# Are there American (US) accents in languages other than English? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 19, 2011, 4:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-american-us-accents-in-languages-other-than-english/582411 "2011-05-19T04:11:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Great\_Antibob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Great\_Antibob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Great_Antibob)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2011, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-american-us-accents-in-languages-other-than-english/582411/21 "2011-05-19T16:01:34Z")
> [@HazelNutCoffee](#): > > Second generation Korean Americans speak Korean with a strong American accent, and usually their Korean contains a lot of “Konglish” - for example, they’ll add the -ing ending to Korean verbs. This sort of describes me and a couple of my cousins. Couldn’t pass as completely native speakers, but we’ve been told our accents could pass unnoticed for quite a while, except for the lack of vocabulary. Some of the strangeness is from the American English but the rest is my father has a Seoul accent while my mother still has a very slight accent from more of the southern part of the peninsula. So, that’s another thing. The parents themselves might speak the same language but with different accents. My brother and other cousins, on the other hand, speak Korean with a Memphis river delta drawl. It’s…interesting. I’ve never heard the -ing ending on words, but that could be a regionalism in other parts of the US. ---
**Author:** ![Balthisar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/balthisar/32/2825_2.png) [@Balthisar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balthisar)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2011, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-american-us-accents-in-languages-other-than-english/582411/22 "2011-05-19T17:09:18Z")
> [@installLSC](#): > > My family has been in the US for over a hundred years, mostly in the Brownsville area of Texas. They often claim the brand of Spanish they speak amongst themselves is so different than most Mexican immigrants (who usually are first or second generation in this area) that they have real difficulty understanding them. Is this accurate? And if so, what would that Southern Texas dialect be called? I wonder if that’s a class thing, though. When in Mexico I typically deal with middle class professionals, and live in upper middle-class neighborhoods, and pretty much anywhere in the country that I deal with educated, middle-class people I have no problem understanding them (I’m a non-native Speaker). But then when having to deal with uneducated, predominantly poor people, they’re hard for me to understand. It’s like they’re speak “lazily.” Their words kind of mush together like it’s too much effort for them to enunciate well. And of course the overwhelming majority of immigrants from Mexico are the poor and uneducated. > [@Acsenray](#): > > Any American who learns a non-English language after a certain age is likely to have an “American” accent in that language. That’s the way it works. Like I do, in Spanish. But I think what the OP is asking is, do communities of Americans who natively speak a non-English language have an accent that’s recognizable as “American” when speaking to their countrymen back in the old country? In the case of Spanish, then, the question would be not whether I (an American) am picked out as an American in Mexico (I am, btw), but whether Tejanos are picked out as Americans. I guess that would depend on how pocho they’ve gotten over the years. I (non-native) can’t distinguish between Tejanos and non-poor Mexicans. I’d probably know that they weren’t from Guanajuato or Sonora, but I’d assume they were from some other part of Mexico. ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2011, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-american-us-accents-in-languages-other-than-english/582411/23 "2011-05-19T17:47:27Z")
I think the question is phrased as “for Americans whose\* first language \*is not English, do they have an accent in that language?” ---
**Author:** ![robert\_columbia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2011, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-american-us-accents-in-languages-other-than-english/582411/24 "2011-05-19T18:17:33Z")
> [@bup](#): > > I think the question is phrased as “for Americans whose\* first language \*is not English, do they have an accent in that language?” Are there any native-German speaking Europeans here who have spoken with Amish people from the US? Do you think that they have a distinct accent in German? ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2011, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-american-us-accents-in-languages-other-than-english/582411/25 "2011-05-19T18:20:17Z")
> [@robert\_columbia](#): > > Are there any native-German speaking Europeans here who have spoken with Amish people from the US? Do you think that they have a distinct accent in German? Unless they’re learning to speak German purely from Germany-based media that use only a non-regional accent, I don’t see how it’s possible for them not to have a distinct accent. It’s practically inevitable. ---
**Author:** ![Bytegeist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/9dc877/32.png) [@Bytegeist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bytegeist)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2011, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-american-us-accents-in-languages-other-than-english/582411/26 "2011-05-19T19:31:21Z")
[QUOTE=Acsenray] Unless they’re learning to speak German purely from Germany-based media … [/QUOTE] - Mother! I can’t get “Deutsche Welle” on this confounded thing. Is the cable out? The cable’s **always** out, Elijah. We’re **Amish**. Oh, right. \* ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2011, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-american-us-accents-in-languages-other-than-english/582411/27 "2011-05-19T19:38:55Z")
