Well-known factoid about me: I'm not a native speaker of English.
That is, I'm not a native speaker of English if you ask the general public. Despite the fact that I was born and raised in Ohio, USA, among a family that migrated to this hemisphere over 400 years ago (from England!), I apparently speak English with a funny accent.
In my work as a cashier, I was daily asked "where I was born" because I "have an accent". It got to the point where I would just start making up stories. "I was born in Palestine." Lol. "My mother is a Romanian refugee and my father is the Saudi Ambassador to New Guinea. I moved around a lot as a kid." Lol.
Okay, English is actually my first and only language, but just no one seems to realize that. Since I have come to Cambodia, this has already happened to me twice (which is a lot considering I've spent the last 9 out of 12 months in virtual isolation).
The first guy was utterly convinced that I am English or Australian (you have no idea how many people think I'm Australian) because I "talk like it." This guy wasn't even a native speaker of English himself! Come on!! Is my voice that obvious?
Some other guy told me I have a distinct French accent when I try to speak Khmer. Me: WTF? I can't even speak French! How is that even possible??
So there you have it. I talk funny, no matter which language I speak.
*UPDATE*
ReplyDeleteThe day after I posted this, some guy at work asked if I was a Kiwi. He then tried to tell me I sounded like a British-educated native speaker of Danish. And I didn't even say more than a sentence to the guy!
Thought you should know about it.
Is American accent that difficult? I meant, it took 400 years, you still sound un-American?
ReplyDeleteI have some opinions if you want to hear. Since I'm a non-native English speaker, I'm also aware of accents.
For me, British accent is very fascinating, but it's also tiring for listeners to hear.
Irish is charming, you can even fall in love with it, there's no such words as "Mud" or "Gun", there's only "Muuud" and "Guuuun" in Irish accent.
And English with Russian, German and Indian accent is too confusing to the point it starts to sound funny. I can spend all day laughing while listening to one of them.
French is slow and exy, but I'm not sure what the guy you'd mentioned was trying to tell you.
The only accent that is so easy to listen is American, it's almost like listening to Khmer sometimes, well, almost.
So yeah, you're lucky, you have accent, that defines something about your uniqueness, don't you think? :D
PS: I meant sexy, not exy..hehehe
ReplyDeleteTo be honest, I don't notice accents that much anymore. I guess I've worked internationally for too long.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was a kid, I went to England around the age of 9, and I remember not being able to understand their accents in the slightest. It was really like listening to a foreign language. Somehow I've overcome that barrier and can't even tell accents apart now.
I think Khmer has a lot of similarities to English in its pronunciation, the problem is that Khmer tends to be nasal while English is more throaty. Those differences sometimes make my students unintelligible, at least to my ears.
I sound like an idiot most of the time when I speak English to my Cambodian friends (I don't like speaking English with Cambodians anyway) but I guess if I don't speak English with Khmer accent like that, they don't understand me.
ReplyDeleteThat might explain why I have no accent. My only purpose to speak English is to make people understand what I'm talking about. :D