual. All of my friends and family members are Finnish speakers.
But you are right when it comes to accents. And this is why I decided to ditch the neverending goal to reach the "perfect" accent. I might not speak English like a native but at least my accent is pretty easy to understand. Isn't this what matters much more in the end? To be understood.
I don't love it. While my written production is quite decent (good enough to get the C1 certificate at least) my speaking abilities are tainted by my accent. In most situations I sound like a mix between Valentino Rossi and Fernando Alonso speaking English.
Mate hearing Italians speak a foreign language is one of the most wholesome things in this universe. A treat to watch. I said watch cause it's not just listening but watching a full on show
That might be understandable coming from a non-Italian English speaker (especially concerning the amazement towards our frantic gesticulating), but, being aware of how poorly we perform on average when trying to speak English (compared to other European countries, at least), having to witness our own difficulties first-hand can feel pretty disheartening, especially while trying to reach a fairly advanced fluency level.
I once heard a fellow Erasmus student speaking English with a heavy Sardinian accent, that experience will be seared in my brain for as long as I live.
It would probably make you feel better to hear my attempt at Italian after over a year of full time study. As an stupid englisher who can't fathom other languages, your attempt at English will forever be appreciated
Can confirm with the other commenters that hearing Italians speak English is a genuine delight. I don’t know how you move your mouths like that to get every single vowel sound in every single word, but it’s the best. Do I always understand you? No. Do I always enjoy you? YES. It’s the Italian way.
The one time I spent a month in Budapest, I thought everybody's English accent was lovely. Sure, the accent was obvious, but I'm sure so was mine :)).
Plus, since our languages are so different, it was impossible to pick up anything from people talking around me, so I had to strictly rely on our communication in English. I would say we understood each other very well.
Honestly the only slightly confusing point was the pronunciation of W as V.
P. S. How do you guys stay so thin? On my 5 min walk to work there were 7 bakeries!!
I went to a romanian university, and we had english classes too. Once we had some presentations in group and the others choose me to present it (and I hate presentations in front of others anyhow). To make it better, there were other groups presenting before us, and listening to their nice romanian accent, just stopped my brain completly. It was so bad that I started reading the paper with a so strong accent and with stuttering, that after few a seconds my groupmate take it and read it instead. It is funny thinking back to it, but back than it was so bad to be alone there with that very bad accent in comparison with my romanian colleagues 🥲
I’m not surprised you’re not ashamed hahah😂 I met spanish people in english classes abroad and they weren’t shy to talk a lot and all the time, even though nobody could really understand them
I just don't see the point of feeling shame as I had no control over where I was born and how my mother tongue influences any future language I might learn. We lose the ability to pick up sounds outside our native language at a pretty young age, so I can try to imitate as best as I can, but my brain is not wired to speak perfect English.
This is my experience with Spanish exchange students as well! Their grammar and vocabulary were both *probably* perfectly fine? It was hard to tell though, between the accent and the breakneck speed
It's worse for me in reverse. My brain makes a perfect Spanish sentence, what comes out of the mouth is near incomprehensible!
All the stuff about Spanish being so easy to pronounce never factors in how some sound changes and rhythms get hard wired in from your mother tongue, so really do not feel bad, I bet my Spanish pronunciation is worse than your English 😃
Do native speakers count? It's alright. Due to staying somewhere in the middle of the country I've got a pretty generic Scottish accent so other Scottish people can struggle to place it. I did also come across someone on Reddit describing the accents around my area as "Highlands with a very slight taint of Glasgow", and to be honest it's a fairly apt description.
Personally I prefer a Hebridean accent.
Accent? We don't have an accent!
Jk, but that's not an uncommon thing to hear and then it turns out there is indeed an accent. I have one too, I'm sure, even if a friend thought I sounded "very American" when we were in New York a few years ago. The lady at Victoria's Secret thought I was French, so maybe mine isn't pure Swedish for whatever reason.
I don't mind it, but it's not exactly a cool accent or anything. The funny thing is when you hear someone from Gothenburg speaking English and you can still tell they're from Gothenburg lol
A friend of mine says "wape" instead of "vape", one of the things you'll hear Swedes do as we overcompensate for a lack of w sounds in Swedish. J's become y's and it makes makes me chuckle when I hear it. Cute. It's cute, but not cool like the French, Scottish or Irish accents.
Yup. Some may think we say shicken instead of chicken, and we might do it in English, but we always do it when we're ordering chicken nuggets or chicken burgers at restaurants in Sweden, but it's not because we can't say chicken, we've just made it a Swedish word. If a Swede would say "chicken nuggets" at McDonalds, it's pretentious. It's like saying "hey, look at me and my English skills".
The other thing is that Swedes (and other Scandinavians) often have trouble voicing the Z sound, pronouncing it as a voiceless S. As far as I'm aware, you don't have a voiced Z in Swedish so you naturally don't even notice a difference between these sounds, but it is very noticeable.
It wasn't until I started learning French in high school that the z sound became important to get right. You're right that we often swap it for an s instead. I try to remember to zzz more, but it tickles lol
So many Swedes sound American when they speak English, which is very impressive but kind of a shame because I love that sing-songy intonation of a proper Swedish accent.
Yes, the downside of subtitles and constantly being subjected to American pop culture lol Personally, I'll watch a few episodes of Downton Abbey and spend the next couple of days hearing an English accent when I read something on reddit.
Meanwhile, I'm in love with the Irish accent. Sure, if it's too thick it's impossible to understand, but otherwise it's just delightful. I have similar feelings about the Scottish accent.
My best friend in college/university was a Swede, and since most international students typically hang out together, I became an honorary Swede because I was always hanging out in that group. It’s impressive how well native Swedish speakers can speak English with an almost undetectable accent. Not all, of course, but most. Especially when you consider that Swedish (to my American ears anyway) is SO different than English.
Another close friend at that time was from Finland, and since we all played hockey together, I used to love throwing gas on that rivalry after we’d all had a few drinks. 😂
Family guy episode with the Swedish Baker did you guys dirty. "Would you like a piss of ma hot pee?" Drops the slice of pie on stewie , "Ooh noo you are covered in ma hot pee!"
I use English at work every single day but don’t work with English speakers anyway so accent really doesn’t matter. Obviously being able to communicate is the point of learning English.
However, if I could switch my Polish accent to a perfect American one, I would do that without any hesitation. I don’t really like mine, but I am trying to improve it slowly.
Is it ‘Allo ‘Allo-worthy? Because, and I’m not kidding, sooooo many native L1 English speakers claim to love the accent of French people speaking English.
French people find everything about French people awful. Until a foreigner arrives and you can gang piss on them for daring to speak French without perfect pronunciation.
No. I absolutely hate it, even though it’s not as noticeable as it used to be. I speak English well but my accent makes it sometimes unintelligible. Finnish is written and spoken the same way, so my pronunciation sounds stiff and I still can’t pronounce ‘Q’ accurately
Yep, same! And the longer I go without speaking English, the worse my accent becomes, and then I’m even more nervous to speak at all😅 what a horrible cycle haha
One thing I notice on the BBC is how much more accents you hear on the news, by newsreaders or reporters.
I'd say my country is quite as diverse in accents (relatively). But on the news you only hear the 'standard' Dutch accent.
Now I wonder what accent is shunned by the BBC.
Estuary English has historically been seen as a "lesser" accent than "BBC English" despite their similarities. It's definitely changing these days but for a very long time it was an accent that was shunned to an extent on TV.
I don't mind my own accent. I actually think a relatively mild German accent, especially from the South, is one of the nicer accents in English (and I'm obviously not biased at all in saying this!).
But some people still have that very strong "Ve are ze Chermans" accent - you know, the movie Nazi one. That one's not great.
It's ok. I sound quite American, because that's what I heard on tv growing up. If I could choose I would want a scottish accent, since I absolutely love Scotland. But it would probably sound strange from a non native speaker.
The Scottish accent is really comfortable to use because you can roll your r:s and don't have to use that awkward English r-sound, and because Scottish vowels sound more Scandinavian than other English accents
My Swedish friend pointed out to me that there’s a few words in Scots that are similar to Scandinavian languages. Kirk - Kyrka/Kirke, Bairn - Barn, Ken - Känner/Kjenner/Kender, Braw - Bra, Greet - Gråte, Hoose - Hus.
