Are you influenced by or bothered about accents in your country?

[Alan]

Hi,

Are you influenced by or bothered about accents in your country? I'm talking about the accents used by people speaking your own mother tongue. What I would be interested to know is whether the accent you use say in an interview would affect what the people on the interview panel think of you. There are a variety of different accents in the UK apart from Scottish, Welsh, Irish (Northern) but there's always one that seems to be the butt of jokes and that's the one spoken in Birmingham. I recall once some years ago being introduced to a young man who was to be the future husband of my niece. It was a semi-formal occasion with other relatives around but the lad himself didn't say a lot and when he did say something, it was in a fairly quiet tone of voice. Anyhow to help the conversation along I happened to be talking about a radio programme and in particular the presenter of the prgramme. As is my bad habit I did an impression of this guy (the presenter if you're still with me) and said how I couldn't stand his Birmingham accent as it drove me up the wall. There was then a deathly hush as it was pointed out to me that the putative bridegroom also came from Birmingham and had a fairly strong 'Brummie' (popuar expression for an inhabitant of Birmingham)accent. I must admit he took it well but ever since when I talk to him, I keep well away from the topic of accents.

Alan
_________________
English as a Second Language
You can read my ESL story Subjunctive

[Jamie (K)]

The native accent in my area is more or less American broadcasting English, so I don't have any trouble with people due to my accent. If I were interviewing someone for a job, I wouldn't be bothered by most accents and would tend more to look at someone's competence. However, some people here are bothered by extreme Southern accents and by certain thick African American accents, both of which they associate with lack of education and stupidity, even though those accents indicate neither of those characteristics. Some Northeastern accents sound snobbish to people.

[Ahmadov]

Before working for a British company, I used to like American English, but I prefer British English now. I think many people prefer American English in this part of the world.
_________________
Learning is a sacred engagement.

[Ahmadov]

As for the question itself, I enjoy all accents we have in Azerbaijan, and we have many of them in various parts of the country...
_________________
Learning is a sacred engagement.

[NinaZara]

Not at all Alan!

I love accents! I even like imitating and practicing them whenever I can. See, I'm from the Borneo island and our Malay language is way different from the standard one.(Malay people in peninsular Malaysia just can't understand us).So when I first came to Kuala Lumpur(capital of malaysia) I made a lot of friends from all over Malaysia and I started grabbing accents and guessing who's from where.

And as for the english language, I think the british have very sexy accent and very easy to listen to(can't help it,i'm british english educated) though my father told me the cockney accents are infeasible!and I believe him after watching My Fair Lady.

Overall I think accents are fun and we should appreciate them.

p/s: if one I can't stand it would be bad handwriting!

[Conchita]

[Jamie (K)]

[Yankee]

There are also variations in the German language. People speak "Swabian" in the part of Germany where I lived. I loved it, but Germans from other parts of Germany sometimes told me that people who speak Swabian sound like uneducated hicks.

[Torsten]

[Englishuser]

Hi Alan,

What about your own accent? What does it sound like and how do people react when they hear you speak?

Englishuser

[Englishuser]

Hi Conchita,

You said:

[Englishuser]

Jamie (K) wrote:

[Jamie (K)]

[Englishuser]

Hi Jamie,

[Alan]

Hi,

URP sounds a bit of a manufactured oddity! I would have thought this should be called GARP - grossly affected received pronunciation.

A
_________________
English as a Foreign Language
You can read my EFL story Have a Break!