What determines your accents? Can you ever lose them?

August 6, 2004 3:18 PM

I've heard it mentioned, as recently as this thread that when you learn a foreign language as an adult , you never lose your accent. Kissinger is always brought up as an example. Is this true or is this an urban myth? Also, what if you were brought up bilingual and speak two (or more) languages flawlessly. If you learned a third language, what determines which accent you will have?
posted by vacapinta to writing & language (23 comments total)

This is anecdotal, but I know a slew of totally fluent English speakers who learned English as a second language. Without exception, they all have at least some accent. Likewise, everybody I know who came to my own second language from another (including me, of course) has an accent. I think that the best one can hope for is to work on the accent, but at the same time accept that it's going to be there. (hey, "accent" and "accept" are only one letter apart! See, spelling's Hamming Distance agrees with me, too. So there.)

Then again, I have known people who have lost an accent that was a regional thing. I had a friend who was from the Midwest, but you'd never know it to talk to him, except for a day or two after he got back from visiting home. He had a very pronounced Midwestern accent when at home, and quickly lost it again when he was away.
posted by vorfeed at 3:46 PM on August 6, 2004

Kissinger's brother speaks flawless English. flawless.

what he has to say about his brother's appalling accent: "It's because Henry never listens"
posted by matteo at 4:29 PM on August 6, 2004

I don't have any references handy, but I'm pretty sure that the "cut-off" for being able to learn a new language without having an accent is around 6 or 7 years old (plus or minus a few years depending on the individual). As with anything, though, there will be the occasional extraordinary exception.

The second part of your question is really interesting, and I have no idea what the answer is. My personal experience was learning English and German simultaneously, but growing up in the USA and becoming more proficient in English. When I learned French in High School, I spoke it with a German accent. I'm not sure why that happened, but it tricked my (incompetent) French teachers into thinking I had excellent French pronunciation.
posted by nixxon at 4:43 PM on August 6, 2004

Hmmm. I first learned German from the age of 13. When I went to Germany as a 16 year old, people commented on my Berlin accent - my teacher was a Berliner. After several months in the Black Forest I was well on my way to sounding like a local, and could produce fits of hysterics among my classmates by mangling the local dialect (Alemannisch is quite different from standard High German).

Anyway, for some years after that I had good odds of fooling native speakers for a while (eg up until lack of pop culture knowledge, local colour etc ratted me out). I think the reason was that a marked regional accent masked any traces of Kiwi English. I notice that when I hear speakers of English as a second language who have learned a neutral Midwest American speech, I find it hard to pick their original accent, because "American" overpowers any other strangeness in their speech.

My Maori is slight but I'm told I have excellent pronunciation.

I'm sure I would have a hard time with a tonal language or one with a lot of sounds that don't have relatives in English; I expect that Thai or Hindi would be much harder to mimic. But I also think that expectations have something to do with it too...

I don't believe the 7 year old cutoff. I do believe that adult language learners lack the time and energy to practise and listen really hard. If your goal is enough fluency and mutual comprehension to conduct your business, you won't progress past that unless you find some other motivation. I attribute my relative success with German to an obsessive desire to get it right. I would practise a LOT by myself, holding a mental model of the right sound in my head. And I would read books that described the mechanics of German pronunciation. When you learn another language, you're often taught new sounds by reference to ones you know already: eg English speakers are told "ö" sounds like the vowel in "purse". That's enough to get you going, and it's enough to make you comprehensible, and a lot of people never really get past that, but of course these similar sounds are not the same. And you need to start paying attention to other things, like phrasing, pitch, speed of speech, etc. Again, most people don't even notice these things, or if they do, they don't practise them. Practise practise practise.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 5:23 PM on August 6, 2004

I don't believe the 7 year old cutoff. I do believe that adult language learners lack the time and energy to practise and listen really hard.

Well, that's kind of the point-- adults have to practice and listen. Kids don't. They just do it.

