# Bilinguist accents



## Lopes

Hi, 

I was wondering when someone who is complete bilinguistic would learn a third language, from which language he will get the accent speaking the third language. Assuming that he speaks both languages evenly well and evenly frequently. 

Does this happen to be the case with anyone here?


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## vince

If the bilingual person is learning the 3rd language from a book or from a bilingual instructor who speaks one of her languages, then she will pick up the accent from the language she is learning from.

I know someone who learned French from English and pronounces all the "u"'s as "ou"s, a classic English accent, even though they can say the "u" [IPA: y] sound perfectly well in a third language.


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## Kibramoa

I speak Spanish (L1) and English (L2) well, I'm fully bilingual and bicultural.  I do have a slight accent in English.  I first leaned French (L3) in the U.S. -then I did not take more lessons. Again years later in Mexico I took lessons again.  Some other years went by and studied again in the US. I've had native French teachers as well as Mexican and US. teachers.  At the university I had French roomates.  All this to explain that I've studied under different accents and shared household with native French speakers. I've had native-accent examples.  
I had the chance to travel to France and I made myself understood.  They would compliment me for my French and then ask where I was from. Apparently my Mexican Spanish accent carries over to French.  
I do not know if there is a rule for what accent you will have on your L3


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## DrLindenbrock

Hi guys,
this is certainly an interesting question for me and I can tell you about my case.
I am bilingual (Italian & English) although I do lack some vocabulary and some idiomatic expressions in English because I had all my schooling in Italian. I'm probably also a little faster in Italian when it comes down to writing.
Anyway, I think I can say I speak the two languages with no foreign accent.
I speak French fairly well and learned it in an Italian school - hence, in Italian and on Italian textbooks.
It would therefore seem logic I spoke French with an Italian accent.
On the contrary, during my stay in France people would always tell me that I had a _accent anglophone_.
I also have a Dutch friend and tried reading some sentences aloud on a newspaper (juste for the sake of it, I don't speak the language). He also said I had an American accent, but that doesn't surprise me because:
- I don't speak the language;
- both Dutch and English are Germanic languages, so my brain could have inconsciously tuned on the Germanic-language mode ... who knows?

One last thing: I've also studied a little Arabic and Persian, but no native speaker ever told me I have an English accent. On the other hand, they probably couldn't say whether I had an Italian accent, since they probablty weren't as used to it (at least compared to English accents).

I realize this is not a direct answer to the thread's question, but I just thought I'd share my own experience.

Regards


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## Laztana

Hi,

in my case I speak basque and spanish. Since I grew up in the Basque Country (in basque and in spanish), I speak spanish with the characteristic basque accent, though I don't have a very strong one.  when I speak in english with native speakers they can tell that I'm spanish, however, they can also tell that I sound different from other spanish people and I guess that it might be because of my basque accent. I wonder if this also happens to people from Cataluña.


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## Mei

Laztana said:


> Hi,
> 
> in my case I speak basque and spanish. Since I grew up in the Basque Country (in basque and in spanish), I speak spanish with the characteristic basque accent, though I don't have a very strong one.  when I speak in english with native speakers they can tell that I'm spanish, however, they can also tell that I sound different from other spanish people and I guess that it might be because of my basque accent. I wonder if this also happens to people from Cataluña.



Hi, 

Yes, it happened to me. I heard English people saying that they know I'm spanish but they didn't hear my accent before and it's because of catalan accent. 

Cheers


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## chics

Hello,

I'm bilingual Catalan and Spanish, too. Usually English people know it's a latin (Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, Romanian... French is different! haha) accent but they hesitate... they quite often think I'm Italian (!). Afterwards, when saying where I'm from, they doesn't find it much rare (they believe me) but anyway they say that it's not "the typical Spanish one".

Speaking in French I've a very strong accent, but they always ask me which it is. Not Spanish one, maybe not Catalan (would they recognise it?), maybe a mixture of them...

I learned English from British teachers and French from French ones.

Regards.