Of course, not all the Pennsylvania Dutch are Amish. ---
**Author:** ![Beniamino](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bcef8e/32.png) [@Beniamino](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beniamino)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2011, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-american-us-accents-in-languages-other-than-english/582411/28 "2011-05-19T19:41:30Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > Of course, not all the Pennsylvania Dutch are Amish. Are the Mennonites considered “Pennsylvania Dutch”? ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2011, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-american-us-accents-in-languages-other-than-english/582411/29 "2011-05-19T19:48:31Z")
> [@Rodgers01](#): > > In other words, are there speakers of a non-English language in the US that have developed an accent that is distinctly American? So, do the second-generation Polish speakers in Chicago speak noticeably different than their counterparts in Warsaw? Absolutely. My Polish isn’t as good as it used to be, but it’s very American. I could generally distinguish off-the-boat Poles from those that have spent a significant time in the US, and certainly second-generation Polish-Americans. It’s not just accent, but also vocabulary. Chicago Polish has its own quirks and even has differences from other urban ethnic Polish-American neighborhoods. When I visit Poland, I often have difficulty remembering which vocabulary words are Polglish and which are actual Polish. It’s not always obvious, as Polish has plenty of Latinate words in its vocabulary, and there are words I’m almost sure are just Polish conjugations/declensions of English words, but, in fact, are Polish words. ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2011, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-american-us-accents-in-languages-other-than-english/582411/30 "2011-05-19T20:19:24Z")
> [@mac\_bolan00](#): > > i studied castillian spanish in college and i’m wondering why north americans pronounce ‘ll’ as ‘y.’ Wait…are you saying a Castillian would pronounce “tortilla” as “tor-TILL-a”? ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2011, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-american-us-accents-in-languages-other-than-english/582411/31 "2011-05-19T20:22:22Z")
A friend of mine who was from Northfield MN where practically everybody is of Norwegian descent (so he claimed) told me that once some Danish linguist came to a town in MN (or maybe ND) where everyone spoke Danish in order to study 19th century Danish that they supposedly spoke. Small isolated communities tend to be linguistically conservative. Another friend of mine who left Romania in his twenties told me that when his cousin immigrated to the US, she at first accused him of “putting on” a fake American accent. But two years later she had the same accent. I once met an American born and raised who married a Swiss and after living in his country for 15 had a typical Swiss German accent speaking English. But the OP is presumably asking about people born in a language community in the US and whose native tongue is not English, rather than immigrants. ---
**Author:** ![SciFiSam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2011, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-american-us-accents-in-languages-other-than-english/582411/32 "2011-05-19T20:32:32Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > I’m not North American but North Spaniard yet I’ve always pronounced ll as y, it’s quite common. About 75% my 9th grade class didn’t differentiate, nor hear the difference (that’s the year we had to study Spanish phonetics). I’m nowhere near a native Spanish speaker, but I’ve recently beeen listening to a Spanish audio course made by an American company and I have noticed a difference with the ll sound compared to how I’ve always heard it before, in Catalunya, with Spanish friends, in movies and on the BBC learning videos (which are awesome). The American ll (on the tape) is exactly like an English y, no difference whatsoever. The sound I’ve heard before is ‘darker’ than the US tape’s sound. With the dark ‘ll’ you make the the ll in llamos by curling the tip of your tongue as if you were going to say /l/, and then make the same movement as with /l/ but without touching the roof of your mouth or your teeth. With the ‘ll’ on these tapes, you curl the sides of your tongue up at the back of your mouth and let the sound come out that way. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2011, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-american-us-accents-in-languages-other-than-english/582411/33 "2011-05-19T22:36:07Z")
Quebec French is a different-sounding accent from metropole French. People in France have told me how Quebec speech sounds rustic and old-fashioned to them. ---
**Author:** ![mac\_bolan00](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b3f665/32.png) [@mac\_bolan00](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mac_bolan00)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2011, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-american-us-accents-in-languages-other-than-english/582411/34 "2011-05-19T23:19:52Z")
> [@digs](#): > > Wait…are you saying a Castillian would pronounce “tortilla” as “tor-TILL-a”? tor-till-ya. ---
