I have always wondered what my Spanish accent says about me, too. I’m usually told I sound Cuban, but no one ever tells me whether it’s good or bad or ugly or what. People are too kind to tell you something like that to your face, usually.
And obviously, I could listen to yours and you to mine, but all we’d be able to tell is that they are (probably) different. But not how nor how the accents are perceived by native speakers.
As far as the OP goes, think about the accents you hear from non-native English speakers. . . Some of them are attractive (like my Dominican friend) and some of them are awful (like this crazy Korean customer of mine). I would say simply, “it depends.”
Well, I used to work in the London office of a German firm. Our CEO was English, but learned German after he took the job. He once went to the Dusseldorf office and addressed the German employees in German. They told me afterwards that he sounded “cute”, and that this is quite common - Germans often find this about English speakers speaking German.
For my only time in the US I must say I was beating women off with a stick (metaphorically) which I can only put down to my English accent (presumably coupled with my quirky good looks). Whereas in England my RP tones just make people assume I had a privileged upbringing…
Sorry, dude, but that is one terrible OP. I think you are trying to ask if those who are native English-speakers sound sexy when speaking a foreign language. But as you can tell from the responses, your OP was not clear. The phrase “English accents” means “British accents.” And yes, they are sexy as hell.
Brynda, married to a Yorkshireman who gets comments every day here in the US about his sexy accent
Oh, and if that is what you are asking, I don’t know. No one has ever remarked on my “cute American accent” when I am speaking German, though.
It was pretty clear to me. I think people just weren’t reading it, or choosing to ignore it. I don’t see what’s ambiguous about this line:
With my only fluent language being English, I’d have to say that it sounds like an American speaking in Xxxx. Just like we can generally tell if a person is Scottish, Indian, etc. I wouldn’t be able to describe any accent of spoken English in words, though, so I certainly wouldn’t be able to do so for another language.
I’m Southern and assuming you do have a generalized Midwest accent, you sound like pretty much any other American to me. Of course, I’ve been told my accent is really slight (I posted a sample in Sunspace’s dialect thread if you’re curious) and have a tin ear besides so I have no idea how much that really means to you.
I work in a call center and had a bilingual agent call to translate for a Spanish speaker about an hour ago. He has a really noticeable Southern/Midwestern accent (I’d guess he was from Arkansas, Oklahoma, or some other state in that region) and, if anything, I could hear it even more when he spoke to the customer in Spanish. I can only imagine how odd that must sound to a native speaker.
An english accent used to make me go from zero to “take off your pants” in about five seconds.
That all changed now that I have a fussy pocket-sized english boss. When he says my voice in that accent it makes my skin crawl. If he says status as “state-us” or “schedule” as “shed-uel” one more time I’m going to light myself on fire.
My German colleagues meant cute in the sense that teddy bears and cats are cute, rather than cute as in “sexy”. At least, I think that’s what they meant.
[QUOTE=Argent Towers]
Dude - flirting is my hobby. Any woman, any age. My only regret is that I currently have a girlfriend so I can’t ever go anywhere with it without cheating on her, which I wouldn’t.
QUOTE]
Dude, how do you do that? I honestly don’t know what to say to a woman after the initial “hi.”
I think some people misunderstood the question because of the thread title. I know when I read it it wasn’t a nanosecond before I thought “oh hells yes, do you even need to ask?”.
Sort of off topic but sometimes my English boyfriend gets irritated when people ask him where he’s from or comment on his accent, to which I reply, eyes rolling, “yeah but it’s gotten you laid a lot hasn’t it ?” (not referring to myself, just in general).
So, while I have no idea, not knowing any language other than English, I’d bet that Americans sound sexy to others when speaking their language. People just tend to like accents, no?
My amour, who is a Spanish woman who also speaks fluent French, absolutely loves it when I attempt to use my bad schoolboy French. Her description is “tu est trop mignon” (“you are too cute”), and yes, she means as in bears/cats/etc.
Of course, she sounds sexy as hell when she speaks English, but then again she sounds good in any language, IMO.