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## birus

> One last thing: I've also studied a little Arabic and Persian, but no native speaker ever told me I have an English accent. On the other hand, they probably couldn't say whether I had an Italian accent, since they probablty weren't as used to it (at least compared to English accents).


I think this is particularly true.
My example is almost off topic, but I think it may help:
I grew up in Torino (north of Italy) till I was 25, then moved to Naples (south of Italy) till now (29). I used to have a typical Torino accent, but I also have a special bent to take other regions' accents. So now my accent is almost completely neapolitan and no one in Torino would ever believe I was born and grown up there.

But something like two years ago, when I was in the "middle" of the shift between my northern and southern accent, it happened that:
- each person I spoke to in Naples would take me for a northern italian
- each person I spoke to in Torino would take me for a neapolitan
because each of them noticed only the part of my accent that was 'stranger' to them.

So it is possible in my opinion that a bilingual has both accents, but according to the person he speaks to, only one of the two accents may be noticed.


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## nichec

Lopes said:


> Hi,
> 
> I was wondering when someone who is complete bilinguistic would learn a third language, from which language he will get the accent speaking the third language. Assuming that he speaks both languages evenly well and evenly frequently.
> 
> Does this happen to be the case with anyone here?


 
When a Chinese/AE/Taiwanese speaker learns French, she (that's me )
has an English accent in her French (and in her Taiwanese too )


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## TimLA

Great question.

I think an interesting issue is *when* you learn the language.

I read many years ago that, in general, if you learn a language before the age of 12 (approximately),
most people will have not have a significant accent in the "learned" language - or perhaps better said -
they will acquire the accent of their environment.
If you learn a language after the age of 12, you often have your native "accent".

I've tried to apply this to people I meet, and, in general, the "rule" works.
People are often surprised when I guess how old they were when they immigrated to the US.
To me (just my opinion), a great example in the US is the rapid migration of Cubans to the US in the late 1960's.
Depending on their accent when they speak English, one can almost guess their age when they left Cuba (not always, but often).


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## chics

nichec said:


> When a Chinese/AE/Taiwanese speaker learns French, she (that's me )
> has an English accent in her French (and in her Taiwanese too )


Sure? I know some Chineses who speak also English and, talking in French (different levels), they have no English accent... I would be an "Oriental" one, as I can't distinguish a Chinese accent from Vietnamien or others (sorry...). But deffinitively not English!


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## chics

> I think an interesting issue is *when* you learn the language.


Yes, it seems that it ha something to do with phisical hindrances. When we grow our body changes, our face, our nose... also inside us; so specially the shape of our palate can adapt itself to make certain sounds but not after teenage. After that age we always can learn things, practice sounds and phonetics, etc. but we'll have little blocks (son accent, as least) because of our body.


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## Lopes

Thanks for all the answers!

Chics: Do you speak Spanish with a Catalan accent? Because then I'd say it's logical that you also speak other languages with that accent.


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## CrazyArcher

I speak Russian (L1), English (L2) and Hebrew (L3), and I speak only Hebrew with a noticable accent. People often don't consider it a Russian accent, and I was mistaken a number of times for an American because of my speech. Well, that's probably because I can't pronounce the uvular 'r' which is common in Israeli Hebrew, and neither pronounce it the Russian way (alveolar), instead pronouncing something like lateral flap. Well, I'm weird...


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## horusankh

Well, my case doesn't follow any rule. First of all, Spanish is my mother tongue, and I've lived in Mexico all my life, except for a year I spent in Quebec, so most of my life I've lived, talked, and thought in Spanish, I studied English (L2) since my childhood, French (L3) from High School and German (L4) when I finished College. I would have guessed that I have a Spanish accent (well, Mexican ), although I've never been told what my accent is like in English or French, but several times I've been told by Germans and Austrians that my accent when I speak German is... French . I don't know why.


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## chics

Lopes said:


> Do you speak Spanish with a Catalan accent? Because then I'd say it's logical that you also speak other languages with that accent.


 I didn't say that... most of times people decide that the most similar is Italian, others (few) Portuguese...