According to what I've read, the cutoff point is more like 12-13 and seems to be coupled to the onset of puberty.
posted by kindall at 6:06 PM on August 6, 2004

This is actuall one of the areas where a linguist can answer your question best. Because below the layer of the words we learn is the layer of the phonemes we learn. for example, part of the problem that Germans have learning English is that the "th" sound simple doesn't exist in their language. It's not simply a combination of learning the words and grammer for them. It becomes a matter of re-training the mouth. Similarly, Americans just cannot make the hard-H sounds or the hocking-a-spit "kh" sound required in Arabic.

It's just a question of being willing to throw yourself into the sound of the language in addition to being able to learn new words and grammar. Some people can do it, others cling to their innate ideas about how a guttural "kh" sound is gross or dumb-sounding.

But this whole age-cutoff thing sounds arbitrary to me. I think it's in the mouth, not the brain.

My gf could explain it better, but she's off learning to make hock-a-spit sounds this summer.
posted by scarabic at 6:22 PM on August 6, 2004

Another interesting example is that the letter P does not exist in Arabic. And so Arab's pronunciation of Palestine is more like "Fallas-teen" and their pronunciation of Pepsi is more like "Bebsi."

The amount of accent a person retains over time is a function of their personality. I think you'll find that hammy actor type people are able to affect other accents much more readily than stodgy poli-sci types. Again, this gets back to basic concepts in the mind of what sounds right, and what just sounds stupid.

I think a lot of people would rather speak another language with an accent (a common, well-established handicap) than make sounds that seem innately lame and embarassing to them.
posted by scarabic at 6:26 PM on August 6, 2004

I know a Japanese woman who married a French guy. They speak mostly French and some Japanese at home. Her English has a French accent, and it's just lovely.

Unsolicited opinion: I don't think it is a defect if you speak Language B with an A accent, unless for professional reasons you must sound like a native speaker.
posted by planetkyoto at 8:33 PM on August 6, 2004

For what its worth, here's my datapoint: Native in both Spanish and English. Learned Italian and French later on.

Lately, Ive been told that I have a *slight* American accent now when I speak Spanish. I tend to think this is because I speak so much English that I am "un-learning" some of the mouth movements, rhythms etc. to speak un-accented Spanish. So, the learned thing, i_am_joes_spleens explanation, makes a lot of sense to me.

I speak Italian like a latin-american (I have been told) but I speak French with an american accent! I dont know why, I learned them both under similar conditions.

Then there are friends of mine too who have english as a second language who still have a thick accent after 15-20 years of being in a constant English environment. I'm just trying to make sense of this and have found no coherent explanation out there.
posted by vacapinta at 8:46 PM on August 6, 2004

But this whole age-cutoff thing sounds arbitrary to me. I think it's in the mouth, not the brain.

According to my training (undergrad degree in psychology), it is in the brain. When you are an infant and a toddler and absorbing all those sounds around you, as you noted, you are learning the phonemes of your language. There are, of course, a number of phonemes that humans are capable of producing but do not exist in the language you hear.

In many (most) cases, you are not only unable to reproduce these sounds, but are unable to differentiate them from the phonemes you do know. It's not that, as you say, you think the sounds are dumb or are simply unwilling, but often that you can't tell the difference between the sound you use and the authentic one.

Of course, my memory of this class (developmental psych) is somewhat vague, so take that with a grain of salt, but I certainly remember that being the general idea.

As a personal anecdote, I didn't learn to speak Spanish growing up, but I heard quite a bit of it until age five. I have since learned to speak a bit, and have been told by a number of native speakers that I speak without an accent. Take that as you will.
posted by uncleozzy at 9:01 PM on August 6, 2004

I have polyglot friend. She grew up speaking Polish and Russian. She speaks English with a slight accent, as if she were raised in, say, Long Island, and not eastern Europe. She's a beginner with French, but speaks French beautifully, sounding much more French than the other uni-lingual Anglos in my French class.

