Awkward feeling with accents

Why do I always feel that someone is bullshitting me when he's talking with an accent that is different from his 'ethnic accent'.


Example: an african (black) talking with let's say... an australian or an irish accent.

In return, although being able to speak english with a good british accent I just can't talk with it to people, it makes me feel like I am bullshiting them and betraying myself by altering my accent.

I am aware that thinking in such a way is utterly ridiculous and naive, considering that people get the accent from the region they grew up in, it makes me hate myself in someway, just by thinking that I am judging people because of their accent not matching their face.

I want to get rid of these hideous thoughts, but I can't help it.

any advice?

This is the second thread recently that was started about feeling weird about other people's accents :question:

Ahem. This sounds like a post-colonial crisis to me

Anyway, if it's really bothering you that much, it sounds like it could be OCD and you should look into the treatment for that. There are ways to stop things like that from bothering you, some mental tricks, but it takes some effort.

If it's just a matter of looking at it differently, there is no such thing as an "ethnic" accent. We live in a globalized world and this is becoming more common and will only continue this way. There have almost always been people who lived in regions where they spoke a certain way not culturally associated with their physical appearance. And yeah sometimes people might comment on it if it's uncommon because people like to fit things into neat little boxes, but it really DOES NOT matter.

Let me ask you this... what do you think of a black person speaking with an American accent of some sort? Do you find it weird? What about others? I guess I'm a little confused as to why it should seem weird to you.

Wasn't aware about the other thread.

It hurts to some point, I hate racists, but this makes me think like I am one of them.

A black person speaking with an american accent looks quite normal to me ,Maybe because I grew up watching movies with so many african-american actors that I got used to it.

Furthermore, if we look at colonial history, african slaves were brought to america before the american accent was even developed, means: they played a part in developing it as well... which makes it theirs as much as the british/irish settlers.

As a matter of fact whomever speaks with an american accent doesn't surprise me at all, I consider north america as being an immigrant continent (not so many natives left...which is sad), there are so many nationalities that I would not necessarily associate the american accent with people of european descents.

Why would they purposely fake their accents?

Sacrament said:

Why would they purposely fake their accents?

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To fit in probably ,at least, that's how my mind seems to interpret it... or maybe to sound classy.
The reality could be and is most of the time otherwise: They grew up with it.

Faking an accent for a long time is probably exhausting and has to be done consistently for as long as they want to keep their 'cover', it doesn't really make sense.

I like peoples accents, especially if they're really thick... I just think they sound like aliens which is cool ��

Sacrament said:

Faking an accent for a long time is probably exhausting and has to be done consistently for as long as they want to keep their 'cover', it doesn't really make sense.

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Getting an accent isn't that hard at all, provided that you keep listening to it being spoken all the time (listening to a particular country's news on a daily basis, watching movies with actors from that country...etc) or simply live in a different country for a long time.

English is my third language, yet I am able to distinguish more than 10 different accents, and as mentioned before mimic a rather good british accent (when talking alone).

Quite the opposite, if you do it constantly you'll maybe forget your original accent.

kya said:

I like peoples accents, especially if they're really thick... I just think they sound like aliens which is cool ��

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Yes, same here ,I'd rather hear an arab speaking with his original accent than an arab mimicking another accent.

Original accents are more pleasant to hear in my opinion.

What's ugly is to hear someone having two accents embedded in one (his true accent and the one he's trying to imitate)