I don't have Spanish accent when speaking in Catalan and -in my country- I don't have Catalan accent when speaking Spanish... But it happens what birus told before; it's normal not having any accent where you've been born... so only when I go out of Catalonia it's noticed that I could come from there. I must say, however, that afterwards, Spanish (not Catalan) people usually say that I "have not much accent, for being Catalan".  
And I should also explain that there we have a special way of talking in Spanish, an accent from Catalonia in Spanish as well! :-S independently of the fact of speaking or not Catalan. As there is also an Andalucian accent and others.

Greetings.


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## argentina84

I speak Spanish (L1) and English as a foreign language, but I am currently studying Italian, French and Dutch. It is very funny because native speakers of English say that I have a slightly Spanish accent when I speak English, and a slightly English accent when I speak Spanish! 

And someone said that in Buenos Aires we speak with an Italian accent. It's called the "porteño" accent here. "Porteño" comes from the Spanish word for the English " port/harbour". It is very interesting, since most of the inmigrants during the first part of the last century were from Italy, and settled down in Buenos Aires. 

I should also add that I have problems to understand the French syntax because I uncounciously compare it to the English one...when I realize and compare it to the Spanish one..it is much easier to grasp it. 

Regards


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## PrincessLyka

I am French mothertongue, almost totally bilingual with English (I still miss the last 5%!). The interpretation of my accent when I speak English depends of where I am:
- in Belgium : people think I am American (maybe under my hubby's influence)
- in the States: anything from light French to extremely strong French, German, including Ethiopian (serious!) and Oriental. I wouldn't know what an Ethiopian accent sounds like - never met anyone from that region.
- in South Africa: definitely slightly French, sometimes German, sometime Israeli, even Russian....

I must really be speaking in a very strange manner... I think accents are like marketing - everything is in the perception


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## Cherubino

My native tongue is English, and whilst I'm still learning French (and only started at twelve), I can say that I speak it with virtually no foreign accent. However, my third language (learning) is Russian, and my teacher, who's Ukrainian, tells me that my accent in Russian sounds rather French, whereas a friend of mine, who's Latvian, thinks I sound English, i.e. from London.


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## elizabeth_b

I learnt the Spanish, Portuguese and French almost at the same time when I was little child, so I don't have an foreign accent for any of the three.  At School I learnt English.  Basically what happens to me is that i.e.  I use to have carioca's accent in portuguese, because we lived a lot of years at Rio de Janeiro, but as we moved to Mexico, I spent a lot of time without hearing people speaking portuguese.  So, now I'm working with people from São Paulo, and I'm speaking as Paulista.    
My french now is good, but as I haven't practice it lately I can hear that I have some things that sounds a little spanish.    
I saw a cientific program in which they explain that when you're born you have the ability to "hear" any sound, but you loose this ability as you grow up because you select the sounds that are used in your environment.  So, as other languages have sounds you don't use in your native language, you start having problems to reproduce them.


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## Nizo

This is a fascinating discussion!  I know a man who was raised in Morocco by Danish parents.  He attended French schools.  He speaks native French and Danish.  What is interesting is that when he speaks English -- which he does perfectly -- he speaks with a heavy Danish accent, rather than a French accent.  I suppose he learned English mostly from his Danish parents!


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## Sepia

Nizo said:


> This is a fascinating discussion! I know a man who was raised in Morocco by Danish parents. He attended French schools. He speaks native French and Danish. What is interesting is that when he speaks English -- which he does perfectly -- he speaks with a heavy Danish accent, rather than a French accent. I suppose he learned English mostly from his Danish parents!


 
Have you ever noticed if he moves his eyebrows a lot when he speaks either of these languages? ("Accents" do not only exist in the pronounciation but also in body-language und mimics).


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## Idiomático

My native language is Spanish, but I learned English as a child and moved to the United States at age 17 (I am now 78). I learned French when I was in my early 20s and lived in Paris 14 years. Now I am back in the US and when I ask native Americans if they can identify my accent they tell me I don't have one. Spaniards who hear my Spanish can tell that I am Latin American but are unable to place me in a specific country. Nor can Latin Americans tell what country I come from. If I tell a French person in French that I am from the US, he or she will look puzzled and and generally fail to identify my accent as Spanish. I get a similar reaction when I address Italians in Italian (a language I've been studying for three years), but most--although not all--will end up identifying my accent as Spanish.