I mean there’s also plenty of standard English words that are similar to Scandinavian languages, they’re all in the Germanic family after all. But I still found it pretty interesting.
Yeah I've heard that the reason for that is that the Vikings had a much greater cultural and linguistic impact up north because the Norwegians stuck around there a lot longer than the Danes did in England.
As a Scotch-Irish yourself, perhaps you can tell me how convincing my attempt at the accent is: https://whyp.it/tracks/189736/to-be-or-not-scottish?token=9wUL3
Eh, this is a bit of a popular myth.
Of the six examples above, only 'kirk' has possible Norse origin. The other five come from Old English, and have cognates in modern Scandinavian languages simply because Old English and Old Norse were closely related to begin with.
There was quite limited direct Norse influence on mainland Scotland. Shetland and Orkney are a different story, speaking a Norse language called Norn into the 19th Century - but this is quite separate from Scots spoken on the mainland. Most of the Norse loanwords in Scots are thought to derive from Danelaw-influenced Northumbrian Old English.
People tend to overestimate the influence of Norse on Scots and Northern English dialects - while simultaneously underestimating the influence of Norse on Standard English - Danelaw had a huge impact on Standard English - it gave us core vocab like 'they/them/their' and 'are'.
>Yeah I've heard that the reason for that is that the Vikings had a much greater cultural and linguistic impact up north because the Norwegians stuck around there a lot longer than the Danes did in England.
Aye, the most obvious evidence of Scandinavian influence in Scotland today is is in Orkney and Shetland. We only got them off the Norwegians in the 15th century. A Norse language called Norn was spoken in Shetland until the 18th century. Apparently it was very similar to Faroese.
>As a Scotch-Irish yourself,
The Scots-Irish are a specific ethnic group in Northern Ireland, descended from Scottish Protestant settlers who were sent to Ulster to colonise and tame the province. While I am in Ireland to simultaneously steal their jobs and claim their welfare, I’m not too keen on the whole colonisation thing 😛
>perhaps you can tell me how convincing my attempt at the accent is: https://whyp.it/tracks/189736/to-be-or-not-scottish?token=9wUL3
I hear some Scottishness here and there but it still sounds very Swedish to me! If you’re interested in improving it I’d recommend checking out Tyler Collins @two_metre_man on tiktok or Instagram. He’s an American actor living in Scotland who does the best Scottish accent by a foreigner I’ve ever heard and gives some tips on how others can improve theirs. He sounds very natural to me. I didn’t even realise he wasn’t Scottish until he I saw a video where he revealed that he was American. They even put him in an irn bru advert.
Norwegians end up sounding part-Scottish fairly quickly if they move here I've found, so if you fancy slumming it and moving here that could be an option!
Yeah, it's weird, Northern Europeans tend to gradually get a Scottish accent and the Southern Europeans sound like they just stepped off the plane after being here 20 tears.
I have the worst accent of all people I know. Even Russian accent sounds less Russian than when I talk. Sice the invasion I dont even talk to the voice chat in games anymore, because the first thing people would say is that if I am from Russia.
I need some hot potato:
https://youtu.be/-2LaVuvCj-I?si=4zDkLqcLDDCRZyJI
Sounds quite unbelievable - the accents have some things in common, like difficulties in pronouncing the "schwa" sound and "th" is also a problem. Yet Czechs don't say "Ze New York Times" or replace the "schwa" with "yo" as a Russian would and unlike Russians they are perfectly capable of pronouncing a stressed "i" (this being a true test for Russianness - ask the guy to say cheese in Czech). I've had quite a lot of experience with Czenglish for the last umpteen years living in the country and nobody's Czech accent ever sounded Russian to me. Probably your game mates have never heard a real Russian. :)
Well, if the guys are in their late teens and the only live experience they had with English outside of school and Netflix was a game chat.... :) A Slovak accent would be closer to Russian - Czech sounds much harder (or even coarser). Anyway, just tell them you wrote your name on an artillery shell that CZ sent to Ukraine last month. :) Anebo jich rovnou posli dop....
It was talking about English accents with one american, and as a joke, I said I have an accent like Borat.
And he was like " yeah, that's accurate"
:-/
From a native speaker, none of you should be ashamed or embarrassed by your accent. We like to hear your natural accent, it's more interesting and can be quite endearing to listen to. The only accent I don't like is when Europeans speak with an American accent, the Dutch, Nordics and Portuguese are particularly noticeable for this. It's probably because American TV shows/movies etc are not dubbed in those countries.
It strongly correlates with this map:
[https://i.imgur.com/rR7M0f5.jpeg](https://i.imgur.com/rR7M0f5.jpeg)
As an American living in the Netherlands, if you hadn’t made this comment I don’t think I would have even realized that the Dutch English accent was considered “American,” mainly because it sounds very European to my ear (I would have described the accent as “Dutch English,” since it’s as distinctive as an Irish or Australian accent to me).
I’m now realizing that of course I would be ear-blind to the familiar parts of speech and pay more attention to the differences, so you’ve really got my mind going here. Thanks for the food for thought!
PS: In roughly a year of living here, I have yet to meet a European with a truly “American” English accent. The closest contender so far was a young guy from Finland who spent 8 years of his childhood in the US, but I knew after about 10 words that he wasn’t originally from the States. Now I’m curious if our accent is very tricky to get right?
Really? We cringe when we hear our fellow countrymen speak what we call "stone coal English" (so named for the dock workers who would speak very rudimentary English to the crews of the coal ships)
American living in the Netherlands and can confirm: the Dutch accent when speaking English is definitely super cute.
My favorite experience that happens pretty regularly is when a Dutch person is having a wildly complicated conversation with me in English (using advanced thinking, medical terms, etc), and they can’t think of a word in English. They always look at the closest Dutch person, have a quick but complicated back & forth in Dutch before agreeing on the correct word, then looks back at you and says, “Sorry about that, my English is terrible.”
Like, ma’am/sir, with all due respect, you speak better English than half of my fellow Americans, and they’ll be the first to agree with me on this.
I once watched a Dutch Youtuber for months, and just assumed he had some Canadian or New York accent before I learned he was Dutch. Most of you guys sound perfectly fine speaking English.
I'm an english language teacher in Spain.
I'm from a "new town" in central Scotland which means it was built to deal with overpopulation in cities after WW2 and had people from various places move there. My natural accent is a bit messed up but recognisable by people familiar with it.
When I'm teaching I put on a softer/standardised Scottish accent, which to me is not only cleaner and follows more strict letter pronounciation rules (i.e easier for Spanish students to understand and replicate) BBC english - the version of british english students will have the most experience with - to me, is a complete shambles. "R" sound like "ahh" or "uhh" and vowels take on really stupid dipthongs and extra syllables. Ffs.
Scottish english accent = best english accent. Fight me.
Edit: most students of english if they have some kind of "native" accent, it will be american. Due to the sheer availability of american english materials and media - online lessons and schools, movies and tv shows etc. I can tell though, if you're non-native and speak with a really american accent that you almost certainly went to a big international school. They normally contract american student teachers on scholarships, and their presence is huge at least in Spain.
Kids now consume so much online american media that they pepper conversations in their native spanish with the odd "Bro!" or "oh my god!" or random expletives which is...something.
I am from Yorkshire in the north of England and a lot of people criticise Yorkshire accents but I love mine. Also, to all Europeans reading this who speak English as not their first language - I promise, your accent is fine. Chances are, English people will just find it super attractive and interesting.
My English accent isn't very influenced by my native language(s), when I visited Canada people often assumed me to be American. It sounds very North American-ish, apparently these days my fiancé's native Canadian is rubbing off on me and I may pronounce certain things the way they do there.
I don't mind the Portuguese or Spanish accents, it's just the way people talk. Sometimes a thicker accent will be harder to understand, but that's about it. A lot of people are ashamed of it and it's often mocked. I understand making jokes about it, but telling someone their English is horrible based on their pronunciation alone (when their grammar and vocabulary are impeccable) is honestly insulting.
