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My friend from France, who lived in the US for 40 years, and England before that, and now in Mexico for 10 years where most of her friends are native English speakers, still speaks with such a strong French accent, that I can barely understand half the things she says over the phone.
Losing an accent seems to have partly to do with a person’s “ear” (my friend is tone-deaf) and their motivation.
I had a guest who had been born in Mexico, lived in the US from babyhood to the age of 8, then lived in Mexico again until he was about 12-13. When he went back to LA, his teenage Mexican/American peers made so much fun of his “beaner” accent, that he worked really hard to eliminate it. When I met him as a guest, you’d think he was born and bred in middle America from his lack of peggable accent.
I remember hearing or reading decades ago that with a mobile population and the miracle of TV, accents would go away and everyone would sound like the “guy on the nightly news.” I suppose it’s just happening more slowly than predicted.
[quote=“JJD, post:100, topic:43219”] I
can almost always tell when someone is from Kansas. It’s a distinct accent but it isn’t dramatic or funny like Boston or GA so it doesn’t get much attention but there’s definitely an accent. There’s something y’all do with your soft palates that stands out.
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I probably don’t have a typical Kansas accent. For one thing, I grew up in Overland Park, Kansas, which is really a suburb of Kansas City, Mo., as opposed to growing up in say, Wichita. And while my mom grew up in Kansas City, my dad grew up in upstate New York. And all my grandparents were Eastern European Jews.
Then I left Kansas when I was 17 and never went back, and lived in Canada for 40 years. But some of my USisms are still with me. For instance, I’ll ask “Huh?” if I don’t get something, instead of the Canadian “eh?” (My oldest daughter always gets on my case about it, as according to her I’m supposed to politely say “Pardon?”)
Yes, they use that all over Mexico, as far as I’m aware. But it isn’t considered to be polite and I don’t think upper class Mexicans would use it. Like Huh? as opposed to Pardon?
Mexican Spanish is apparently extremely slangy compared to other Spanish-speaking countries.
I couldn’t figure out why local Mexicans in my area used the verb “occupar” to mean “need”, as in “Tu occupas?” if you’re working with someone and point to a tool you’d like them to hand you, as the only definition of occupar I could find in my dictionary was “to occupy”.
So I asked an educated friend from Mexico City. She scoffed, said that it’s only because they are uneducated and speak hillbilly Spanish in this area, and that you would never hear it used that way in Mexico City.
Well I say “syrup” as one syllable and all y’all regardless of the number of people I’m talking to and cuantos which I picked up in Texas. I say awesome and use the nouns lunch and valet as verbs and add pinche to my Spanglish which I picked up in Los Angeles.
In NY, I learned to say “gettouttamafuggingway” politely but also learned to use the word “what” as an accusation. After spending a few months in Australia, I will forever refer to genitalia as “pinky bits”. And of course my time in New England has taught me that all the good stuff is wicked good and all of the dumb stuff is wicked dumb. And, yeah, caw.
A friend of mine (we actually lost touch years ago, so I use that term loosely, although we were good friends at one point), who was into a lot of drugs and drug dealing when she was a teenager, escaped an arrest warrant in the US and fled to Venezuela.
She lived in the barrios of Caracas with other drug addicts and that’s where she learned her Spanish. After a year, she was out of money and went looking for a job and got hired as a front desk person at a photo lab.
Halfway through her first day, the owner asked her to step into his office, where he told her “You can’t talk to my customers like that!”.
She was confused and asked what he meant. He said “You have a total potty-mouth!”
She was really embarrassed- she thought the Spanish she had learned in the barrios was normal Spanish, so she was all “pinche” this and “chinga” that, and saying the equivalent of “Your photos will be ready for pick-up on Tuesday, asshole”.
Not one used much outside México, and I suspect the more educated folks (for want of a better term) would probably use ¿como? Here, the closest equivalent to ¿mande? is probably ¿que?, but as in all language, sometimes as to whether something is rude/impolite is often down to how you say it, and not necessarily the word/term itself.
I’ve had a few instances when I’ve said something to someone in Spanish, and been told “Wow, you can’t say that, it’s really rude!”; but I usually get away with it, dumb guiri and all that.
My friend J, who returned to Jerez a couple of years ago after working in Poland for twenty years, is a great resource for slang Spanish, especially the naughty step words, and the context in which you can get away with them.
He’s a native Spanish speaker but also speaks Polish, German, a little bit of Russian and has very basic English which he enjoys improving. Three of us, me, him and D the waiter had a very interesting session comparing the level of rudeness associated with various sweary words in three languages one evening while standing outside the bar. The look on a few folks face as they passed by at the wrong time was priceless!
My OH has christened him as my profesor de vocabulario alternativo
I reflect back accents, body positions and mannerisms of whomever I am speaking with, quite unconsciously.
My adult kids have been nonplussed witnessing this. They worry that it is so obvious that my speaking partner will think I am making fun of them and be offended. Including slight bowing when speaking with some Asians who do that.
Thing is, the other party never notices, so I must be pretty good at it.
Just this Thanksgiving, my kids were laughing at a convo I had with stepsister, “You switched to Pittsburghese!” I had no clue; I had just slipped into my old native speech patterns and accent.
Read somewhere that this reflective speaking is characteristic of successful salespeople.
Oh man! I cannot wait to tell my family. They make fun of me so much for this. @dpfromva I do the mannerisms, etc. also. Fully subconsciously. I am aware of it but I can’t really “stop”. Good to know I’m not alone (& that maybe I should go into sales LOL!)
Been there, done that, in Edinburgh! Not sure how successfully! If I can’t pick up on the accent, I notice I still go for the cadence and positioning.
Actually, Philly accent is the real challenge. I’m aware I’m trying to incorporate it when talking to a native, which usually doesn’t happen. I went to pick up a pasta order at Ralph’s Italian Restaurant in South Philly, was told by a waiter to go talk to Dad at the cash register.
It wasn’t quite done yet, so I told Dad (approximately), ‘Yeah, OK, I ken wait, jus’ trow it out d’ door when y’ gedit." Whoa, how did that come out of my mouth?! The accent and the attitude.