According to my training (undergrad degree in psychology), it is in the brain.
I agree. There is also the issue of thousands and thousands of conditioning trials, if you will, that your lips and tongue and larynx have been subjected to. You have molded your muscles and the motor control areas into certain predictable repeatable patterns. Learning different speech sounds is a bit like learning to throw a ball with your other hand.

I would say to study phonetics and phonology. They put you through little exercises and show you the science behind speech sounds.
posted by philfromhavelock at 10:00 PM on August 6, 2004

When it comes to learning a second language as an adult and getting that native speaker accent, I think it comes down to innate ability. In China/Taiwan, I've met foreigners who have been fluent in Chinese for 10+ years and can speak and understand technical conversations at a native speed, but they still have a noticeble foreign accent when speaking. I've also met people who have only been studying the language for a couple of years, but who have the tones and the overall accent down extremely well.
posted by alidarbac at 10:33 PM on August 6, 2004

uncleozzy:

"In many (most) cases, you are not only unable to reproduce these sounds, but are unable to differentiate them from the phonemes you do know."

Sure. My contention is that this is true in the average second language learner. But clearly it's not impossible in the motivated. For one thing, linguists in the field would be unable to accurately describe the sounds of new languages if they couldn't differentiate them from the phonemes they learnt in infancy.

The question posed by vacapinta, and the original claims made by joeclark in the thread vacapinta linked to, are phrased in terms of absolutes: "never", "impossible", "always". I think it's more true to say "hardly ever", "probably not", "mostly". My guess is that most second language learners in adulthood have neither the scholarship, the time or the need to achieve perfection.

But yeah, you have to compensate for the loss of childhood plasticity with a lot of work that may not pay off.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 11:02 PM on August 6, 2004

I'd agree with joe's various organs that probably anyone that really wanted to could have at worst a minimal accent in an adult-acquired language, but that for almost everyone it simply isn't worth the time or effort. I'm sure it helps to be a good mimic, and to have some direct formal instruction. I know my one semester of Spanish phonetics was eye-opening.

And kids listen and practice too; we just don't always recognize it when it's happening. Even in your native language, it still takes you more than a decade of constant bombardment, immersion, listening, practice, and formal instruction to become adult-fluent.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 12:10 AM on August 7, 2004

According to my training (undergrad degree in psychology), it is in the brain.

Yes, actually, I agree as well. I mis-spoke. Obviously it's not about teeth size or tongue muscles, but about our ability to command them effectively. It's all the brain, really. But I think that one needs to seperate out ideas like the abiltiy to assimilate grammar from the ability to hear and make new sounds. I think some people will always be in Kissinger's boat, but not because they're over 7 years old and their brains no longer work.
posted by scarabic at 12:43 AM on August 7, 2004

I agree that it's in the brain, but I'm not entirely convinced that you need to learn a specific language at an early age in order to speak it without an accent. For example, when I was a small child (age 3 or 4, depending on which grandparent I get the anecdote from), I was able to count to ten in four languages (English, French, Turkish, and Latin) and spoke French as well as I spoke English. I lived in an area of northern New York that got Canadian television, much of which was in French.

Fast forward 18 years to my college German class. I found it rather easy to learn, and I was told by my professor that I had no American accent - I apparently was able to mimic his Munich accent quite well. So I'm inclined to think that stimulus in the language areas of the brain in early childhood can help a person to learn other languages in adulthood. Then again, I'm not a linguist, so I'm just speculating.

For the record, I can barely speak French, but I can read it at a 3-year-old's level. :-)
posted by bedhead at 5:39 AM on August 7, 2004

Americans just cannot make the hard-H sounds or the hocking-a-spit "kh" sound required in Arabic.

You mean it's difficult, right? They can do it, they just have to be taught.

often that you can't tell the difference between the sound you use and the authentic one.

This is why more attention should be paid in language classes to basic phonetics, before even starting the language. Explaining the differences in tongue, mouth, lips, and vocal chords through the p, b, v, and f sounds, for example, would go a long way.
posted by Mo Nickels at 6:13 AM on August 7, 2004

In addition to being a theatre dork, I had three years of French in high school, two of which were taught by a woman with a very very heavy Texas accent. Fast forward to the present, where I have forgotten all but five phrases in French and have taught myself Italian through immersion.

