Similar story: a good friend of mine was born and raised in Dublin, and moved to the U.S. 18 years ago. To us Americans, she still has a prominent Irish accent (though, certainly, it’s a much softer accent than you’d hear from someone who still lived in Dublin). But, her family back in Dublin feel that she now has an American accent. 
I read Pepin’s autobiography, and remember that when he first tried out to do television cooking, the producer told him that they loved his accent.
He said, “what accent?”
And yes, twickster, I have a crush on the voice, too. In his autobiography are many pictures of him when he was a young man, and he was very hot. Not that he isn’t a looker for an older man, too.
Another Pepin factoid: he was once involved in a horrific car crash, and spent many months in a hospital with multiple broken bones. After I read that, I noticed that he hobbles as he walks around his television kitchen.
When I was a child, my parents employed a refugee from the Hungarian uprising in 1957. He started working for them in January, and I was born in May. When I was ten or so, he remarked that “You and I both came to this country the same year, but you speak English so much better than I do!”.
I’m going to provide a counter-anecdote to stories of moving to another country in one’s 20’s and keeping their accent: I moved to the UK at age 22 and by age 23 I already had people asking me which city in Wales I came from. In my wedding video (age 24) I’m speaking with a very clear southern Welsh accent. My ex-wife’s family was from Wales and I must have been subconsciously imitating her. When I came back to the US on visits I couldn’t even convince people I was from the US any more–only two years after I’d lived there full time! Yet when I moved back to the US in 2000 my accent reverted back to as it was before I left, and it’s been that way ever since.
So I guess some people keep their childhood accent. I think there is some interest in keeping it. For me, it was fitting in at a place where Americans were somewhat frowned upon. For Pepin, it might be sounding authentic. It’s a possibility.
I have two contrasting stories from my family that illustrate the situation being discussed in this thread:
My parents came to the US from Hungary as young adults (in their mid to late 20s). They have been here over 50 years, speak English fluently but still have very strong Hungarian accents.
My cousin came to the US from Hungary as a five year old child. She does not have a trace of an accent when she speaks English. Nobody would ever tell that she was not born in the US.
It probably didn’t help with the accent to have a lot of other Polish folks around.
I don’t understand the question.
I’ve heard somewhere 6th year is the cutoff year before your tongue ‘stiffens’(?). The retention of your mother tongue accent gets only worse the older you start learning/speaking a new language. It’s a bit like your tongue getting stiffened and articulated that it becomes difficult to bend certain ways like bending your arm backwards.
I think fluency has a lot to do with how much you interact and use the new language as well as to what degree you continue to have contact with your original language.
It has to do with memory, is my guess. English is my first language, however, when I was 8 we (family) lived in France and I went to a French school (and learned French). Now both my English and my French are impeccable… I can roll my r’s with the best of them and my Virginia southern is unmistakably native. It is something that is learned at a young age… that’s my only explanation.
But neither English nor French uses a rolled r. Unless you’re Henry Higgins talking about the rain in Spain.
C’est pas vrai. Vivre la France.
All three have rolled r’s… from the back of the throat. Not the same as Henry Higgins.
That’s a uvular consonant, not rolled.
That’s not a “rolled” r, that’s a guttural r. At least I’ve never heard anyone refer to the French guttural r as a roll. This is a rolled r. It comes from the front of the mouth.
I have met a few people from Lebanon who speak fluent French–but roll their r’s (just like Spanish or Italian). It’s quite strange if you’re not used to it.
My SIL emigrated to the US from Poland when she was 18 or so, and still has a pronounced Polish accent. She’s now 42. As far as I know, while she did live in Racine, WI, she didn’t live too closely to any other Poles (there is a large Polish community in Milwaukee and surrounding towns/suburbs). However, another friend emigrated to the US with her family when she was only 3, and while she speaks Polish fluently, you’d never guess she wasn’t from Wisconsin with her American accent.
My parents-in-law moved up nort’ to Wisconsin 25 years ago from Oklahoma, and they still have pronounced Oklahoman accents. And when I studied abroad in Australia for a year, I didn’t pick up any Australian accent (tho’ I was able to mimic it better).
It’s my opinion that most people don’t lose their accents, depending on age. I know that there are some who do (like **Duke **above) but I couldn’t speculate as to what mechanism drives it.
Or go to the South in France – rolled/trilled 'r’s are in abundance.
What I’ve always heard is that the less social pressure to adopt a local accent, the less that accent shall be applied. Parisian French, especially, along with maybe some variant of UK, has a sort of prestige in America that may disincline native speakers of, say, Parisian French, to make any effort to assimilate.
You are speaking of Arnold here, right?
I have no anecdotal experience that suggests someone can end up sounding like a native speaker once they start assimilating in their mid-twenties. I’d be surprised if he did lose the accent.
Also, look at Henry Kissinger…
You are a celebrity.
You come from another country and you have an accent (i.e., a French accent).
Q) Do you really think that you and your agent are going to let that accent ‘disappear?’
It is what makes this individual a … celebrity.
Wolfgang Puck does it and so does Jacques Pépin!
By-the-way OP: Jacques Pépin called and he wants his accent mark back (an accent acute [é]).
My ex-boss has probably been in the U.S. – though not necessarily speaking English – for longer than I’ve been anywhere, and has a heavy accent. I doubt he’s ever found it a hinderance, and in some circumstances it probably particularly suited the image he wished to present.