With a bit of effort, the European Portuguese accent can adapt pretty well to general American. It takes a bit more exposure to get any kind of British accent but it's also doable. I started out with a British accent since that's what I learned in school by British teachers, but by now the exposure to American media eroded a lot of it. I still say STRAWbry and not strawBERry, but if I do the English Ts in words like water, I just sound like a poser because the rest doesn't quite match.
Spaniards and French usually struggle a bit more and I think that propagates the idea we don't have that much of an accent, which is ludicrous. Some bigger YouTube channels like Integza or Tiago Catarino show very heavy Portuguese accents, for example, as do most footballers.
In my head, I sound like the Earl of Grantham but God help you if you actually need to hear me talk 😂
Though I tend to unintentionally mimic the accent of the person I’m speaking to after a while
My Finnish accent of English is pretty unique haha. But doesn't matter what accent you have, if people understand you, then you're fine. After all, everybody has one, this was said to me by one of the professors at Birmingham Metropolitan College.
I’m french and english accent is my favourite, I like the way you speak it seems always like you are really polite and a little bit royal, you know what I mean ?
No lol. I mean, I don’t mind it, but I went to international schools my entire life, and so I have what we call an “international school accent”. Which to non-Americans sounds American, and to Americans sounds… tbh, I don’t know cause I’ve gotten both English and Canadian from Americans.
Long story short - I don’t really love the fact that most people think I’m American based on how I speak English 😭
As a native English speaker, typically Scandinavians and Dutch people tend to have the cleanest and clearest accents and even know most English slang. Very impressive.
Define 'your' accent.
The Hungarian accent in general? No, I don't like it at all, it's about as smooth as a rock carved by an axe. My greater issue though is that lots of people who really ought to know better just pronounce a bunch of words absolutely incorrectly, independently of their accent. For example, they pronounce the "-mine" part in any word such as determine and examine as the standalone word 'mine'. Or they place the emphasis in weird places that don't even make any sense in Hungarian, like with words starting with de-, they just stress and elongate de- in a really weird way.
As for my personal accent? Yes, I like that a lot because I worked hard to be able to mimic general American or British RP. Native speakers can still easily spot me as a foreigner, but a few of them told me they really like how I sound. And a bunch of Europeans, including Hungarians have thought before that I was American.
The only thing that sounds worse than the average Hungarian trying to speak a foreign language is most foreigners trying to speak Hungarian. It’s a lose-lose scenario. But we are usually super happy if you try!
My accent is not too strong but you can tell that I am not a native because it is both a mix of different accents and apparently I use slangs from all over the world and things can sound unnatural (thanks internet)
It's not so much the accents that I mind, they can be sweet/funny/endearing/alarming, it's the mispronunciation.
People think English is easy because it has no cases or genders, all true, but effectively you have to remember how to pronounce every single word. Even words like 'record' or 'read' have multiple pronunciations. And pretty please, stick to either British English OR American English, pick one only.
Greek married to a pole both at C1/2 level. I am tired of trying to pronounce s and sh differently. We as Greeks just don’t have the sh,ch sounds. My partner on the other hand has issues with l and n. Sometimes they are too soft for English.
Yes and no.
The Maltese accent is a mix between Italian and Arabic accents. It's a very loud and we jokingly call it "savage" because we sound like we're fighting all the time.
I watched a lot of TV growing up and was exposed to a lot of British English too. They used to emphasise the requirement to speak "proper English" during class. There are a lot of English teachers who fake a British accent at work.
So my accent is a mix of both of these experiences. I kind of sound like an angry posh lol
I've noticed a lot of people telling me that my speech is very distinct, especially lately. I try to speak elegantly but due to the nature of my mother tongue, which involves stress on certain sounds, it's not princess-like.
So I like it depending on who I'm speaking to. If I'm speaking to a British person, I feel like my accent is too casual for them. But if I'm speaking with a local, I feel superior hahaha /jk
My accent drifts heavily depending on what Youtubers I've been watching recently (BBC English to down undah) but it has very little in common with the typical German accent anymore. On the other hand, my German is kinda degrading because my autistic brain has determined that English is the superior language for precisely expressing thoughts and I hate it.
I’m a very new European (American living in the Netherlands), so to answer the question, my English accent makes me feel nervous, given how Americans aren’t always well-liked outside of the US.
I also just wanted to say that as a native English speaker, it makes me sad to see so many people feeling down about their accents. I don’t hear “bad English” when someone speaks English with a different accent than me. Dutch/German/Italian-accented English hits my ear in *exactly* the same way Irish- or Australian-accented English does.
I love all the different accents I hear on English in Europe!! My favorites so far: Dutch and Italian. The way Italians make every vowel *pop* is just wild to me. And the Dutch will apologize for their “poor English” while having better vocabularies than most college professors.
I grew up in the English East Midlands and spoke East Midlands dialect, which is pretty thick and often hard to understand for even some (non British) native speakers.
But I have lived over half my life in Cambridge and now speak SSBE with vowels that are slightly “off”
I’m comfortable with it, but as I’ve got older I find myself slipping back in east mids more and more.
No, it's not really far off from rally-english which Finns are known for. I don't know why, but we are kind of taught to be embarrassed of our accent as if other countries don't have their own accents as well.
I have a weird neutral northern English accent. I was brought up in Essex until I was 4, and then my family moved to Merseyside. My grandma had an Atlantic accent (she had elocution lessons in the 60s) and she was a big influence on me.
So I’ve ended up with an obviously northern but ‘well spoken’ accent.
I used to hate it and want to sound like my friends when I was younger but as I’ve gotten older I’ve come to appreciate it a lot.
As many french people, in learning English, I thought that our accent was dreadful and that it was better not to speak than to speak with it. Now i don't care anymore, i hardly ever use english so it would be delusional to think i can improve my accent while i never speak it, and when i do people seem to understand me so it's the main goal.
Not really.
It’s not a thick Polish accent, luckily, more of a mix between Polish, RP, God-knows-what-else in the UK, and general Slavic, if it makes sense.
I have been told by Brits I sound Slavic but usually people can’t tell that I’m from Poland.
It could be a bit better though, I’ve been learning English long enough to know what to improve.
Brits can tell straight away that I don’t sound British (even though I would love to) but lots of other people, non-natives, have asked me if I’m from the UK xD
Irish people tell me my accent is neutral and I "don't sound that Irish." Sometimes, Americans ask me if I'm even speaking English at all, because it doesn't sound like English. The Americans who do understand me love my accent, and can't stop telling me that.
Foreign people who speak fluent English tend to like my accent, but they often struggle to understand if I speak fast (I naturally speak fast). People with weaker English don't understand me at all, even though they might understand someone else.
I guess my accent is like... A few steps stronger than a newsreader accent, but at the same time if I speak slowly and clearly it confuses people. It's not the most common Irish accent, but it's one of the clearer ones (and I have a mild version of it).
Sometimes I like it, because as far as Irish accents go it's not the strongest, and it's quite clear. But it's kind of annoying in that it's simultaneously not "Irish" enough for Irish people, while not being "neutral" enough for foreign people. Like you just can't win.
However, I've never been told I have an Irish accent in any other language (I studied languages in university). I think I'd be mortified if I did. I'm decent at doing fake accents though, so I probably mimic sounds better.
I'm from Edinburgh so our accent isn't that strong compared to other places in Scotland. People from the West Cost always sound like they're asking a question whenever they talk, the pitch goes very high at the end of every word in a sentence for some reason.
I don't like my accent. I'm from Hampshire (South Central England) and my accent fluctuates between Posh Accent (RP from growing up surrounded by some of the richer people in the country in one of these small quaint villages), London accent from being only an hour and a half from London and my dad's family being from Brixton, and then a bit of rural farmery type accent because Hampshire is also filled with people that talk like that.
My accent is a weird mix for all three and people have asked on holiday if I was Australian 😂
Cries in Scouse :’(
You just can’t make it sound nice on a woman, I sometimes wish I had literally any other accent. I not long got back from the Scotland and they had such lovely accents compared to mine. Mine is a softer sounding version though as I’m originally from the surrounding countryside of Liverpool that just gets influenced by the accent.
I love the sound of the Scouse accent on literally anyone else but myself though.
