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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   2805 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for August 18, 2023

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Very interesting point about accent. It seems in part to be effort and the 'fun' of it; it's always been true that the people who are best at accent impressions in English are the best at adopting native accents in foreign languages. But there's also status to avoiding accents, a lot of wealthy English seem to almost deliberately speak (often near-perfect) French in a strong English accent, just because they can, they don't want to be mistaken for natives.

By contrast, some accents are low status. If you move to Switzerland you are often better off speaking English than high-German, which is often low status in German Switzerland because they dislike a lot of the better jobs being taken by German immigrants. You could try learning Schwiizerdütsch, but that's a tough nut to crack because of the much faster speed than regular German and German-speakers who try it and aren't perfect are often made fun of.

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