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## iaf

Sepia said:


> Have you ever noticed if he moves his eyebrows a lot when he speaks either of these languages? ("Accents" do not only exist in the pronounciation but also in body-language und mimics).



Good point!
And also the voice changes according to the language. I'm bilingual in spanish and german. When I speak in spanish my voice becomes remarkably higher, in german it gets lower and I reduce my mimics... people made me notice it.

For speaking or writing english I lean on german, for italian I take spanish (quite logical ). For french it's a mixture: basically spanish for the constructions, and for the pronunciation I feel german nearer... but I'm not quite sure .


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## Laztana

Sepia said:


> Have you ever noticed if he moves his eyebrows a lot when he speaks either of these languages? ("Accents" do not only exist in the pronounciation but also in body-language und mimics).



That's true, I've noticed that when spanish people speak in english, we do it quite "softly", whereas in spanish we may speak much louder. In my case, I've also noticed that in english I don't move or open my lips as much as in spanish, even when performing the same sounds (like saying my name (spanish name) in the middle of an english or spanish sentence). Another point is that we (spanish people) are often more polite in english than in spanish, for instance, in english I would say "Could you please give me that?" whereas in spanish I would say "¿me das eso?". However, when I speak in english I move my hands a lot (I do it in spanish as well) and that is often considered as a sign of being either spanish or italian.


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## panjabigator

Laztana said:


> That's true, I've noticed that when spanish people speak in english, we do it quite "softly", whereas in spanish we may speak much louder. In my case, I've also noticed that in english I don't move or open my lips as much as in spanish, even when performing the same sounds (like saying my name (spanish name) in the middle of an english or spanish sentence). Another point is that we (spanish people) are often more polite in english than in spanish, for instance, in english I would say "Could you please give me that?" whereas in spanish I would say "¿me das eso?". However, when I speak in english I move my hands a lot (I do it in spanish as well) and that is often considered as a sign of being either spanish or italian.




Y puedes decir algo sobre tu acento cuando hablas en euskadi? Cuando tu pronuncias tu nombre en ambos idiomas, hay una diferencia notable?


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## Laztana

panjabigator said:


> Y puedes decir algo sobre tu acento cuando hablas en euskadi? Cuando tu pronuncias tu nombre en ambos idiomas, hay una diferencia notable?



Hola,

si digo mi nombre hablando en castellano o en euskera suena igual. sin embargo, si lo digo en inglés en el medio de una frase, al "gesticular" menos con los labios suena distinto.


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## Calamitintin

During my oral examination of Italian, the teacher asked me whether I could speak German. I told her I was learning it for 5 years (and not fluent speaking or anything), and she answered "I'm not surprised, you have a German accent" .
I'm now living in Germany for 1 year, and I can assure you that a German needn't more than 2 or 3 words to identify me as French .
++


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## Lopes

panjabigator and Laztana, could you please speak in English?


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## Laztana

Lopes said:


> panjabigator and Laztana, could you please speak in English?


 
Sorry Lopes, I didn't realise 

panjabigator asked me if my name also sounded different when I speak in basque or in spanish in my hometown. I answered that if I say my name while speaking either in basque or in spanish there will be no difference. However, since in english the way I move my mouth to speak is different (and that affects particularly to the sound of the vowels), if I say my name in the middle of an english sentence, it will sound slightly different (especially the "o" letter).


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## Lopes

Makes me think, although I have an Italian first name, I don't pronounce it different when I introduce myself in Italian, compared to in Dutch. ( I do pronounce the name of my city differently in Dutch than in any other language, Amsterdám compared to Ámsterdam, but that's a different discussion  )


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## argentina84

Laztana said:


> Another point is that we (spanish people) are often more polite in english than in spanish, for instance, in english I would say "Could you please give me that?" whereas in spanish I would say "¿me das eso?". However, when I speak in english I move my hands a lot (I do it in spanish as well) and that is often considered as a sign of being either spanish or italian.


