I Can't Fake A Dutch Accent If I Tried
Jul. 7th, 2004 01:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fjOh yeah, my background.
My father worked for a big Dutch chemical conglomerate all his life, working up through the ranks. Somewhere in the mid sixties he was sent as an expatriate (expat) to Argentina, to represent the company in a joint venture with a local industrialist in setting up a factory for some man-made yarn like polyester or nylon or some such. So with his pregnant wife and two small children in tow off he went to a house in the suburbs of Buenos Aires. My sister was born soon after they arrived, and I came 3 years later in 1970. Three years after I was born it was time to set up or run the next factory, this time in sunny breezy Medellin, Colombia. So there we were, mom, dad, four very blond kids whose native tongue was now Spanish and whose every fight could be stopped by mom just telling us that fighting was ok, but we had to do it in Dutch, and since my parents never swore or fought, we had no fighting words and all we could do was glare and call each other poop or something in Dutch. I didn't even know the word shit until 1980.
My eldest sister went to a Catholic girls school complete with the over-the-knee checkered pleated skirt and white blouse every day. The rest of us, when we reached school age, took big yellow schoolbusses to the Columbus School, a school basically staffed by expat US teachers, based on immersion English inside the classroom after Kindergarden. So at age 6 I started speaking English to my teachers. I hung out mostly with the other US kids, who all seemed to have 6 million siblings, fathers in white shirts who were 'missionaries' of some kind, and brough the disgusting combination of peanut butter and jelly on one sandwich to school, but also delighted me by sharing their marshmellow rice krispy squares. Since accent is influenced mainly by your peers (I am sure there's a Zwicky paper I could reference here) they were my primary influence, and more than once did I have to explain to teachers I was not American. I also, of course, had a perfect native Paisa accent when I spoke Castellano, and I also got astonished looks from other kids that the gringo no tenia accento. (Duh. Incidentally, I took until a decade later before I realized gringo was supposed to be perjorative,if even mildly. There was so much other crap thrown at me, gringo barely registered.)
More than one of my teachers was also pregnant with her fortieth child, and from Utah, I believe. They all taught us American songs like This Land Is Your Land and I Found A Joy Down In My Heart. I learned to read with Tom, Dick, And Jane, and a sparse page layout with New Century Schoolbook font fills me with the same pangs of nostalgia as it does to many of you reading this. When I got older I no longer needed to attend religion classes and I spent many an hour in the library with my US friends (yup, they didn't attend those religion classes either, but not because they were from an atheist family like me) and they introduced me to Nancy Drew and The Hardy Boys. I still consider them some of my best childhood friends, even if the friendship was one-sided and we haven't kept in touch, even om TV, since Pamela Sue martin went on to do Dynasty.
This all stopped when I was nine and my father wanted to go back. His eldest was perilously close to graduating High School and he'd rather we all get European university educations -- I bet they were much cheaper than having to ship us off to Miami. This was in 1979 and all hell only really broke loose in Colombia a year after we had left, but looking back moving was a really good idea for many reasons. At the time I was pissed at being taken out of a garden with orchids and hummingbirds and every day sunshine to this dreary place I only knew from wet rainy grey summers. I saw the first snow in my life somewhere in December 1979.
The results are as following: I haven't been immersed in Spanish for over 25 years so. I can barely understand it at its proper speed, and definately not in the local accents. I may be able to read it, but I have the vocabulary of a nine year old. My Dutch, however, did extremely well in subsequent years to the point I was considered pretty damn masterful in the language, a perfect speller of all tenses and verbs, and knew the rules so well I broke them constantly for the precise effect, whether spoken or written. This has now severly declined and I sound generic and akward when switching back for quite some days. My English was reinforced for years by watching tons of US shows on Dutch television, and reading a lot (including Usenetin college). My sister closest to my age had already fought the battle at our High School not to have to switch to British pronunciation, and I reaped the benefits by being allowed to progress in the accent I had, so I passed those classes in flying colors -- duh, it was one of my native tongues. I have been in the US since 1995 now, and I speak US English almost exclusively.