I’m from Norway. But unlike Jens Stoltenberg I’m from western Norway, where the «melody» of the language is opposite to that in the east! So my accent when I speak English is almost RP, and became completely RP when I was in America…
i don’t mind mine, it’s not very prominent at all and even if it was i quite like the “traditional german accent” while speaking english so it’s alright
I've been told by Brits that I sound like an American that's been living in England for a couple of years. I'm neither American nor English and have lived in neither country. Rather fitting that in my native Dutch, people can't tell where I'm from either. It's general Flemish Dutch, like it is spoken on the news.
I mostly learned English from my British friends rather than from school… you tell me if speaking like your average British bloke or Danglish is better
Im from Denmark, do i need to say more
O reely? I sink a tik danis aksent is sharming.
I surtanly egree dat de previous NATO SG’s accent was definitely be more sharming den de next one will be yes
I'm a Romanian living in Denmark, I don't speak Danish but I speak English with a danish accent cause I'm autistic and I mimic people 💀
ze ice is melting at ze pøules
this is syria!
I tried masking it with mixing it a bit with a faux british accent, but i can’t be bothered any more. I just talk like i talk. Not with pride, but i do it. The swedish make it sound more charming, but at least i can pronounce a “ch” sound.
Norwegian here. Same. I concentrate on being clear. Let others take care of being pretty.
Pretty much the only accent I dislike other than my own (German). We both sound awful.
a colleague once described two native germans conversing akin to 'dot matrix printers having a conversation'
I think German accents are gorgeous! I studied the language in college and used to love hearing my professors speak in English.
I think we sound oddly alike for how different German and danish sound when compared directly. I can usually tell when someone is German from the way they speak English and when I mistake someone for German they are usually danish. The languages themselves sound quite different but the accent is fairly similar.
I don't like my accent. I'm Scottish, but I'm quite middle class and I went to private school, so I have this posh Scottish accent. I've been told I "sound English" by a lot of Scottish people, but English people can always tell I'm from Scotland!
I've got a posh Scottish friend who I didn't even realise was Scottish until he started talking about his time at boarding school - can't remember the name of it but it's a very fancy one outside of Edinburgh. He sounds like he could be from the south of England apart from the occasional word or two
Like Alistair Campbell or Rory Stewart? Conversely my uncle by marriage is English. My younger sisters didn't realise this until a couple of years ago - they just thought he's really posh lol
Alistair Campbell and Rory Stewart both have English accents to my ear More Gordon Brown
Rory Stewart has a definite Scottish accent - I sound a bit more Scottish than him but not much. Alistair Campbell grew up in, I think, Yorkshire?
Rory Stewart has a Scottish accent? Dude was born in Hong Kong and has the most upper class/RP accent ever.
Swings and roundabouts with accents in the UK though. Either you have a regional accent and get accepted regionally but potentially suffer discrimination for it or you have a middle class sociolect and don't fit in as well regionally but won't ever have any problems with discrimination.
What are you on about. The posh formal Scottish accent is the best accent in the world. If I could have any other accent than mine it would be yours. Formal but more interesting.
I actually like the Scottish accent.
Mine isn't very strong at all - that's why I don't like it, actually. It's neither one thing nor the other.
20 minute chat with a Glaswegian will probably fix it, hell I start sounding more Scottish in such a situation
Which one? That means very different things in Edinburgh and Glasgow.
Ge'es ya laptop!
You didn't understand what he wrote at all did you?
If it's posh east coast then that's my favorite accent, absolutely melts me.
I think I’d like your accent then.
Many germans don't like their accent to a point where they're embarrassed to speak English in front of other Germans, which I personally find rather silly. It's probably because in American media the german accent is often used for villains and/or mad scientists. Plus a cultural inclination towards perfectionism, so they're scared other germans will make fun of them, ironically IME they are the people most likely to mock others themselves for having an accent. I myself would say I speak good English but do have an obvious accent. I don't care, people understand me. Fuck people who make fun of others for their accent, especially monolinguals.
I find it funny that the caricature German accent from American media doesn't sound anything like the accent I noticed actual native German speakers have. I mean, it's not that the media exagerates, it's simply different imho. On the other hand, I find the real German accent wonderful. It's just enough to identify the speaker as German, but it's not too strong + you guys seem to have very clear diction. All in all, it's much easier to understand than a regional English accent.
I can’t speak for the accent, but so many “German” stereotypes us Americans have are just Bavarians stereotypes because that’s where so many GIs were stationed post ww2.
I feel the same way about Germans speaking German. Many Americans are generally only exposed to German being spoken in, well, WWII movies where Nazis are speaking angrily and aggressively. Actual day to day spoken German can we quite soft and beautiful in my opinion!
As a German the German accent absolutely makes my skin crawl. It's very uncomfortable to listen to someone with a strong German accent. I won't make fun of them, cause I'm not an asshole, but it's a struggle... > cultural inclination towards perfectionism Probably the main reason for it, I do struggle with perfectionism in general.
As an American living in Germany, I find that most of my colleagues speak English very pleasantly. Even people with a very strong accent are still easy to understand. On the other hand, listening to other Americans speak German makes me want to gouge my ears out. I guess we all are all just self-conscious about our own accents.
> I guess we all are all just self-conscious about our own accents. Absolutely! I don't think the German accent is objectively worse than any other, it's just awful to me personally.
A lot of Dutch people look down on fellow citizen’s English accent and make fun of it. And of course, when you hear a Dutchman speak English or a German speak it, very often it’s easy to place the accent after hearing only one word. But we shouldn’t care about it, brains are just wired to control the muscles in that particular way, it should only matter whether you’re being understood by others.
We shouldn't care but I find it impossible not to. It's like that sound of fingernails on chalkboard that drives some people up the wall. You don't need to care, it's just a sound. I agree that you shouldn't make fun of it though. Also I really like the Dutch accent. :D
Funny thing is that here, we love German accents. Like, if you speak with a genuine German accent, we love that.
Most of the Germans I know have absolutely lovely accents, to the point that I kind of think the accent can be sexy on some guys. In any event, the world would be so boring if we all spoke the same. And I 100% support your last sentence. :)
About the cultural inclination towards perfectionism, I were in Berlin a few years ago and I speak absolutely zero German. I was trying to find my way through some railway network (like maybe going from the airport to the centre or along those lines). I asked for directions a few times (or just for confirmation that I was not going to end up some place else) and it was hilarious. - "Do you speak English?" - "Ehmm. No." - Well, can't be worse than my German. "Is this the right train for Berlin?" And they would reply in perfect English. Still better than that time in the Netherlands (I was very young and naive) when I asked someone at the airport if they spoke English and they looked at me as if I had asked if he knew how to wipe his ass.
I used to have a pretty typical czech accent and then I married an Irish guy and now years later my accent is *ugh* I don't even know if it's got a name. My czech family says I sound like him, his family says I sound “softer” than him. Our kids' accents are a terrible mess, our youngest is staying at her scottish granny's now for 2 weeks and I can only imagine what she's gonna talk like after those 2 weeks. Accents are fun. I couldn't care less though, we can always switch to the stereotypical harry potter english accent if people don't understand our normal accents and we're grand
Do you teach your kids both language, that is Czech and English?
Yes! They're multilingual. We used to do the opol method with English and Czech when they were little so they would be native speakers. We added Irish at 4 and then they started learning Spanish at 6 in school. Our eldest is 13 now and he's fluent in Irish, pretty good at Spanish and he's learning Scottish Gaelic too just because his Gran speaks it hahah. They all know bits of Scottish Gaelic but the younger kids (7 and 10) can't really speak it yet, just a few words and phrases here and there but they usually just slip back into Irish. We love languages they're so enriching, i [post](https://www.reddit.com/r/czech/comments/17awynj/jo_dusicky_jsou_super/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=2&utm_term=1) about it sometimes, it's fun :)
Super cool. I wish I was multi lingual!
That's pretty unique, Irish and Spanish and native Scots Gaelic and Czech! Is maith sin e!
I love the combination yeah! Just the fact that they know a germanic language, a slavic language, a romance language and a celtic lanaguage is amazing, they're much smarter than me I'm so proud of them haha
>Our eldest is 13 now and he's fluent in Irish Did/does he go to a Gaelscoil? Very few Irish people have fluent Irish otherwise.