 
Yes! Right! I always say that I am much nicer in English..because I don't know how to argue therefore I cannot be impolite in my foreign language! hahaha And I have a natural high pitch..which has helped me a lot to sound English...


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## spacealligator

I will quickly give my linguistic background and then try to extract some overarching theoretical conclusions, as much I can. My dad is half-Spanish, half-Russian and raised in Cuba - he is perfectly bilingual in Spanish and Russian. I will come back to his accents in a second. I was born and raised in Russia to him and my mom, who is Russian. I was taught some Spanish since I was a baby and had private tutors. From the age of 7, I had daily instruction in English at school. At age 13, I moved to the U.S., where I reside now, where I finished junior high, high school, university, and graduate school. In high school I took classes of "español para hispanoparlantes," which was more or less like classes in a Mexican or Spanish high school. I have also travelled extensively in Spain and Mexico more than once. I am nearly perfectly trilingual in Russian-English-Spanish, with Spanish being slightly weaker because I have never lived in a Spanish-speaking country for a long stretch of time (unless you count Southern California as a Spanish-speaking country).

As to the accents - when my dad speaks English, he sounds like he relies on his Spanish and not his Russian, which is the right thing to do, at least when it comes to vowels. As to my own accents, things are very complicated. There are just so many variables. While I do not have any "accent" in Russian, since it's my native tongue, people from Russia can tell that I do not live there and perhaps never even lived there, but just managed to learn the language very well. The only way they know for sure that I am a native Russian speaker is once they get a feel for my range of vocabulary and familiarity with language, that they know for certain that I am a native speaker.

With English, it's almost the opposite, people immediately assume that I am a native speaker and the vast majority continue to believe that until I specifically tell them that I am not. Only a few people, and they are almost always Anglo-Saxon and Americans in many generations, would after several minutes of intense conversation realize that there is a hint of an accent, without usually being able to trace it to a specific origin. In fact, I have been told that my accent in English has elements of Russian pronunciation and Spanish intonation - it's a mixture. Moreover, with a slight effort of the will - I can make all accent disappear, making my English speech either conform more to the Standardized American English or the Southern California English, or even the Southern variety - which is fun. I do not change my pronunciation of the words, only the intonation, and sometimes the vocabulary - slightly. The reason why I do not speak without accent in English is because that would require me to speak like people speak on television and in the Upper Midwest - and I have nothing to do with either. I already speak English well enough that I do not care to make the effort. I am just too lazy to watch my slight accent which pops up only once in a while.

Finally, with Spanish, which would be my third language (even though I started learning Spanish before I started learning English, while a little kid), things are even more complicated. I find the pronunciation in Spanish easier than English (if coming from Russian), and the language more intuitive than the Germanic English. While a kid, I was taught the Castillian Spanish of Madrid and northward, but when I moved to California, ordering a "bocadillo" at a McDonald's or refering to an apartment as a "piso" and a car as "coche" and using the ceceo made life more difficult. So I learned to speak like Mexicans do, which is easier any way. Even the colorful Spanish curses just seem silly to Mexicans and "cabron" is a term of indearment as much as an insult. Ever since I was a kid, I have also listened to a lot of Cuban and Puertorican music and picked up some of the Cuban accent from my dad (when I wanted to). 

So, in Spanish, I have no specific accent, it's a hodge-podge of pronunciations that depends on the situation and country. People know that I am not a native-speaker only after a few minutes when I start looking for words or slow down my speech. To Mexicans I continue to sound Spanish, unless I makes a specific effort to speak like a Mexican. This is due primarily to the pronunciation of the letter "s", I can't get rid of the Northern Spanish round and thick "s" compared to the flat Mexican "s." It actually happens to me in Spain too. In the south, in Andalucia, people at first think I am from the North because I have a hyper-Northern pronunciation. In Catalonia, they immediately assume that I am from the North, which flatters me, of course (wow, they think I am a Spaniard!), but then treat me like crap and talk to me in Catalan. Finally, I can pretty easily adopt the Cuban accent, which will fool the Spanish and the Mexicans, but not the Caribbeans themselves (certainly not Cubans).