I sound "Definitely American But Not From Here". I won't take the word from people who know my background when they tell me they can detect traces of a Dutch or, in one case, even a Spanish accent, and certainly not now anymore, because usually they have an undertone of being patronizing. The reaction from unbiased strangers about what they think my background is tells me enough. My biggest pitfall is that my vocabulary for physical objects and constructs is limited and not as ready at hand as say my vocabulary to discuss social, economic, and software issues -- I did not grow up using Erector sets in English or beaing a gearhead on my own car. My spoken language will start taking on local characteristics somewhat more readily than other people's, although I have luckily evaded the scourge of the Boston accent. I do suspect that two weeks in TX will be all it takes to start having me twang.
What I do sound like is very generic faggy. I did so in Dutch too, and I bet I would in Spanish. My TX twang will sound like an aged Southern Belle's.
My father worked for a big Dutch chemical conglomerate all his life, working up through the ranks. Somewhere in the mid sixties he was sent as an expatriate (expat) to Argentina, to represent the company in a joint venture with a local industrialist in setting up a factory for some man-made yarn like polyester or nylon or some such. So with his pregnant wife and two small children in tow off he went to a house in the suburbs of Buenos Aires. My sister was born soon after they arrived, and I came 3 years later in 1970. Three years after I was born it was time to set up or run the next factory, this time in sunny breezy Medellin, Colombia. So there we were, mom, dad, four very blond kids whose native tongue was now Spanish and whose every fight could be stopped by mom just telling us that fighting was ok, but we had to do it in Dutch, and since my parents never swore or fought, we had no fighting words and all we could do was glare and call each other poop or something in Dutch. I didn't even know the word shit until 1980.
My eldest sister went to a Catholic girls school complete with the over-the-knee checkered pleated skirt and white blouse every day. The rest of us, when we reached school age, took big yellow schoolbusses to the Columbus School, a school basically staffed by expat US teachers, based on immersion English inside the classroom after Kindergarden. So at age 6 I started speaking English to my teachers. I hung out mostly with the other US kids, who all seemed to have 6 million siblings, fathers in white shirts who were 'missionaries' of some kind, and brough the disgusting combination of peanut butter and jelly on one sandwich to school, but also delighted me by sharing their marshmellow rice krispy squares. Since accent is influenced mainly by your peers (I am sure there's a Zwicky paper I could reference here) they were my primary influence, and more than once did I have to explain to teachers I was not American. I also, of course, had a perfect native Paisa accent when I spoke Castellano, and I also got astonished looks from other kids that the gringo no tenia accento. (Duh. Incidentally, I took until a decade later before I realized gringo was supposed to be perjorative,if even mildly. There was so much other crap thrown at me, gringo barely registered.)
More than one of my teachers was also pregnant with her fortieth child, and from Utah, I believe. They all taught us American songs like This Land Is Your Land and I Found A Joy Down In My Heart. I learned to read with Tom, Dick, And Jane, and a sparse page layout with New Century Schoolbook font fills me with the same pangs of nostalgia as it does to many of you reading this. When I got older I no longer needed to attend religion classes and I spent many an hour in the library with my US friends (yup, they didn't attend those religion classes either, but not because they were from an atheist family like me) and they introduced me to Nancy Drew and The Hardy Boys. I still consider them some of my best childhood friends, even if the friendship was one-sided and we haven't kept in touch, even om TV, since Pamela Sue martin went on to do Dynasty.
This all stopped when I was nine and my father wanted to go back. His eldest was perilously close to graduating High School and he'd rather we all get European university educations -- I bet they were much cheaper than having to ship us off to Miami. This was in 1979 and all hell only really broke loose in Colombia a year after we had left, but looking back moving was a really good idea for many reasons. At the time I was pissed at being taken out of a garden with orchids and hummingbirds and every day sunshine to this dreary place I only knew from wet rainy grey summers. I saw the first snow in my life somewhere in December 1979.
The results are as following: I haven't been immersed in Spanish for over 25 years so. I can barely understand it at its proper speed, and definately not in the local accents. I may be able to read it, but I have the vocabulary of a nine year old. My Dutch, however, did extremely well in subsequent years to the point I was considered pretty damn masterful in the language, a perfect speller of all tenses and verbs, and knew the rules so well I broke them constantly for the precise effect, whether spoken or written. This has now severly declined and I sound generic and akward when switching back for quite some days. My English was reinforced for years by watching tons of US shows on Dutch television, and reading a lot (including Usenetin college). My sister closest to my age had already fought the battle at our High School not to have to switch to British pronunciation, and I reaped the benefits by being allowed to progress in the accent I had, so I passed those classes in flying colors -- duh, it was one of my native tongues. I have been in the US since 1995 now, and I speak US English almost exclusively.