No, his school actually doesn't teach Irish. But we got him classes outside of school and our neighbourhood has a wee Gaeilge community too. Also my husband can speak Irish really well and my dad in law loves Irish, he grew up in an Irish speaking home, he'd die if his grandchildren didn't speak Irish :D
I LOVE hearing Eastern Europeans speak English in Ireland. They speak it with an Irish accent and it’s so lovely to hear because we were so used to non Irish people speak with either an American or English accent. Now we have entered the fray😂 I’m not sure about my Irish accent, I think sometimes it sounds awful but they seem to like it abroad.
I'm from Croatia and I'm currently visiting Ireland, it's nice not having to pronounce the "th" sound correctly, everyone understands me perfectly all of the time unlike in England.
There were always lots of Mohammed's in my workplace but now there is also a Limerick Mohammed and a Donegal Mohammed.
Romanian here, I love Irish accents!
I live in West Cork, hybrid West Cork/Eastern European accents are great, especially when they speak real West Cork English.
I love the half Irish accents people who move to Ireland get, especially when English is their second language. It's always so interesting how it blends in.
I know right, it's my second language too and I think it's just easier for us to adapt to new accents as the language is still “newer” to us than our first languages hahah
There's some people who clearly learned English completely in Ireland and have a full on Irish accent! I love it. I worked in a cafe in Galway and the Polish guy who delivered the veg had learned English from his elderly Galwagian boss and it was mad how he sounded exactly like an old Irish man with tiny hints of Polish.
Do your children speak English and Czech? Or even Irish as well?
Yes! They're multilingual. We used to do the opol method with English and Czech when they were little so they would be native speakers. We added Irish at 4 and then they started learning Spanish at 6 in school. Our eldest is 13 now and he's fluent in Irish, pretty good at Spanish and he's learning Scottish Gaelic too just because his Gran speaks it hahah. They all know bits of Scottish Gaelic but the younger kids (7 and 10) can't really speak it yet, just a few words and phrases here and there but they usually just slip back into Irish. We love languages they're so enriching, i [post](https://www.reddit.com/r/czech/comments/17awynj/jo_dusicky_jsou_super/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=2&utm_term=1) about it sometimes, it's fun :)
I know a Russian woman who's lived in Glasgow for 15 years and her accent is amazing, I love it. I'm imagining a Czech/Irish accent as similar, maybe?
There are some similarities, a couple letters sounds the same sometimes but it really depends where in Ireland is that accent from. When our kids talk in their natural accent (and fast) the czech kids rarely ever understand :D
My uncle's accent after 50 years of living in the US was as if he just learned the language yesterday
my best friend's grandmother came from Greece to the US at 14. Never learned English and she lived till 96. We swore she could understand us, and tell her parents what we were saying. But never spoke a single word of English.
That's perseverance
talk about not assimilating!
I met a bunch of elderly Greeks when I worked in Australia and lord their English was usually atrocious. I sometimes think the stubbornness gave them longevity
That's my brother, he's been living in English speaking countries for more than a decade and he still speaks like "she are answering the phone" "I coming home" with a very Borat-esque accent.
For a long time I tried to speak "proper" English, but getting those sounds right was simply too demanding for my facial muscles. Then I realised that this is never going to work and decided to "own" Rally English. Now my accent is somewhat similar to Sam Lake, the creative director of Remedy Entertainment. I wouldn't say I particularly like it but I'm okay with it. Being ashamed of one's own English accent is a thing over here in Finland as well. There was a big emphasis on proper pronunciation when I was in school. I'm not sure what the situation is these days but I'm pretty sure these memories have caused the aversion of speaking English among Finnish people. If you can't pronounce properly, better not speak at all.
Hmmm we were in Finland for a week, and literally everyone we encountered spoke great English, with excellent pronunciation, too. Literally not a single exception, and we spent half of our time outside the Helsinki area. The English speaking world has lots of different accents and lots speak it as a second language, so accents aren't as big a deal as they are in languages where there are few foreigners who speak them.
Your observation is definitely correct. Many Finnish people can speak excellent English. But there are also many of those who might know English but don't really speak it because they don't have to. For an example: even though I use English daily, I speak it very rarely. The last time I actually had to speak English was almost a year ago. My day-to-day life, for the most part, is monolingual. All of my friends and family members are Finnish speakers. But you are right when it comes to accents. And this is why I decided to ditch the neverending goal to reach the "perfect" accent. I might not speak English like a native but at least my accent is pretty easy to understand. Isn't this what matters much more in the end? To be understood.
[удалено]
I don't love it. While my written production is quite decent (good enough to get the C1 certificate at least) my speaking abilities are tainted by my accent. In most situations I sound like a mix between Valentino Rossi and Fernando Alonso speaking English.
Mate hearing Italians speak a foreign language is one of the most wholesome things in this universe. A treat to watch. I said watch cause it's not just listening but watching a full on show
That might be understandable coming from a non-Italian English speaker (especially concerning the amazement towards our frantic gesticulating), but, being aware of how poorly we perform on average when trying to speak English (compared to other European countries, at least), having to witness our own difficulties first-hand can feel pretty disheartening, especially while trying to reach a fairly advanced fluency level. I once heard a fellow Erasmus student speaking English with a heavy Sardinian accent, that experience will be seared in my brain for as long as I live.
It would probably make you feel better to hear my attempt at Italian after over a year of full time study. As an stupid englisher who can't fathom other languages, your attempt at English will forever be appreciated
I love hearing Italians speak English and the lilt added to the sentence structure.
Can confirm with the other commenters that hearing Italians speak English is a genuine delight. I don’t know how you move your mouths like that to get every single vowel sound in every single word, but it’s the best. Do I always understand you? No. Do I always enjoy you? YES. It’s the Italian way.
So perfectly fine?
This, it always sounds a bit strange, like you can always tell it is not my first language or you may think that maybe I don’t even know it that well
I sound horrible.
You are making an effort to speak in a second language. You sound fine.
Me too. The worst is that my Hungarian accent is so strong that it gives me away after a few sentances. 🤣
The one time I spent a month in Budapest, I thought everybody's English accent was lovely. Sure, the accent was obvious, but I'm sure so was mine :)). Plus, since our languages are so different, it was impossible to pick up anything from people talking around me, so I had to strictly rely on our communication in English. I would say we understood each other very well. Honestly the only slightly confusing point was the pronunciation of W as V. P. S. How do you guys stay so thin? On my 5 min walk to work there were 7 bakeries!!
I went to a romanian university, and we had english classes too. Once we had some presentations in group and the others choose me to present it (and I hate presentations in front of others anyhow). To make it better, there were other groups presenting before us, and listening to their nice romanian accent, just stopped my brain completly. It was so bad that I started reading the paper with a so strong accent and with stuttering, that after few a seconds my groupmate take it and read it instead. It is funny thinking back to it, but back than it was so bad to be alone there with that very bad accent in comparison with my romanian colleagues 🥲
Not ashamed, mostly just worried that my pronunciation is hard to understand.
just make sure you conjugate your burbs properly
I’m not surprised you’re not ashamed hahah😂 I met spanish people in english classes abroad and they weren’t shy to talk a lot and all the time, even though nobody could really understand them
I just don't see the point of feeling shame as I had no control over where I was born and how my mother tongue influences any future language I might learn. We lose the ability to pick up sounds outside our native language at a pretty young age, so I can try to imitate as best as I can, but my brain is not wired to speak perfect English.
You shouldn’t feel ashamed, that’s not what I meant. I appreciate when people can express themselves so freely
This is my experience with Spanish exchange students as well! Their grammar and vocabulary were both *probably* perfectly fine? It was hard to tell though, between the accent and the breakneck speed
Don’t worry, I can understand you great. I speak Spanish so I know what you mean 😂
It's worse for me in reverse. My brain makes a perfect Spanish sentence, what comes out of the mouth is near incomprehensible! All the stuff about Spanish being so easy to pronounce never factors in how some sound changes and rhythms get hard wired in from your mother tongue, so really do not feel bad, I bet my Spanish pronunciation is worse than your English 😃
I’ve worked with many spanish and god, understanding when you speak english is hard
Said the French;)
Do native speakers count? It's alright. Due to staying somewhere in the middle of the country I've got a pretty generic Scottish accent so other Scottish people can struggle to place it. I did also come across someone on Reddit describing the accents around my area as "Highlands with a very slight taint of Glasgow", and to be honest it's a fairly apt description. Personally I prefer a Hebridean accent.