Just to sum up what I think - I believe that accent largely depends on perception, more than anything else - accent is what other people think you sound like, not what you really sound like. If you have a good ear for languages and your speaking apparatus is well trained, you can change your accent. I can make my English sound more Russian or more Spanish. Plus, gesticulation and facial expressions, as mentioned, are part of the accent as seen by your audience.

Being bilingual does not necessarily help in learning a third language or getting rid of the accent. It only helps, if the the sound scheme is similar. For instance, going from Spanish to Italian is doable, and one can get rid of the accent with enough work. But from Russian to Polish, not so easy - there are sounds in Polish that are completely foreign to Russian, even though the languages are similar.

Generally I agree that unless you learn a language (start using these sounds) before 12-13, it is highly unlikely you will speak the language without an accent (and being bilingual or not makes no difference), but there are people out there who have a very good ear and mimicry abilities who may do so later in life.


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## elizabeth_b

iaf said:


> Good point!
> And also the voice changes according to the language. I'm bilingual in spanish and german. When I speak in spanish my voice becomes remarkably higher, in german it gets lower and I reduce my mimics... people made me notice it.


 
This is an interesting thing.  My brasilian friends told me that when they hear me speaking spanish it seems that I'm a different person.  They say that I "sound" like if I am someone else than the person whou speaks portuguese.  I though that they were exagerating!  But now I see it's really possible because the voice changes!


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## spacealligator

you can and you cannot be perfectly bilingual... you can, because it is not that difficult - and you don't have to know car terminology and/or medical terms in both languages; in fact, you don't have to know them in either, like most people don't

at the same time, one language will always be closer to your heart because that is the language you heard in the first few days and weeks of your life, usually from your mother - hence "mother tongue," "la lengua materna;" you may not even know it as well as the other language (especially in some technical aspects).... but you will always feel closer to that language than the other for purely psychological/emotional reasons

but this thread is about accents, so let's come back to that


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## Horazio

Lopes said:


> Hi,
> I was wondering when someone who is complete bilinguistic would learn a third language, from which language he will get the accent speaking the third language.


 
He will use the language that's phonetically closer to the target language. Or even a combination of both since each language has its own set of sounds.


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## scotinfrance

Foreign accents are a blessing really.

I am cursed with automatic mimicry, adapting my speech to the people I am with. This means that when I come out with a few words of a language I have been looking at (learning would be to strong a word), the natives think I must be word-perfect and accelerate their flow, assuming I will understand everything.

This does not mean that I speak foreign languages without an accent, just that my imitation is so convincing, that people ignore the inaccuracies they may hear.

Vivent les accents étrangers ! 

MS


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## Horazio

...this might sound a bit rude but truste me : people are just totally clueless when it comes to identify/describe "accents" unless they're linguists or unless they really have some experience in the field.


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## Tetabiakti

Lopes said:


> Hi,
> 
> I was wondering when someone who is complete bilinguistic would learn a third language, from which language he will get the accent speaking the third language. Assuming that he speaks both languages evenly well and evenly frequently.
> 
> Does this happen to be the case with anyone here?


 
I'm a native speaker of Dutch, English being my second language. I've been learning Spanish for a couple of years now, and I often go to English-language forums where 'Hispanophiles' meet. Even though I'm not fully bilingual, I have noticed how my English affects my Spanish in several ways, especially regarding vocab and sentence structure. This may be a direct result of spending so much time on those English-language forums.


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## chics

Hello!

I just wanted to note you taht here in this thread we are actually melting two different cases, real bilingual people, with two mother tongues, and people that asume that they have learn one or more languages up to "bilingual" level, and what happen when they learn next languages.

I don't say that some are better or worser than others, only that -for the topic we are talking here- they are cases completely differents.

Greetings.


