I can't talk right anymore.

July 15, 2005 11:32 AM

Speakin' Rightwise, I am talking funny lately. Anyone else?

I am wondering if anyone else has the experience of picking up their parents or community's non native english speaking pronnunciations, or quirks. Both my parents are from Korea and I'm guessing I picked up my problems with switching r's and l's and completely stumbling over words which have them both next to each other "world, girl...". This seems odd to me because I don't speak Korean and never really had it spoken to me. This becomes more of problem when I am excitedly or rapidly speaking, or just tired, I get a pretty pronounced accent at times. So anyhow, just curious too see if this is common. Also, any tips on getting over these difficulties would be appreciated.

posted by mrs.pants to society & culture (22 comments total)

I pick up verbal (and non-verbal) idiosyncrasies from those whom I spend much of my time. Be it a catch phrase, a different pronunciation (bah-sil vs. bay-sil for the herb), a slight accent, or even a way of arranging my face. I think it is extremely common.
posted by rhapsodie at 11:51 AM on July 15, 2005

...from those with whom...
posted by rhapsodie at 11:51 AM on July 15, 2005

Yes ... I picked up my parents midwest accent, even though I only lived in the midwest for a couple of years. I've only recently started to pick up the northwest rounded A versus the midwest nasal A.
posted by SpecialK at 11:53 AM on July 15, 2005

I pick up funny technically-incorrect phrases from my boyfriend all the time. I'm even calling toes "fingers" these days. Of course he's picked up Dublin slang from me, so it's a wash.

I don't know about getting over it; I see it as a nice quirk to be honest. I suppose you could ask other people to correct you if they hear you.
posted by jamesonandwater at 11:57 AM on July 15, 2005

I'm a born & bred Texan who's lost most of his accent. Sometimes people can pick up a touch of "Southerner" when I speak, but usually those people have a good ear. I wound up losing my accent by doing phone-based tech support in San Francisco. Once you get tired of having to repeat yourself to people from other areas of the country, you really start concentrating on how you pronounce things.

That being said, if I'm tired or if I'm either talking to or have been around other Texans with pronounced accents, it all starts coming back again. Not a lot of them around here in Connecticut, though...
posted by Moondoggie at 12:13 PM on July 15, 2005

My problem isn't truly having an accent, so much as having similar difficulties pronouncing words that would trouble my Korean speaking parents. It just is sort of an embarrassment for me, as I am plenty mistaken for foreign already.

Another thing is that when it's bad, it's mighty bad. Hard to understand bad. I have to be really tired or really drunk for this to happen though. Though since it has yet to fade, this may just be an odd very limited range regional accent for me.

Sub question: Any children of immigrants have this problem?
posted by mrs.pants at 12:19 PM on July 15, 2005

My girlfriend's the daughter of Korean immigrants, and does this same thing when she gets excited or drowsy. Also, it's the same with her sisters as well. Not much of a sample, but I imagine it's extremely common.

I don't know of any good tips though; in my girlfriend's case, she just starts subconsciously replacing words with which she's having difficulty with Korean equivalents.
posted by aiko at 12:46 PM on July 15, 2005

My wife gets a more pronounced southern drawl when she is tired. She doesn't have an accent, per se, as while we was raised in South Carolina, she wasn't raised by people native to that area.
posted by terrapin at 12:50 PM on July 15, 2005

I switch over to mountain-talk with my dad all the time. There is this whole other vocabulary, usage, and accent that goes with it. Totally situational.
posted by Medieval Maven at 12:54 PM on July 15, 2005

There are speech therapists who specialize in helping adults reduce their accents.

Or you could hire an acting coach, which might be cheaper than a speech therapist.
posted by luneray at 1:05 PM on July 15, 2005

Don't know if this is the same, but I tend to automatically simplify my grammar or speak in a kind of pidgin when I speak to my parents -- both of them speak English well, but with certain grammatical tics that I tend to use only when talking to them. We're all Chinese.
posted by Big Fat Tycoon at 1:26 PM on July 15, 2005

I too develop a more pronounced drawl when tired, nervous or drunk. And, like many folks upthread i'm also not entirely certain where it comes from. I think these kinds of quirks are fairly common.

As far as what to do about it, you could always see a Speech Pathologist. But really i'd say not worry too much and have fun with it: play it up, let it be a source of self-deprecating humor, take delight in your own tics and others will as well.
posted by verysleeping at 1:26 PM on July 15, 2005

BigFat Tycoon that's very much the case with me when I talk to my parents. Weird.