**Author:** ![Balthisar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/balthisar/32/2825_2.png) [@Balthisar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balthisar)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2011, 4:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-american-us-accents-in-languages-other-than-english/582411/35 "2011-05-20T04:35:09Z")
In lot of places, I hear “ll” as kind of a “dj”. So using “tortilla” as an example, you get something like “tor ti dja.” Not quite a really strong “dj,” but definitely there. When someone is uttering “ya” passionately, you’ll also sometimes hear the same sound: “dja!” ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2011, 4:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-american-us-accents-in-languages-other-than-english/582411/36 "2011-05-20T04:45:12Z")
I’ve known a few Thais who were raised in the US and spoke Thai with a distinct American accent. Same thing with Thais raised in the UK; they tend to have British accents. ---
**Author:** ![cape\_tow\_California](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/eb8c5e/32.png) [@cape\_tow\_California](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cape_tow_California)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2011, 5:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-american-us-accents-in-languages-other-than-english/582411/37 "2011-05-20T05:03:05Z")
All American english sounds far different than people from England. English people are usually more proper, more concrete and less sloppy with wording. Really – I think Americans are easily identified by the way they speak English… Anywhere they’d go… _But_ Accents like from the East Coast, the MidWest (Wisconsin/Minnesota/Dakotas), and the South are pretty easily identifiable to me **and im from California**. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2011, 6:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-american-us-accents-in-languages-other-than-english/582411/38 "2011-05-20T06:33:17Z")
> [@cape\_tow\_California](#): > > All American english sounds far different than people from England. > > English people are usually more proper, more concrete and less sloppy with wording. > > Really – I think Americans are easily identified by the way they speak English… Anywhere they’d go… > _But_ Accents like from the East Coast, > the MidWest (Wisconsin/Minnesota/Dakotas), > and the South > are pretty easily identifiable to me **and im from California**. I think you may have missed the thrust of this thread. It’s not about American English vs British English (which clearly is distinguishable, although I quibble about your characterization of British English as “more concrete and less sloppy with wording”; that depends on which dialects you’re comparing), but rather foreign language speakers raised in America, and whether an American accent creeps into their native tongue. In my experience, yes it does. My parents were both born in Poland and lived there until they were about 20. Both have identifiable touches of an American accent now _when they speak Polish_, even though they it’s still their primary language. A Polish native will identify them as having an American or perhaps a German accent when they speak Polish; when they speak English, there’s no doubt they’re non-native as they both have heavy Eastern European accents. ---
**Author:** ![Hypnagogic\_Jerk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hypnagogic_jerk/32/4252_2.png) [@Hypnagogic\_Jerk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypnagogic_Jerk)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2011, 10:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-american-us-accents-in-languages-other-than-english/582411/39 "2011-05-20T10:22:35Z")
> [@Johanna](#): > > Quebec French is a different-sounding accent from metropole French. People in France have told me how Quebec speech sounds rustic and old-fashioned to them. Just ask **Capitaine Zombie** ; he barely even accepts that the language we speak is French. (The French, of course, are pretty quirky when it comes to language. :p) But of course Quebec isn’t in the US. OTOH, the Franco-Americans from New England that I’ve heard speak French have an accent that, if it sounds less refined and more English-influenced to my ears, isn’t specifically “American”. They clearly aren’t from Quebec, but as far as I’m concerned they might as well be Ontarian or Western Canadian francophones. > [@pulykamell](#): > > My parents were both born in Poland and lived there until they were about 20. Both have identifiable touches of an American accent now _when they speak Polish_, even though they it’s still their primary language. A Polish native will identify them as having an American or perhaps a German accent when they speak Polish; when they speak English, there’s no doubt they’re non-native as they both have heavy Eastern European accents. My advisor comes from Poland and lived there until he was 24 or so. He tells me that when he goes to Poland, what mostly stands out about the way he speaks is his choice of words. He uses words that were common until the 80s but have since been superceded in popular speech (often by English loanwords). ---
**Author:** ![samjones](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@samjones](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samjones)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2011, 11:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-american-us-accents-in-languages-other-than-english/582411/40 "2011-05-20T11:47:45Z")
> [@cape\_tow\_California](#): > > English people are usually more proper, more concrete and less sloppy with wording. … especially the English people you see on American sitcoms. You should try traveling England sometime, Mate. You might learn a few things. Don’t just hang out in Picadilly looking for tee-shirts. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-american-us-accents-in-languages-other-than-english/582411.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-american-us-accents-in-languages-other-than-english/582411.md?page=3)