One of the growing problems in the USA today is people not liking and objecting to hearing other languages.
It is a major pet peeve of mine. Many of my fellow Americans become agitated if they hear people speaking a language other than English. Many of them incorrectly refer to English as "American" and act like it's sacred. They forget that there were numerous nations of indigenous people here for centuries who spoke many languages, none of which were English.Are you serious? That's so ridiculous! They must have a short collective memory... As far as I know a large portion of US citizens have foreign backgrounds from non English speaking countries.
It is a major pet peeve of mine. Many of my fellow Americans become agitated if they hear people speaking a language other than English.
It is not just with the US, you know, since english is the most used language for international communication, native english-speaking people (most probably) don't feel the need to learn another language (I actually discussed this with a few people from UK who told me that).
David, I think most people in commerce or services here in France feel they need as much practice as they can get and unlike their parents, the young speak English fairly well. Then there's another phenomenon. We were in a restaurant with a bunch of people, some of whom we didn't know very well. The couple near us insisted on speaking French to my wife to show off, and their French was abominable, by that I mean incomprehensible. She answered once in French, but then continued in English. They persisted, but so did she, and they finally gave up. It was pretentious, others present told us later the couple was famous for this. When the Italian waiter came up to ask something, the man proceeded to say something to him in Italian, and again the waiter consistently replied in good English, presumably for the same reason. This is not to say that individuals in ordinary situations would not be polite and attempt conversation, appreciating the effort. In this case though, it was clear that they trying to be clever.The same in France. Perhaps because their English is better than my Italian or French, but mainly I think because everyone wants to speak English. The comical thing is we both doggedly stick to speaking the other person’s language, which is a weird way to have a conversation.
I was told by a lovely young person that "the accent has the charm".English as a second language generally take the much more sensible route of doing so without losing their Home accent.
I have an American friend who speaks French with the local accent of the South. Some of the locals need this to understand what you're saying. My wife, a native French speaker has trouble with the electrician's dad who has, to translate one of the excellent French expressions, "an accent you can cut with a knife". This is more expressive than "a thick accent", innit?attempting to adopt the accent.
I have an American friend who speaks French with the local accent of the South. Some of the locals need this to understand what you're saying. My wife, a native French speaker has trouble with the electrician's dad who has, to translate one of the excellent French expressions, "an accent you can cut with a knife". This is more expressive than "a thick accent", innit?
And where do you think the native americans came from?. As @saxyjt points out, other than Native Americans, everyone in the USA descends from somewhere else.
Here in bonny Scotland, this non-native has developed a pretty reliable ear for the accents and the common grammatical variants but sometimes the dialect is simply impenetrable. This week I had to get someone's daughter to translate for me. He was from a town in deepest, darkest Fife, about 30 miles from here.My wife, a native French speaker has trouble with the electrician's dad who has, to translate one of the excellent French expressions, "an accent you can cut with a knife"
That's the worst fake French accent ever in that video
The stereotypical fake French accent is very easy to master, you just emphasize the last syllable of every single word. In the South, you add one and emphasize that. That's the worst afake French accent ever in that video. Clouseau is far better.
The weekly videoconference I ran for years had a regular who is Italian but moved to Scotland (Perth) and had quite a distinctive Scottish accent.