Being told that I still have a foreign accent

Hi, this is perhaps a very sensitive topic but it has been niggling me for a very long time. Bascially I moved to england when i was 9 and have lived here ever since. So it has been a long time since i have been here. At this point, i would consider that my english is good enough and it makes me happy when someone compliments on my english. After all i have stayed here for such nearly 8 years, it is not reasonable that i stillvhavent mastered the langauge. At times i am told that i still have my asian accent, this really upsets me in a way because it makes me feel like i cant speak english properly. I feel like the only way to show that i can speak engkish proficiently is to able to speak it like a native speakee, tk a point where people wouldnt know engkish isnt my first language. I felt offended when my friends pointed that i couldnt possibly had moved here in year 1 because i still have a ' very distinct chinese accent'. I feel really offended it. I know i will never be british and i undeestand that. I am proud to be asian but it does make me feel down at times when i am told this. I get that it is a part of me ans this is what makes me unique. However i always think that asian accents are as priviledged as european accent, which is why i dislike it so much when i am told i still speak like an asian. Any advice ?

Reply 1

Anonymous #1

OP

Sorry about some misspelling, i wrote this on my phone

Reply 2

samina_ay

18

Because they are ****ing stupid. :redface:

People just want to criticise all the time, you know that your English is good and you can't help the accent either. How do they expect you to change something you can't control?

Reply 3

Barcoder

Shouldnt matter to you so much. As the person above said people will find a way to criticise you for anything. You have to choose whether you want worry about that or not

Reply 4

stripystockings

2

So, what you're saying is that you're bilingual, and chances are, they probably aren't. It's possible they're jealous, but also - having an accent isn't any kind of indicator of language proficiency. It's not mentioned on CEFR tables, and accent isn't taken into account when considering fluency or proficiency in a language - pronunciation is, sure, but not accent. My accent doesn't make my French or Danish any less accurate, provided I'm pronouncing the words properly, and I'm sure it's the same for you.

Reply 5

oShahpo

20

You could record yourself and I would give you an unbiased judgement. Anyway, some of the best people in the world spoke English in an accent :biggrin:

Einstein, Von Neumann and others.

Reply 6

h333

16

Embrace your accent. I am sure it is great. :smile:

I want a foreign accent, although I can't really define my accent now. :biggrin:

Unfortunately I do not have an Afghan accent. :frown:

Reply 7

Profesh

20

However i always think that asian accents are as priviledged as european accent

Is, in all fairness, a phrase which no native English-speaker would ever say.

Reply 8

Anonymous #1

OP

Original post by Profesh

Is, in all fairness, a phrase which no native English-speaker would ever say.

Hi, sorry this is one of the misspellings again ! I meant i was always under the impression that asian accents are always made fun of but with other european accents, they are more accpetable.

Reply 9

ddrrzzeerr

17

An accent isn't an indicator of how good you are at the language. We can tell which city in England people are from. That's not to say any city speaks the best English. People just speak it with a different accent. It doesn't sound like criticism. Just an observation.

Reply 10

Copperknickers

15

Original post by Anonymous

Hi, this is perhaps a very sensitive topic but it has been niggling me for a very long time. Bascially I moved to england when i was 9 and have lived here ever since. So it has been a long time since i have been here. At this point, i would consider that my english is good enough and it makes me happy when someone compliments on my english. After all i have stayed here for such nearly 8 years, it is not reasonable that i stillvhavent mastered the langauge. At times i am told that i still have my asian accent, this really upsets me in a way because it makes me feel like i cant speak english properly. I feel like the only way to show that i can speak engkish proficiently is to able to speak it like a native speakee, tk a point where people wouldnt know engkish isnt my first language. I felt offended when my friends pointed that i couldnt possibly had moved here in year 1 because i still have a ' very distinct chinese accent'. I feel really offended it. I know i will never be british and i undeestand that. I am proud to be asian but it does make me feel down at times when i am told this. I get that it is a part of me ans this is what makes me unique. However i always think that asian accents are as priviledged as european accent, which is why i dislike it so much when i am told i still speak like an asian. Any advice ?

One's accent and one's language ability are completely separate things. People from Singapore might have English as their native language but speak with what Westerners would hear as a 'foreign' accent. In my experience, it takes about 10 years to develop a fully native accent if you move to a foreign country after the age of about 5, and usually people who move after the age of 10 and continue to speak their native language at home will never develop a 100% convincing 'native' accent. In fact most people say I don't have a 'Scottish' accent, despite the fact I moved to Scotland when I was 1 year old and English is my native language. So I wouldn't worry about it.

Reply 11

Profesh

20

Original post by Anonymous

Hi, sorry this is one of the misspellings again ! I meant i was always under the impression that asian accents are always made fun of but with other european accents, they are more accpetable.

Spelling is quite beside the point. Even if you hadn't conflated singular and plural by omitting the 's' from 'accents'—a plausible typo, certainly—no person whose first-language is English would ever employ the word 'privileged' in such an unconventional and jarring fashion. Equally, "it has been a long time since I have been here" actually implies an extended interval spent elsewhere, whereas what you presumably meant to say was, "I have been here a long time".

Granted, such subtleties of mood, tense, syntax, connotation and grammatical inflection are among the most challenging even for a fluent English-speaker to articulate, yet this is simply because anyone born here would be expected to grasp them so instinctively as to render a formal treatise on the subject all but unnecessary; hence your lack of said, innate familiarity instantly betrays you as a non-native.

(edited 7 years ago)

Reply 12

username1177050

20

I doubt you will ever get to the level when you sound like a "native"

Reply 13

JamesN88

20

If you have an Asian accent then you have an Asian accent, it's not a bad thing.

If you're really that bothered by it you could take elocution lessons.

Being told that I still have a foreign accent

Quick Reply

Related discussions

Latest

Trending

Trending

Articles for you