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0 pointsrconti9y ago0 comments

It's very strange how some people can add or drop accents at will, and others can move away from their home country at a young age and simply NEVER lose their accent.

I work for a company that moved from Paris to California, so we have a large number of native French speakers who still work with us; it's an interesting dynamic.

0 comments

stuxnet799y ago

Accent is fluid and can change when you are young but by the time you are 15/16 it becomes difficult to "lose" your native accent regardless of the amount of exposure you have to a different language. This has been scientifically validated (can't find any relevant papers at the moment to link you to though).

TulliusCicero9y ago

He's not talking about losing it completely though. Some people are able to mostly lose their accent and sound relatively close to a native, others retain a very strong accent despite having lived in a new country for many years.

switch0079y ago

I find it strange too. My grandmother moved to England from Italy over 60 years ago but she sounds like she arrived a couple of weeks ago. I think it's a combination of wanting to maintain her Italian identity and talking daily/weekly to other people in Italian. It must take effort, even if subconsciously (e.g. wanting to fit in, thinking it affects the way people perceive you, not being understood etc), because it clearly doesn't happen automatically.

tonfa9y ago

To be fair, I personally enjoy working in a diverse environment with so many accents, and at least for the european ones I don't have any trouble (international english is the working language, native english speakers are not a majority in my office and there are over 50 different countries represented). Personally unless I feel like people have trouble understanding me, I don't make too much effort to cover my (french) accent.

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