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## spacealligator

How are these cases different? How do you distinguish between people who are "truly" bilingual and bilingual in that they know the language they learned second as well or better than their first language? Can a person even be "truly" bilingual in a sense that they learned 2 languages equally well equally early? Most families speak one language at home most of the time - it's not as if one parent speaks only one language and the other one speaks only a different one all the time. So, here, one language must be more used, and therefore, better known. What about the case when one language is spoken at home, but everyone else in the country speaks a different language. The kid's first language is the language spoken at home. It may even be the kid's only language till he goes to school. But very quickly, he will learn the language of the country as well or better than the language he had spoken at home. Is this person "truly" bilingual?

Most importantly, how is this difference important for learning how to pronounce when learning a third language?


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## Lavinia.dNP

I think that I can consider myself a *real bilingual who learned a 3rd language*.

Here is my case :

I was born from Italian parents and lived in France from the age of 2 to the age of 11.
The result is that *I learned French and Italian at the same time*, therefore I can say that I've got two mother tongues.

Concerning *English,* I studied it at school from the age of 10 and attended an *interpreter's school*, but never lived in an English speaking country.
The result is that I have a very good knowledge of English (I can perform a simultaneous translation), but of course, I'm not like a native speaker.

*In French* : I came back to France some 5 years ago, and when I speak French some people tell me that I have no accent at all, and others tell me that there is a very slight accent but it can be mistaken with some *regional french accent*.

*In English* : When I meet some English native speakers I always ask them what does my accent sond like in English, and they say that I speak English very well, like someone who's lived for about 5 years in England, and *my accent sounds more or less* *hispanic* (therefore Italian, I assume).

*In Italian*, the strange thing is that my friends tell me that since I moved back to france I speak Italian differently.
*It's like speaking French had given some "softness" to my Italian* : actually this seems logical to me, since Italian is spoken some 10 db louder than French.


Here is my contribution, I hope it helps


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## Lavinia.dNP

spacealligator said:


> How are these cases different? How do you distinguish between people who are "truly" bilingual and bilingual in that they know the language they learned second as well or better than their first language? Can a person even be "truly" bilingual in a sense that they learned 2 languages equally well equally early? Most families speak one language at home most of the time - it's not as if one parent speaks only one language and the other one speaks only a different one all the time. So, here, one language must be more used, and therefore, better known. What about the case when one language is spoken at home, but everyone else in the country speaks a different language. The kid's first language is the language spoken at home. It may even be the kid's only language till he goes to school. But very quickly, he will learn the language of the country as well or better than the language he had spoken at home. Is this person "truly" bilingual?
> 
> Most importantly, how is this difference important for learning how to pronounce when learning a third language?


 

I can tell you about my experience : I grew up in France wit Italian parents, and moved back to Italy when I was 11.

While I was in France, speaking French or Italian hardly made any difference to me, and when we went to Sicily on holidays I was perfectly confident about my Italian.

Things started to change when I was 11 and we moved to Italy.
There I had to attend an Italian school, and I realized that I didn't master the language like all my classmates, especially in writing. But within the first year I easily reached the level of a native speaker.

5 years ago, I moved back to France, and I noticed that I missed some idiomatic expressions. I guess that this is due to the fact that I hadn't been in France for some 20 years and the language had evolved.
This gap also was filled very quickly, within a few months, but some people still tell me that I have a very slight accent, like some unidentified French regional accent.

That's a real mistery to me, because French is also my native language : I lived in France from the age of 2 to 11.


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## Horazio

Lavinia.dNP said:


> That's a real mistery to me, because French is also my native language : I lived in France from the age of 2 to 11.


 
Even bilinguals have a "prime language" or technically called L1 (language 1). L1 can change depending on your current linguistic environment.

Remember that not being (referring to your poor writing at school) "literate" does not mean you're not bilingual and viceversa, being fluent doesn't mean your native.

For example,I'm bilingual spanish/italian but my writing skills are much better in italian.


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## cantiga

Hi,
I speak Polish (L1), Spanish (L2) at a native level, high level English (L3) and lower intermediate French. The question is, I speak Spanish with some accent (I arrived at the age of 15) but not a tipical Polish one. I speak English and French with Spanish accent becuase I learned them in Spain. I have and advantage of Polish speakers, we can pronounce sounds that are not used in many languages. 

