One of the things that was always sure to annoy the heck out of my mother when I was a kid was the fact that I emulated dozens of different accents at the drop of a hat.
Of course, we lived in many different international communities, so speaking English (or Danish) with French, German, Australian or East African pidgin accents just happened more less naturally... I simply emulated what I heard. Same was true for different English dialects.
Maybe my mother thought I was a sociopath.
Of course, I never did it to be rude, or to be funny. I was actually trying to fit in and make whomever I was talking to relax and feel more comfortable.
Although I spoke fluent "neutral" English, if I was talking to someone who struggled with the language, I tended to suddenly develop a substantial Danish accent. It — quite sincerely — was an effort to not come across as "superior," given that English was actually my second language.
Of course, Danish is only spoken by a few million people, so you pretty much have to speak English, as well.
I learned a lot of the languages I did once speak through emulation. I didn't try to speak the words through the lens of perception of my own language, I tried to speak them as a "copy" of the native speaker's expressions, mannerisms, facial tics and whatever else was there. The result was generally really good pronunciation, but somewhat dodgy sentence stucture.
It's probably not the best way to learn a language... but I learned extremely fast, but I also tended to forget extremely quickly, because I had no grammatical roots and lessons to fall back on. And that does help. At least in my experience.
The whole emulation thing was perhaps not as crazy as all that. Whenever we were moving around, my Dad was always very intent on us trying to "come across as locals" the the greatest extent possible.
Of course, it wasn't always possible... but emulating what I saw came naturally.
As I have aged, I have some to understand that most people in this world have a deep rooted fear of coming across as "different."
I suppose the fear is dervived from the fear of rejection. Which was never really one I dealt with... I pretty much automatically assumed that I would be looked at strangely and "not included," so it was little surprise when that actually turned out to be true.
After all, I was also that 15-year old who could often be seen talking to himself. It seemed to make people very nervous!
I guess some of us just hear the music differently.
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Created at 2025.11.08 00:43 PST
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I do the same thing! I can't help myself. It drives my friends and family nuts. Particularly a problem when you're on a stage and your moderators accent change depending on which region or country you're in! People that don't know you love it, because you're easier for them to understand since you talk as they do, but longtime friends... that's a different story!
I found I tended to take on the accent of where I was. But I never really learned another language well enough to speak it.
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That was awesome! you learned and know how to speak different languages.
I laughed out loud at ... Dad was always very intent on us trying to "come across as locals". ♥