It's helpful to know that I'm not the only one with floating accents, weird quirks, and sometimes outright difficulties!
posted by mrs.pants at 1:37 PM on July 15, 2005

I hung out with a guy with a really bad stutter for awhile. I (and a few of our friends) actually started having stuttering problems, too. I think it comes from being social creatures that are "trained" to mimic those around them. I also have a tendency to unconsciously pick up people's random speech quirks - it's really annoying.
posted by muddgirl at 1:50 PM on July 15, 2005

I'm told that my accent, slang and linguistic quirks vary dramatically depending on environment. I think some people are just natural mimics, which is great when trying to learn a new language but less so in other circumstances. Apparently it's especially funny when I get drunk and sound like a chola.
posted by cali at 1:54 PM on July 15, 2005

My younger brother and I both develop brogues when we're sleepy or intoxicated. Neither one of us has lived outside of Chicago for more than a few months at a time (I in Indiana and he in Ohio). We think it comes from our paternal, native Irish grandmother, who regularly babysat for us when we were young. It's bizarre.
posted by MeetMegan at 2:06 PM on July 15, 2005

I was very surprised when visiting my home town, Cincinnati, for the first time in 20 years, to observe myself talking very "Kentucky" when in a long and somewhat involved conversation with a lady from that side of the river. There's a class divide between north/south accents in that town which is rather pronounced, and while I was educationally and culturally middle-class, I lived in a lower-middle/working class neighborhood and so probably grew up able to slip between both accents without even realizing it until this occurrence.

On another note, a dear friend of mine who used to be a special-naked-friend comes from Mississippi originally but has traveled all over as a child due to having military parents. Day-to-day, he speaks just like any other Seattleite. However, in certain, um, intense situations, I observed that he would have a pronounced Deep South drawl when saying very very dirty things.

I agree with others who have said we should honor and enjoy our linguistic quirks and those of our friends.
posted by matildaben at 2:18 PM on July 15, 2005

Given that you first learn to speak from your parents, it makes sense that you would pick up their quirks and find them coming back when you're tired.

matildaben: My first linguistics prof said that you're not fluent in a language until you can use it when counting in your head, swearing, and fucking. Perhaps this goes for accents as well? :)
posted by heatherann at 2:43 PM on July 15, 2005

i don't know about the rest of the (non-crazy) world, but in l.a. i see ads all the time for "accent elimination" therapy. it must be a big business here.
posted by subclub at 3:10 PM on July 15, 2005

I have been speaking strangely lately. However, I suspect that it stems from my attempts to remove "to be" (in all its forms) from my speech and writing. I find it rather tiring, honestly. Constantly having to circumlocute, and thereby fix up my hallucinatory thinking, has resulted in much slower speech, and reports that I sound like I've been smoking a great deal of marijuana. However, I have noticed an enormous boost in the size of my working vocabulary, since I cannot simply say "that's really cool" anymore.
posted by Netzapper at 6:18 PM on July 15, 2005

I came to the US when I was ten. There were a few girls who teased me mercilessly in elementary school for my accent so I worked hard to get rid of it. And now, if I don't tell them, people assume that I was born here based on my speech.

For about half a year last year, I hung around with a group of people who spoke English half of the time and Chinese the other half. (I am not fluent in Chinese though I did grow up with it.) After a few months, much to my horror and consternation, I heard the accent that I worked so hard to get rid of! It's even more pronounced when I'm tired or speaking fast. Interestingly when I'm drunk, I have more of a drawl, making me sound more American than I do in normal speech.

A little funny story. I have a friend who came to China when he was like 12 or something. However, he speaks Chinese way better than I do and he still has a bit of an accent. The first time he got high, he eventually gave up English all together and started talking to us in Chinese!
posted by state fxn at 12:21 AM on July 16, 2005

I went to a great deal of trouble to lose a Southern accent, along with a couple of speech impediments. (Can I say that? I had a stutter and a lisp. That might have become "communication-impaired" by now.)
Years later, I started working on the phone, and most of the time I deal with Southern states. I just gave up and let it come back. It's been a terrific advantage in my work. The people in my building are used to it (I'm the only one who has an accent) and if it's really noticable, someone might ask if I just got off the phone with Mississipi, but usually nobody pays much attention. It also hides the other stuff, which is getting harder to fight as I get older.
posted by unrepentanthippie at 9:14 AM on July 16, 2005