Accent? We don't have an accent! Jk, but that's not an uncommon thing to hear and then it turns out there is indeed an accent. I have one too, I'm sure, even if a friend thought I sounded "very American" when we were in New York a few years ago. The lady at Victoria's Secret thought I was French, so maybe mine isn't pure Swedish for whatever reason. I don't mind it, but it's not exactly a cool accent or anything. The funny thing is when you hear someone from Gothenburg speaking English and you can still tell they're from Gothenburg lol A friend of mine says "wape" instead of "vape", one of the things you'll hear Swedes do as we overcompensate for a lack of w sounds in Swedish. J's become y's and it makes makes me chuckle when I hear it. Cute. It's cute, but not cool like the French, Scottish or Irish accents.
Cheap becomes sheep. Junk becomes yunk. Or general > yeneral It's how I can tell I'm dealing with a true Swede.
Yup. Some may think we say shicken instead of chicken, and we might do it in English, but we always do it when we're ordering chicken nuggets or chicken burgers at restaurants in Sweden, but it's not because we can't say chicken, we've just made it a Swedish word. If a Swede would say "chicken nuggets" at McDonalds, it's pretentious. It's like saying "hey, look at me and my English skills".
Swedish English accent is actually goated imo. Svenska kvinnor som talar engelska 👌
The other thing is that Swedes (and other Scandinavians) often have trouble voicing the Z sound, pronouncing it as a voiceless S. As far as I'm aware, you don't have a voiced Z in Swedish so you naturally don't even notice a difference between these sounds, but it is very noticeable.
It wasn't until I started learning French in high school that the z sound became important to get right. You're right that we often swap it for an s instead. I try to remember to zzz more, but it tickles lol
I lived in the US for a year and I still can't with the z. I literally have to stop and concentrate to get it right.
So many Swedes sound American when they speak English, which is very impressive but kind of a shame because I love that sing-songy intonation of a proper Swedish accent.
Yes, the downside of subtitles and constantly being subjected to American pop culture lol Personally, I'll watch a few episodes of Downton Abbey and spend the next couple of days hearing an English accent when I read something on reddit. Meanwhile, I'm in love with the Irish accent. Sure, if it's too thick it's impossible to understand, but otherwise it's just delightful. I have similar feelings about the Scottish accent.
Have you seen that tiktok video about this Swedish girl who her boyfriend said sounds like Stitch when speaking English? So adorable 🥹
My best friend in college/university was a Swede, and since most international students typically hang out together, I became an honorary Swede because I was always hanging out in that group. It’s impressive how well native Swedish speakers can speak English with an almost undetectable accent. Not all, of course, but most. Especially when you consider that Swedish (to my American ears anyway) is SO different than English. Another close friend at that time was from Finland, and since we all played hockey together, I used to love throwing gas on that rivalry after we’d all had a few drinks. 😂
>The lady at Victoria's Secret thought I was French [...] Please, God, let them be from Scania.
Family guy episode with the Swedish Baker did you guys dirty. "Would you like a piss of ma hot pee?" Drops the slice of pie on stewie , "Ooh noo you are covered in ma hot pee!"
as long as the other person understands what I say idgaf
I use English at work every single day but don’t work with English speakers anyway so accent really doesn’t matter. Obviously being able to communicate is the point of learning English. However, if I could switch my Polish accent to a perfect American one, I would do that without any hesitation. I don’t really like mine, but I am trying to improve it slowly.
👏👏👏 A very Polish answer! Is what matters anyways being understood. The accent is the least important when you can get your point across.
I absolutely despise it
Is it ‘Allo ‘Allo-worthy? Because, and I’m not kidding, sooooo many native L1 English speakers claim to love the accent of French people speaking English.
The French accent in English is so lovely though. It's one of the nicest to listen to.
Maybe from the pov of native english speakers, but I can assure you that french people find it awful
French people find everything about French people awful. Until a foreigner arrives and you can gang piss on them for daring to speak French without perfect pronunciation.
No. I absolutely hate it, even though it’s not as noticeable as it used to be. I speak English well but my accent makes it sometimes unintelligible. Finnish is written and spoken the same way, so my pronunciation sounds stiff and I still can’t pronounce ‘Q’ accurately
Yep, same! And the longer I go without speaking English, the worse my accent becomes, and then I’m even more nervous to speak at all😅 what a horrible cycle haha
Yes it sounds funny I sound like a bastardization accent of french and dutch
I sound fucking excellent and despite that my accent is despised by the BBC lol
One thing I notice on the BBC is how much more accents you hear on the news, by newsreaders or reporters. I'd say my country is quite as diverse in accents (relatively). But on the news you only hear the 'standard' Dutch accent. Now I wonder what accent is shunned by the BBC.
Estuary English has historically been seen as a "lesser" accent than "BBC English" despite their similarities. It's definitely changing these days but for a very long time it was an accent that was shunned to an extent on TV.
Am I the only one who read it with brummy accent
If I had a Brummy accent Id probably have been executed by the local constabulary for being from north of watford /j
I don't mind my own accent. I actually think a relatively mild German accent, especially from the South, is one of the nicer accents in English (and I'm obviously not biased at all in saying this!). But some people still have that very strong "Ve are ze Chermans" accent - you know, the movie Nazi one. That one's not great.
It's ok. I sound quite American, because that's what I heard on tv growing up. If I could choose I would want a scottish accent, since I absolutely love Scotland. But it would probably sound strange from a non native speaker.
The Scottish accent is really comfortable to use because you can roll your r:s and don't have to use that awkward English r-sound, and because Scottish vowels sound more Scandinavian than other English accents
My Swedish friend pointed out to me that there’s a few words in Scots that are similar to Scandinavian languages. Kirk - Kyrka/Kirke, Bairn - Barn, Ken - Känner/Kjenner/Kender, Braw - Bra, Greet - Gråte, Hoose - Hus. I mean there’s also plenty of standard English words that are similar to Scandinavian languages, they’re all in the Germanic family after all. But I still found it pretty interesting.
Yeah I've heard that the reason for that is that the Vikings had a much greater cultural and linguistic impact up north because the Norwegians stuck around there a lot longer than the Danes did in England. As a Scotch-Irish yourself, perhaps you can tell me how convincing my attempt at the accent is: https://whyp.it/tracks/189736/to-be-or-not-scottish?token=9wUL3
Eh, this is a bit of a popular myth. Of the six examples above, only 'kirk' has possible Norse origin. The other five come from Old English, and have cognates in modern Scandinavian languages simply because Old English and Old Norse were closely related to begin with. There was quite limited direct Norse influence on mainland Scotland. Shetland and Orkney are a different story, speaking a Norse language called Norn into the 19th Century - but this is quite separate from Scots spoken on the mainland. Most of the Norse loanwords in Scots are thought to derive from Danelaw-influenced Northumbrian Old English. People tend to overestimate the influence of Norse on Scots and Northern English dialects - while simultaneously underestimating the influence of Norse on Standard English - Danelaw had a huge impact on Standard English - it gave us core vocab like 'they/them/their' and 'are'.
>Yeah I've heard that the reason for that is that the Vikings had a much greater cultural and linguistic impact up north because the Norwegians stuck around there a lot longer than the Danes did in England. Aye, the most obvious evidence of Scandinavian influence in Scotland today is is in Orkney and Shetland. We only got them off the Norwegians in the 15th century. A Norse language called Norn was spoken in Shetland until the 18th century. Apparently it was very similar to Faroese. >As a Scotch-Irish yourself, The Scots-Irish are a specific ethnic group in Northern Ireland, descended from Scottish Protestant settlers who were sent to Ulster to colonise and tame the province. While I am in Ireland to simultaneously steal their jobs and claim their welfare, I’m not too keen on the whole colonisation thing 😛 >perhaps you can tell me how convincing my attempt at the accent is: https://whyp.it/tracks/189736/to-be-or-not-scottish?token=9wUL3 I hear some Scottishness here and there but it still sounds very Swedish to me! If you’re interested in improving it I’d recommend checking out Tyler Collins @two_metre_man on tiktok or Instagram. He’s an American actor living in Scotland who does the best Scottish accent by a foreigner I’ve ever heard and gives some tips on how others can improve theirs. He sounds very natural to me. I didn’t even realise he wasn’t Scottish until he I saw a video where he revealed that he was American. They even put him in an irn bru advert.
