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> I also knew an Italian, who had a strong accent, but a better command of English than most native speakers. I think he deliberately played his accent up. Ita
by thefz 4y ago
> I also knew an Italian, who had a strong accent, but a better command of English than most native speakers. I think he deliberately played his accent up.
Italian here with a decent grasp of the English language.
1) some sounds are harder to learn how to pronunciate, especially for American English, and especially 'R' based ones
2) with time I've grown fond of my accent and wear it as a distinctive badge. Most of my English speaking, European colleagues do the same. Everyone has their own and it makes part of our personality.
- ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago> 2) with time I've grown fond of my accent and wear it as a distinctive badge. Most of my English speaking, European colleagues do the same. Everyone has their own and it makes part of our personality. I like that. My acquaintance used to have to peel the girls off him. I have a very strange accent, that has been stepped on, by many years of traveling. As a child, I had a British accent, then, I lived in Maryland, and got a slightly "Southern" accent. I have lived in New York for the last thirty years, so that has also affected my accent. Plus, I have a scratchy, high-pitched voice, anyway (vocal cord damage, as a kid).
- ohwellhere 4y agoI am American and have a slight Southern/rural USA accent (much less slight when visiting family), and the responses I get vary so wildly. Some Irish women I met in a bar absolutely loved it, while in big cities in the USA I am sometimes assumed to be an absolute moron.
- ChrisMarshallNY 4y agoI get that, a lot, around here; especially when I say "howdy!". In the real South, Marylanders are considered damn Yankees. In New York, we're considered damn rednecks.
- zasdffaa 4y agoI'm a brit, I don't know much about stuff, so, what is implied by 'yankee'? I wasn't aware it was still used - Is it an insult? And something to do with the civil war? Why are you considered a 'damn Yankee' by Marylanders? I assumed redneck was an insult but it seems not always from what I've heard. I guess it is here. But what does it mean? These may seem odd questions but I truly don't know. TIA
- ilc 4y ago"Yankee" is a term used in the south for a northerner. It is usually not used a positive way. Much the same, "redneck" is not meant in a positive way up north. As with many insults, the group the insult is hurled at can own it, and take it up as a term of almost endearment.
- jen20 4y agoIt’s also used in the north no? New York even has a baseball team featuring it, which may be more or less positive depending on which borough you’re from.
- i_am_jl 4y agoSome background before I answer your question: Between the "North" and the "South" on the Eastern seaboard there is a central area that is in some ways renounced by both "regions". There's some remainder of the Civil War/Mason Dixon line there, but it doesn't follow that delineation today. For example, in New York someone who grew up in rural Maryland would likely be viewed culturally as a "Southerner". But so would someone from Western Pennsylvania. So would someone from West Virginia, despite West Virginia and Pennsylvania being part of the Union. People in the Deep South would view residents of these areas as "Yankees". In both cases what is meant is that "Your cultural experience is different enough from ours that you're not 'us', you're 'them'." where 'them' is Southern or Northern, wherever you're not. The thing is, there's a big chunk of the mid-Atlantic seaboard that is unique, not traditionally Southern or Northern. "Redneck" is usually pejorative for a working class, white, Southerner. When rednecks say "redneck" it usually isn't an insult, but when others use the word it usually is. Calling somewhere a "Redneck bar" is fine, but calling someone in that bar a "redneck" is usually not. "Yankee" is just a term for Northerner. I'm sure you could say it as an insult, and I'm sure some people think "yankee" is an insult, but if someone calls me a yankee I'd happily agree with them.
- itronitron 4y agoI'm curious to know when you first considered yourself to have an accent.
- gnicholas 4y ago> 1) some sounds are harder to learn how to pronunciate, especially for American English, and especially 'R' based ones I would never correct this in a different context, but the word you're looking for is simply "pronounce".