A scientific explanation I´ve heart about second language learning is that they develop in a different region of the brain and I think that the accent and other language transfer characteristics depend mostly on the link between the native language and the second or third languge. For Exmaple I learned French and English through Spanish (in a spanish clasroom, traslating to Spanish). 

In one ocasion I was unable to traslate directly from English into Polish! I had to do it through Spanish. I´m not an expert but I´ve heart about neuronal connections which occur when we think and if we are used to translate form Spanish to English this will be the preferent connection. 

I think bilingualism is fascinating! I hope to continue reading and comenting on these qustions.


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## brau

A most interesting discussion.

I concur with many of the things Catalan native speakers have said here. I am a native speaker of Valencian Catalan, and when I speak English, I'm told I have a slight accent but "not the typical Spanish one". I guess that's because Valencian Catalan has many of the sounds English has but Spanish lacks, and thus shape the "typical Spanish accent". Mainly the "j" sound in English (as in "just"), the "sh" sound, and the soft "s" sound (as in "rose"), which non-catalan speaking Spaniards find hard to master, but that I grew up pronouncing. So when I say "She was a bit jealous", I won't say "See wass a bit yelous", with the typical Spanish accent. 

However, one of my teachers (Irishman) told me once I had the tendency to voice the English "sh" sound when in final position (like the "g" in "genre" or the "s" in "leisure"), so when I said "English is very easy", I'd pronounce the "sh" that way, like the French "j" in "je". And that was because in my dialect of Catalan the final "sh" sound is usually voiced.


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## tpettit

Hi
I'm bilingual in French and English, having learnt both at the same time, but right now I'd say my "prime language" is French since I live in France. It always takes a few days' time to adapt to English when I travel to English speaking countries after having spent a long time speaking French, and vice-versa. Anyway, I've been learning Spanish for quite a few years now, and people often say I have an English accent in Spanish, which is quite peculiar since I took Spanish courses in France, which French teachers. I also use English intonations in Spanish, which makes my accent all the more obvious. But I tend to use them in French too, which sounds confusing to French ears. (French and English intonations to express sarcasm, doubt, and many other feelings are extremely different)


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## tpettit

iaf said:


> Good point!
> And also the voice changes according to the language. I'm bilingual in spanish and german. When I speak in spanish my voice becomes remarkably higher, in german it gets lower and I reduce my mimics... people made me notice it.
> 
> For speaking or writing english I lean on german, for italian I take spanish (quite logical ). For french it's a mixture: basically spanish for the constructions, and for the pronunciation I feel german nearer... but I'm not quite sure .


 
That is so true! My voice gets deeper and creekier when i speak English, and "clearer" in French.


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## Tetabiakti

tpettit said:


> That is so true! My voice gets deeper and creekier when i speak English, and "clearer" in French.


 
My voice also gets deeper when I speak English. Weird!


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## Gris

A friend of mine is bilingual in Spanish and Norwegian. She also speaks French and English and
 
When she speaks french she has a strong spanish accent.
When she speaks english she has a norwegian accent.

I think that comes from the phonetical proximities of these languages.

Otherwise, I’m a case similar to Birus: I’m from Argentina, but I live in Spain. Everyone in Spain realises I’m from Argentina when I speak, but when I go there, my family laugh of me because they say I’m a spaniard now.


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## Ayazid

Gris said:


> A friend of mine is bilingual in Spanish and Norwegian. She also speaks French and English and
> 
> When she speaks french she has a strong spanish accent.
> When she speaks english she has a norwegian accent.
> 
> I think that comes from the phonetical proximities of these languages.



I am not pretty sure about English and Norwegian, but do you really think that French and Spanish are phonetically close to each other?


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## Gris

To Ayaziz

It's truth that they are not really close...then I don't know
She says when she speaks english she tends instinctively to set the mouth pretty much like in norwegian, and when she speaks french quite like in spanish..
Maybe that's why she has that accent speaking french!


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