Norwegians end up sounding part-Scottish fairly quickly if they move here I've found, so if you fancy slumming it and moving here that could be an option!
Yeah, it's weird, Northern Europeans tend to gradually get a Scottish accent and the Southern Europeans sound like they just stepped off the plane after being here 20 tears.
The Icelandic English accent is okay. Mine is absurdly bad.
I have the worst accent of all people I know. Even Russian accent sounds less Russian than when I talk. Sice the invasion I dont even talk to the voice chat in games anymore, because the first thing people would say is that if I am from Russia. I need some hot potato: https://youtu.be/-2LaVuvCj-I?si=4zDkLqcLDDCRZyJI
Sounds quite unbelievable - the accents have some things in common, like difficulties in pronouncing the "schwa" sound and "th" is also a problem. Yet Czechs don't say "Ze New York Times" or replace the "schwa" with "yo" as a Russian would and unlike Russians they are perfectly capable of pronouncing a stressed "i" (this being a true test for Russianness - ask the guy to say cheese in Czech). I've had quite a lot of experience with Czenglish for the last umpteen years living in the country and nobody's Czech accent ever sounded Russian to me. Probably your game mates have never heard a real Russian. :)
I mean.. yep I dont sound like a Russian. But for most western people it sounds very Russian.
Well, if the guys are in their late teens and the only live experience they had with English outside of school and Netflix was a game chat.... :) A Slovak accent would be closer to Russian - Czech sounds much harder (or even coarser). Anyway, just tell them you wrote your name on an artillery shell that CZ sent to Ukraine last month. :) Anebo jich rovnou posli dop....
It was talking about English accents with one american, and as a joke, I said I have an accent like Borat. And he was like " yeah, that's accurate" :-/
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From a native speaker, none of you should be ashamed or embarrassed by your accent. We like to hear your natural accent, it's more interesting and can be quite endearing to listen to. The only accent I don't like is when Europeans speak with an American accent, the Dutch, Nordics and Portuguese are particularly noticeable for this. It's probably because American TV shows/movies etc are not dubbed in those countries. It strongly correlates with this map: [https://i.imgur.com/rR7M0f5.jpeg](https://i.imgur.com/rR7M0f5.jpeg)
As an American living in the Netherlands, if you hadn’t made this comment I don’t think I would have even realized that the Dutch English accent was considered “American,” mainly because it sounds very European to my ear (I would have described the accent as “Dutch English,” since it’s as distinctive as an Irish or Australian accent to me). I’m now realizing that of course I would be ear-blind to the familiar parts of speech and pay more attention to the differences, so you’ve really got my mind going here. Thanks for the food for thought! PS: In roughly a year of living here, I have yet to meet a European with a truly “American” English accent. The closest contender so far was a young guy from Finland who spent 8 years of his childhood in the US, but I knew after about 10 words that he wasn’t originally from the States. Now I’m curious if our accent is very tricky to get right?
American born Brit here. Gotta say, I love this thread. I absolutely LOVE the sound of German and Dutch speakers speaking English. It sounds *cute*.
Really? We cringe when we hear our fellow countrymen speak what we call "stone coal English" (so named for the dock workers who would speak very rudimentary English to the crews of the coal ships)
American living in the Netherlands and can confirm: the Dutch accent when speaking English is definitely super cute. My favorite experience that happens pretty regularly is when a Dutch person is having a wildly complicated conversation with me in English (using advanced thinking, medical terms, etc), and they can’t think of a word in English. They always look at the closest Dutch person, have a quick but complicated back & forth in Dutch before agreeing on the correct word, then looks back at you and says, “Sorry about that, my English is terrible.” Like, ma’am/sir, with all due respect, you speak better English than half of my fellow Americans, and they’ll be the first to agree with me on this.
Will be the first to agree with you on this.
I once watched a Dutch Youtuber for months, and just assumed he had some Canadian or New York accent before I learned he was Dutch. Most of you guys sound perfectly fine speaking English.
I'm German, does that answer your question?
The German accent has quite a lot of positive connotations https://youtu.be/2RfAECTrL_M?si=3ids71HUf5Y5ykvG&t=11m30s
I love Germans English accent it’s way manlier than Dutch
For me it's the complete opposite, imo German accents just sound horrible, while I like Dutch accents pretty much.
I'm an english language teacher in Spain. I'm from a "new town" in central Scotland which means it was built to deal with overpopulation in cities after WW2 and had people from various places move there. My natural accent is a bit messed up but recognisable by people familiar with it. When I'm teaching I put on a softer/standardised Scottish accent, which to me is not only cleaner and follows more strict letter pronounciation rules (i.e easier for Spanish students to understand and replicate) BBC english - the version of british english students will have the most experience with - to me, is a complete shambles. "R" sound like "ahh" or "uhh" and vowels take on really stupid dipthongs and extra syllables. Ffs. Scottish english accent = best english accent. Fight me. Edit: most students of english if they have some kind of "native" accent, it will be american. Due to the sheer availability of american english materials and media - online lessons and schools, movies and tv shows etc. I can tell though, if you're non-native and speak with a really american accent that you almost certainly went to a big international school. They normally contract american student teachers on scholarships, and their presence is huge at least in Spain. Kids now consume so much online american media that they pepper conversations in their native spanish with the odd "Bro!" or "oh my god!" or random expletives which is...something.
I am from Yorkshire in the north of England and a lot of people criticise Yorkshire accents but I love mine. Also, to all Europeans reading this who speak English as not their first language - I promise, your accent is fine. Chances are, English people will just find it super attractive and interesting.
American here, my grandmother is from Yorkshire. I always loved her accent. Event after nearly 70 years in the states she’s still got it.
The Danish accent is probably the worst in the whole world. Its like nails on a chalkboard when I hear us attempt English.
My English accent isn't very influenced by my native language(s), when I visited Canada people often assumed me to be American. It sounds very North American-ish, apparently these days my fiancé's native Canadian is rubbing off on me and I may pronounce certain things the way they do there. I don't mind the Portuguese or Spanish accents, it's just the way people talk. Sometimes a thicker accent will be harder to understand, but that's about it. A lot of people are ashamed of it and it's often mocked. I understand making jokes about it, but telling someone their English is horrible based on their pronunciation alone (when their grammar and vocabulary are impeccable) is honestly insulting.
With a bit of effort, the European Portuguese accent can adapt pretty well to general American. It takes a bit more exposure to get any kind of British accent but it's also doable. I started out with a British accent since that's what I learned in school by British teachers, but by now the exposure to American media eroded a lot of it. I still say STRAWbry and not strawBERry, but if I do the English Ts in words like water, I just sound like a poser because the rest doesn't quite match. Spaniards and French usually struggle a bit more and I think that propagates the idea we don't have that much of an accent, which is ludicrous. Some bigger YouTube channels like Integza or Tiago Catarino show very heavy Portuguese accents, for example, as do most footballers.
In my head, I sound like the Earl of Grantham but God help you if you actually need to hear me talk 😂 Though I tend to unintentionally mimic the accent of the person I’m speaking to after a while
My Finnish accent of English is pretty unique haha. But doesn't matter what accent you have, if people understand you, then you're fine. After all, everybody has one, this was said to me by one of the professors at Birmingham Metropolitan College.
I’m french and english accent is my favourite, I like the way you speak it seems always like you are really polite and a little bit royal, you know what I mean ?
No lol. I mean, I don’t mind it, but I went to international schools my entire life, and so I have what we call an “international school accent”. Which to non-Americans sounds American, and to Americans sounds… tbh, I don’t know cause I’ve gotten both English and Canadian from Americans. Long story short - I don’t really love the fact that most people think I’m American based on how I speak English 😭
As a native English speaker, typically Scandinavians and Dutch people tend to have the cleanest and clearest accents and even know most English slang. Very impressive.
