[antb123]

Canadian (anglo) here that went to French immersion (teachers were mostly from France). I don't really have an accent which sucks. People just think I am a stupid French person who makes grammatical mistakes here and there and has a more limited vocabulary set.

I am jealous of my American friends who speak with heavy accents and receive praise about their mastery.

[geebee]

I know someone who was in that situation. She had a remarkable knack for accents (and recreating sounds generally) and did pick up French more quickly than I could. I wonder if this counts as a kind of "uncanny valley", because my experience was exactly what you reported. I spoke understandable but accented French, tilted more toward written formal French than conversational French (where I was much more limited). My friend, on the other hand, just seemed like a French person but with a faint speech anomaly and an oddly limited vocabulary at times.

It's not surprising that people initially took my version of French as an effort to learn a language properly, and hers as a sign of cognitive issues or trouble with language. Even once someone's aware of it, it won't necessary change the fundamental reaction (kind of what taller children go through - even when people learn they're much younger, they still apparently have trouble applying the standards they normally would for younger children).

Not sure what else to say about this, other than that I've seen it exactly was you describe (though not quite with the "heavy" accent, more of a moderate but immediately noticeable one).

[watermelon59]

> My friend, on the other hand, just seemed like a French person but with a faint speech anomaly and an oddly limited vocabulary at times.

Damn, now I wonder if that's how I come off when speaking English.

I'm from South America and have been living in the US for the last 8 years. But even before that, I always really liked English and as a kid worked really hard to emulate the way I heard it spoken in American TV shows.

The way I speak has been described as, "pretty much no accent, but you don't sound like you're from anywhere in particular." Other immigrants sometimes think I'm American, but most people say I sound like someone who speaks English as their first language, but they aren't be able to tell which country I could be from.

Maybe I should just have a bit more of a foreign accent, after all :D

[tomcam]

Well your written English is flawless. Pretty cool.

[watermelon59]

Thank you :)

[wincy]

What you described reminds me of Rosamund Pike in “Gone Girl”, I kept wondering what the deal was with her accent. But it turns out she’s British and did accent lessons. Her English wasn’t incorrect but just sounded really strange to my Midwest ears.

[watermelon59]

Oh hey :) I remember your username. I replied to a comment of yours yesterday.

Interesting. I'm gonna watch that movie when I get chance.

[jedimastert]

> I don't really have an accent which sucks. People just think I am a stupid French person who makes grammatical mistakes here and there and has a more limited vocabulary set.

I recently stumbled across a French/English comedy special which has a bit specifically about this, and how much French people judge other French people's French.

I have absolutely zero experience with French and I still found most of the clips entertaining

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FIqVY1SwXls

[antb123]

Thanks ! Hilarious. Its true French are super judgmental about French (not Québécois so much). Amusingly African French are exactly the same or worse then Europeans.

I had a girlfriend who did exactly the same as his wife.

[ftio]

In this boat with my Italian. Northerners think I'm from the South. Southerners think I'm from Rome. Imagine their surprise when I tell them I'm from another Italy... Staten Italy.

[davidw]

Hah, I had this happen when doing some work in Rome. The CEO of the startup remarked that I had a heavy American accent, which... I was a bit taken aback by, because I rarely hear that, and I work hard to speak Italian well. Later, he heard me speaking with another guy at the company who was from near where I lived in Padova, and it dawned on him (I don't think he was the sharpest tool in the shed) that my accent was more 'Veneto' than American.

[GEBBL]

Is that in staten island?

[ftio]

Staten Island == Staten Italy

Staten Island has a very large population of Italian-Americans. Italian-American culture pervades many facets of Staten Island life and culture, even among non-Italians — so much so that many residents (and former residents like me) sometimes jokingly refer to it as Staten Italy.

[edumucelli]

This is exactly the joke Paul Taylor (British living in France) tells in his standup show [1], which is super funny. I went to watch him live, what a great standup show.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pae2AMnmUVA

[r00fus]

While working in France a couple of decades ago, I found that I got better service if I botched the accent and stuck to basic language (which I was ok at) than if I tried to match accent, use l'argot and sound native (which is my tendency) and screwed up language.

It was a helluva realization about psychology.

[f430]

They teach us Quebecois accent which is sort of like the Texan/Southern dialect. It's associated with negative stereotypes.

On one call I recall a team from Paris snickering as my Quebecois co-worker spoke who was confused and embarrassed.

Heureusement, mon professeur était parisien.

[kergonath]

Québécois is lovely, though! It’s just funny sometimes and they have interesting phrases. Granted, it’s probably not the best if you learn French as a foreign language, but still. I love speaking with French Canadians.

[yborg]

The swearing is the best part.

[soperj]

That's it in a nutshell though, would in the US/Canada actually snicker because someone was talking with a Texan accent? It's a bit ridiculous.

[asveikau]

Yeah, kinda. The stereotype [yes they are stereotypes, not trying to offend anybody] of a southern accent in the northeastern US is that the speaker is slow, unintelligent, backward, or most charitably, "folksy".

I'm not from the south so I'm not as sure what the stereotype is in the opposite direction -- about the "yankees". Probably that they are inept and arrogant? Any time I've heard American southerners talk about "yankees" that's pretty much the tone

Out on the west coast I never hear about these dynamics anymore. People don't care about north/south here. Though curiously to me, I have encountered many westerners who sound more southern than northern to my ear.

[kergonath]

People in England do that all the time.

[soperj]

As someone who also did French Immersion in Canada, I'm very surprised that most of your teachers were from France. Over 13 years in school, I think every single teacher I had that spoke french was Quebecois, and taught Quebecois.

[cperciva]

This was my experience too. A few years ago I was at a conference in Paris, and I understood every word which the people around me said in French... but the people around me didn't understand a single word I said in French!

[kergonath]

My experience is that French is flat (rather monotonous rhythm and stress is much less important than in English). This makes it somewhat easy to follow for foreigners after some training compared to e.g. Spanish which is typically all over the place and very fast (though not more difficult once you get the hang of it).

On the other hand French speaker can get confused by strange intonation or stresses. Also there are several sounds that do not exist in English (e.g. /eu/, /u/, and the nasals /an/, /on/, /in/, the /ill/ can be problematic as well). Approximations of these sounds are distracting and can be genuinely confusing. And contrary to some English accents you can’t count on properly stressed syllables to help carry the meaning.

During my time in New York I had the opposite problem. As a native French speaker with some English education (having lived in London), apparently people understood me without difficulty. On the other hand, it took me a while to get the meaning of what other people were saying without asking them to repeat. After months it was still difficult to understand announcements in the subway.

[a_t48]

> After months it was still difficult to understand announcements in the subway.

Don't worry, native English speakers also have difficulties with this

[GirkovArpa]

push, p/eu/sh?

long, l/on/ng, l/an/ng?

[kergonath]

Not quite, /eu/ in French is deeper, closer to /ö/ in German, I really can’t think of an English word with the same sound.

The /on/ nasal vowel is also approximated in “don’t” in some English accent, but again often imperfectly. In French, you don’t hear the n at all, whereas it is most often noticeable in “long”. AFAICT, the closest is /ão/ in Portuguese.