I sound "Definitely American But Not From Here". I won't take the word from people who know my background when they tell me they can detect traces of a Dutch or, in one case, even a Spanish accent, and certainly not now anymore, because usually they have an undertone of being patronizing. The reaction from unbiased strangers about what they think my background is tells me enough. My biggest pitfall is that my vocabulary for physical objects and constructs is limited and not as ready at hand as say my vocabulary to discuss social, economic, and software issues -- I did not grow up using Erector sets in English or beaing a gearhead on my own car. My spoken language will start taking on local characteristics somewhat more readily than other people's, although I have luckily evaded the scourge of the Boston accent. I do suspect that two weeks in TX will be all it takes to start having me twang.
What I do sound like is very generic faggy. I did so in Dutch too, and I bet I would in Spanish. My TX twang will sound like an aged Southern Belle's.
no subject
Date: 2004-07-07 10:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-07-07 11:02 am (UTC)I can do a native northern louisiana accent too from spending so much time there as a child but no one can understand it. It's really only been useful for understanding Sean Penn in _Dead Man Walking_.
no subject
Date: 2004-07-07 11:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-07-07 11:17 am (UTC)I do a bit of accent switching myself -- a touch of subconscious mimicry, a means to fit in, I suspect. When I'm outside of strong accent influence, I'm told I've a Midwest accent.
no subject
Date: 2004-07-07 11:25 am (UTC)Current accent: American neutral, with a hint of NYC-resident. Other people will know better. Although, I'll slip into rather strident Brooklyn-ese if I get really angry.
no subject
Date: 2004-07-07 11:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-07-07 11:34 am (UTC)On the other hand, they can be really, really clueless. At a friend's 30th, her aunt was chatting to me and said casually, 'So, were you born in Stockholm?'. Some people decide on the basis of what you look like and just. don't. listen.
no subject
Date: 2004-07-07 11:49 am (UTC):::ahem:::
Of course, it is proper to blame the Boston accent on (1) the East Anglian immigrants of the 17th century, or (2), the Sicilian immigrants of the 20th century.
So, next time you're in Bishop's Stortford, Great Yarmouth, Trumpington, or Palermo, have a good chuckle or lend an ear, luv.
no subject
Date: 2004-07-10 06:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-07-07 12:08 pm (UTC)Besides, your voice is generic "boyish", not "faggy".
no subject
Date: 2004-07-07 03:32 pm (UTC)Maybe Rose Nylund needs to be my conversational role model after all.
no subject
Date: 2004-07-07 04:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-07-08 07:54 pm (UTC)Um. Are you feeling okay? Or did someone hack your LJ account?
P.S. There is no St. Olaf, Minnesota. I know, you're crestfallen.
no subject
Date: 2004-07-08 07:58 pm (UTC)No, it's me, making the best of my Minnesota accent. It's the best comment I have ever gotten on it, considering how Golden Girls has 3 thumbs up on my TiVo.
no subject
Date: 2004-07-07 01:02 pm (UTC)"Funny, you don't sound like you're from {Brooklyn,Texas}."
And we don't.
no subject
Date: 2004-07-07 01:19 pm (UTC)Huh. Maybe. I sorta got "intellectual/cultural outsider with 'sexually confident' undertones." I'm sure you could and sometimes do sound generically faggier, but I could pinpoint neither the accent nor the subculture from what little I have heard you say (before I twigged to who your partner was). Yeah, you sound "American but not from here." Which usually, IME, is a fair bet for Canadian, Argentinian, or Navy brat.
My family is pretty accent-neutral/chameleonic, too, so sometimes I'm insensitive to that sort of thing.
You'd be cute with a twang.
no subject
Date: 2004-07-07 03:24 pm (UTC)And the southern drawl will quickly grow on you. It took me nearly the entire 3 years since moving back up here from NC, to stop using the term, "y'all". I also tend to overuse the word "do" when writing my business correspondence at the bank (i.e. "We do appreciate your business" vs. "We appreciate your business"). I actually got marked down on it by our Q/A staff for it.
So much for trying to be polite!
no subject
Date: 2004-07-07 03:28 pm (UTC)I'm waiting to hear myself say accidentally "all y'all".