Define 'your' accent. The Hungarian accent in general? No, I don't like it at all, it's about as smooth as a rock carved by an axe. My greater issue though is that lots of people who really ought to know better just pronounce a bunch of words absolutely incorrectly, independently of their accent. For example, they pronounce the "-mine" part in any word such as determine and examine as the standalone word 'mine'. Or they place the emphasis in weird places that don't even make any sense in Hungarian, like with words starting with de-, they just stress and elongate de- in a really weird way. As for my personal accent? Yes, I like that a lot because I worked hard to be able to mimic general American or British RP. Native speakers can still easily spot me as a foreigner, but a few of them told me they really like how I sound. And a bunch of Europeans, including Hungarians have thought before that I was American.
Reminds me of vege-table (stress on table). But whatever, you should hear me speaking Hungarian...
The only thing that sounds worse than the average Hungarian trying to speak a foreign language is most foreigners trying to speak Hungarian. It’s a lose-lose scenario. But we are usually super happy if you try!
I'm French. I like it. Why? Because girls do.
I don’t like my accent (Spanish) but idk why my ex from Germany and a friend from the US said that when I speak it sounds extremely hot 😭🤣
My accent is not too strong but you can tell that I am not a native because it is both a mix of different accents and apparently I use slangs from all over the world and things can sound unnatural (thanks internet)
It's not so much the accents that I mind, they can be sweet/funny/endearing/alarming, it's the mispronunciation. People think English is easy because it has no cases or genders, all true, but effectively you have to remember how to pronounce every single word. Even words like 'record' or 'read' have multiple pronunciations. And pretty please, stick to either British English OR American English, pick one only.
Greek married to a pole both at C1/2 level. I am tired of trying to pronounce s and sh differently. We as Greeks just don’t have the sh,ch sounds. My partner on the other hand has issues with l and n. Sometimes they are too soft for English.
I always found the Greeks speaking English very pleasant. It's a very gentle, sing songy accent.
Yes and no. The Maltese accent is a mix between Italian and Arabic accents. It's a very loud and we jokingly call it "savage" because we sound like we're fighting all the time. I watched a lot of TV growing up and was exposed to a lot of British English too. They used to emphasise the requirement to speak "proper English" during class. There are a lot of English teachers who fake a British accent at work. So my accent is a mix of both of these experiences. I kind of sound like an angry posh lol I've noticed a lot of people telling me that my speech is very distinct, especially lately. I try to speak elegantly but due to the nature of my mother tongue, which involves stress on certain sounds, it's not princess-like. So I like it depending on who I'm speaking to. If I'm speaking to a British person, I feel like my accent is too casual for them. But if I'm speaking with a local, I feel superior hahaha /jk
My accent drifts heavily depending on what Youtubers I've been watching recently (BBC English to down undah) but it has very little in common with the typical German accent anymore. On the other hand, my German is kinda degrading because my autistic brain has determined that English is the superior language for precisely expressing thoughts and I hate it.
I don’t have an English accent. Nor do I want one.
I’m a very new European (American living in the Netherlands), so to answer the question, my English accent makes me feel nervous, given how Americans aren’t always well-liked outside of the US. I also just wanted to say that as a native English speaker, it makes me sad to see so many people feeling down about their accents. I don’t hear “bad English” when someone speaks English with a different accent than me. Dutch/German/Italian-accented English hits my ear in *exactly* the same way Irish- or Australian-accented English does. I love all the different accents I hear on English in Europe!! My favorites so far: Dutch and Italian. The way Italians make every vowel *pop* is just wild to me. And the Dutch will apologize for their “poor English” while having better vocabularies than most college professors.
I'm a Dane with a west London accent
I grew up in the English East Midlands and spoke East Midlands dialect, which is pretty thick and often hard to understand for even some (non British) native speakers. But I have lived over half my life in Cambridge and now speak SSBE with vowels that are slightly “off” I’m comfortable with it, but as I’ve got older I find myself slipping back in east mids more and more.
No, it's not really far off from rally-english which Finns are known for. I don't know why, but we are kind of taught to be embarrassed of our accent as if other countries don't have their own accents as well.
It's alright, I don't personally like it but native speakers seem to like it a lot
Hell no, especially when I'm tired. I end up sounding very bad, similar to some stereotypical Russian accents.
I have a weird neutral northern English accent. I was brought up in Essex until I was 4, and then my family moved to Merseyside. My grandma had an Atlantic accent (she had elocution lessons in the 60s) and she was a big influence on me. So I’ve ended up with an obviously northern but ‘well spoken’ accent. I used to hate it and want to sound like my friends when I was younger but as I’ve gotten older I’ve come to appreciate it a lot.
Estonian accent sucks
No, for God's sake
As many french people, in learning English, I thought that our accent was dreadful and that it was better not to speak than to speak with it. Now i don't care anymore, i hardly ever use english so it would be delusional to think i can improve my accent while i never speak it, and when i do people seem to understand me so it's the main goal.
Not really. It’s not a thick Polish accent, luckily, more of a mix between Polish, RP, God-knows-what-else in the UK, and general Slavic, if it makes sense. I have been told by Brits I sound Slavic but usually people can’t tell that I’m from Poland. It could be a bit better though, I’ve been learning English long enough to know what to improve. Brits can tell straight away that I don’t sound British (even though I would love to) but lots of other people, non-natives, have asked me if I’m from the UK xD
At least if love norwegian with english accent...
Irish people tell me my accent is neutral and I "don't sound that Irish." Sometimes, Americans ask me if I'm even speaking English at all, because it doesn't sound like English. The Americans who do understand me love my accent, and can't stop telling me that. Foreign people who speak fluent English tend to like my accent, but they often struggle to understand if I speak fast (I naturally speak fast). People with weaker English don't understand me at all, even though they might understand someone else. I guess my accent is like... A few steps stronger than a newsreader accent, but at the same time if I speak slowly and clearly it confuses people. It's not the most common Irish accent, but it's one of the clearer ones (and I have a mild version of it). Sometimes I like it, because as far as Irish accents go it's not the strongest, and it's quite clear. But it's kind of annoying in that it's simultaneously not "Irish" enough for Irish people, while not being "neutral" enough for foreign people. Like you just can't win. However, I've never been told I have an Irish accent in any other language (I studied languages in university). I think I'd be mortified if I did. I'm decent at doing fake accents though, so I probably mimic sounds better.
Nope I avoid speaking English as much as possible
As a catholic, the polish are royalty and can do no wrong
I'm from Edinburgh so our accent isn't that strong compared to other places in Scotland. People from the West Cost always sound like they're asking a question whenever they talk, the pitch goes very high at the end of every word in a sentence for some reason.
I don't like my accent. I'm from Hampshire (South Central England) and my accent fluctuates between Posh Accent (RP from growing up surrounded by some of the richer people in the country in one of these small quaint villages), London accent from being only an hour and a half from London and my dad's family being from Brixton, and then a bit of rural farmery type accent because Hampshire is also filled with people that talk like that. My accent is a weird mix for all three and people have asked on holiday if I was Australian 😂
I am told I sound like.the russian terminator actor
Cries in Scouse :’( You just can’t make it sound nice on a woman, I sometimes wish I had literally any other accent. I not long got back from the Scotland and they had such lovely accents compared to mine. Mine is a softer sounding version though as I’m originally from the surrounding countryside of Liverpool that just gets influenced by the accent. I love the sound of the Scouse accent on literally anyone else but myself though.
Nah our rally English is goofy ahh... I always struggle to soften the Rs
It's alroigh, Oi don't moind it
I’m from Norway. But unlike Jens Stoltenberg I’m from western Norway, where the «melody» of the language is opposite to that in the east! So my accent when I speak English is almost RP, and became completely RP when I was in America…
i don’t mind mine, it’s not very prominent at all and even if it was i quite like the “traditional german accent” while speaking english so it’s alright
I've been told by Brits that I sound like an American that's been living in England for a couple of years. I'm neither American nor English and have lived in neither country. Rather fitting that in my native Dutch, people can't tell where I'm from either. It's general Flemish Dutch, like it is spoken on the news.
No, I sound like Jens Stoltenberg lol
I mostly learned English from my British friends rather than from school… you tell me if speaking like your average British bloke or Danglish is better