My best girlfriend here is a Romanian living here for 13 years. Her grammar is near flawless and my ear detects no accent when she speaks, although native speakers pick up on a slight accent apparently. Thanks to her corrections, I speak better Italian now instead of my initial Roman slang. However, Italians generally have a really hard time placing my accent as a result of her tutlage. The guesses range far and wide: Polish, Romanian, Moldavian, Spanish...I've have even had some accuse me of lying when I say I'm American.

The five phrases I remember in French I now pronounce near flawlessly apparently, though that should be taken with a grain of salt as two of the four people who told me that were Quebecois.
posted by romakimmy at 7:42 AM on August 7, 2004

Yes, Mo Nickels, they can be taught. But nothing they know prepares them for it. Unless they really listen well and get good instruction that includes very specific "do this with your tongue" level input, it's very very hard for them to do. It's certainly very hard for them to do as well as someone who's been doing it subconsciously his whole life, hence the "accent" difference.
posted by scarabic at 6:09 PM on August 7, 2004

Americans just cannot make the hard-H sounds or the hocking-a-spit "kh" sound required in Arabic.

You mean it's difficult, right? They can do it, they just have to be taught.

I was taught by a book to make the hard-h, simply by the description "it's the sound you make when you fog up your glasses so you can wipe them off." Until I read that, though, I did not know how to make that sound. Virtually anybody can make any sound, IMO.

My theory on the accent thing is that using the correct accent just sounds strange to your foreign ears so you resist doing it. I can speak Hebrew with a decent accent I think, but I sound silly to myself, like I'm being snooty or something, so I often revert to American. This has the additional advantage of letting native speakers know they should speak slowly around you.
posted by callmejay at 7:59 PM on August 7, 2004

Accents are weird. When I was a preteen, I moved to London and soon began speaking a very broad, almost cockney accent (this despite an American mother). Then I moved to America and lost it in a year. I still pronounce my Ts a little more than most Americans and use the occassional British word or spelling and I apologize all the time, but all other trace of Brit is gone.

I spoke fluent French as a child and my accent is still terrific though my vocab is rusty. I do find it hard to make the right sounds the first few hours of arriving in France, but it all comes roaring back almost immediately.

I learned some Italian at 16 and I believe I speak it with more of a French accent than American (I hope anyway). And I never got the Italian trilled R really right, though I can do the French R beautifully. But I don't agree that it's a lost cause - I think if I moved to Italy, eventually I would sound native. (romakimmy sounds like a real romanaccia, at least to me!)

I think part of getting accents right is to start off kind of putting it on - sort of parodying the sound at first.
posted by CunningLinguist at 10:27 PM on August 7, 2004

Interesting topic. I agree with scarabic that there's a large element of personality involved (my mother, for instance, was much more willing to wing it and risk "making a fool of herself" in the countries we lived in than my father, who consequently never got good at the languages), but it's well established (I believe) that the ability to easily assimilate foreign languages goes down dramatically after a certain age (10? 12? I don't have studies at my fingertips). But that just means more work for the adult brain.
posted by languagehat at 9:52 AM on August 8, 2004

Ich bin Joes-Spleen:

The question posed by vacapinta, and the original claims made by joeclark in the thread vacapinta linked to, are phrased in terms of absolutes: "never," "impossible," "always." I think it's more true to say "hardly ever," "probably not," "mostly."

Oh, really? I wrote, emphasis added:

After puberty hits, the best you can hope for is native-like fluency, which rarely actually happens. You will never be a native speaker of a second language acquired in adulthood by definition.... [S]ome rare people you can't even tell were ever a speaker of another language. But most people will have detectable accents and grammatical faults in their second language.

Only one clear negative, and it's true.
posted by joeclark at 3:31 PM on August 8, 2004