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Polyglot Studies & Accents
For those who have studied multiple languages, either before Duolingo or on here, I have a question.
Do you have issues with different languages affecting the accent in another language? For example, I studied Spanish in college and had a good "broadcaster" type accent. However, I then studied Japanese on my own for a while. When I went back to speaking Spanish, I'm told I speak it with a Japanese accent! I feel like I'm getting my Spanish sound back a little. Now when I go back to German, which I studied in high school, I am finding that I keep pronouncing things like Spanish.
Oddly enough, the vocabulary isn't as confusing as the actual accent whens witching between these different languages.
4 Comments
Well, So far I'm fluent in English, Spanish, (Native in both, due to family) Fluent-but-not-perfect in French (if that makes sense) and currently learning Portuguese, and what you just said has happened to me a lot.
The current portuguese accent I'm handling is a lot like my native spanish accent, but my french and english accent are a bit similar though. When I traveled to Québéc, the constant interaction with Mexicans, Dominicans, French Canadians and Francophone Africans greatly affected the way I spoke (Since I was speaking three languages on a daily basis just for normal human interaction, It was a french camp) By the time the camp was over (it lasted over a month or so) my english was a lot like Newfoundland English (since most of the anglophones I met there and hung with, were Newfies) My french (I learnt the language there) had a bit of Québécois accent but like every recently-learned language, was not perfect, but the thing that I noticed, and everyone else noticed the most was the change in the way I spoke spanish, since it was the least used language for me during a prolonged period of time.
As of now, my spanish is sounding like it always has, now that I'm back home since two months ago already, my english is not really newfoundlandish but rather a bit more neutral, and my french has retained some of the Québéc pronunciation, but since taking up classes with a French teacher here, it has changed since I left.
TL;DR: Probably it's about how often we use the language in interaction with other speakers.
I'm hardly fluent in anything except my mother language, English. I'm a dabbler! I'm by far strongest in Spanish, though, and it's coming back fast since I teach ESL to about 80 hispanic kids in a pretty tough school (that's a story for another day).
Well, languages are learned, but fluency is acquired that's something I can tell you! I'm sure that with enough practice you'll achieve fluency :) Read books, watch movies tv shows in the language you're wanting to improve. You'll notice a difference.
I'm native in Turkish, fluent in both English (American) and Spanish (Mexican), advanced in Portuguese (Brazilian), intermediate in Italian, currently learning French by myself and Russian at the university. Since I've mastered some foreign accents (plus almost all the vowel sounds that exist and R sounds) in order to speak the languages properly and eliminating the foreign accent, I've begun speaking my native language with some unfamiliar sounds, if I don't pay much attention to my speech. I also feel I'm speaking my native language with a very slightly different accent than before.
