Unusual ability to pronounce foreign languages?

Post Reply New Topic

Double post.

Last edited by Odin on 28 Mar 2010, 6:10 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I say "WEE-juh", and my accent doesn't distinguish "aw" and "ah", (the so-called Caught-Cot merger)

to each his own. i would like to know what your accent is, por favor.
my use of "aw" and "ah" as descritive pronounciation aids is idiosyncratic. when i say "aw" i mean as in "shock and awe." when i say "ah" i mean as in bat or cat, IOW short "A" vowel sound.

god bless

When I was at school my french teacher said my pronunciation and accent where very good and my son seems to have a natural ability for french. I struggle sometimes with english pronunciation though

I have noticed that whenever I speak a foreign language that I've heard enough, whether I can speak grammatically correct or not, I automatically use a different tone of voice. I was thinking about this recently, and then started comparing how I would say it if I were speaking normally and it is definitely different from the "automatic accent" that I would use without meaning to. A friend of mine doesn't seem to do this who has studied the same language more than I have. I feel as though I am using the correct accent, but I'd need somebody to actually comment on it to be certain.

My mother, who likely has AS, had taken Spanish many years ago. She has an uncanny accent with it. I didn't notice it when I was little, but today I notice whenever she speaks ANY Spanish. A sentence or just a single word, her entire voice changes and it sounds more authentic than how somebody else might say it.

I have read that it is quite common for those with AS to pick up and mimic accents by complete accident. Those who do so sometimes feel others may think they were making fun of them. I haven't read this entire thread, but I bet this was mentioned somewhere here as a personal experience.

I had learned in a college course that one can never perfect the accent of a foreign language if they were not exposed to it quite frequently at a very young age. I don't know the accuracy of this (my professor said questionable things). Honestly, I don't believe it. If it were true though, the only thing I could imagine is loss of hearing range as one ages. You may not be able to learn the subtleties of an accent, because you might not be able to hear it, as opposed to when you are young and can hear a wider range of sound. Who knows?

Hmm, I hadn't expected this to be a specific Asperger's trait. But yes, I have an unusual ability to pronounce foreign languages (and I can say that without worry of being exaggerating).

Languages have been "my thing" (or one of 'my things') as long as I can remember, and I've had a few funny experiences.

... like my german teacher who was so set on making me become a german teacher too, because, as she said, I was the only foreigner she had met who pronounced the language so like a german. At the time I had no wish of even speaking german and didn't do much to be good at it. Yet I ended up receiving better grades in german than in english (I grew up with scandinavian as my main language), despite english being actually the one language I'm better at than even scandinavian in some respects.

When I was in Japan I surprised a few people too, because this language really isn't one that many people can pronounce well, and I was told several times that they couldn't tell me apart from the japanese people in regard to how we spoke and pronounced the language.
Personally I find japanese to be one of the easier languages to pronounce.

Then there's Inuit. Many find it impossible to pronounce, but I rather like it.

French can be hard with it's multiple vocal sounds, but it's just a matter of paying as little attention for a period.

*******

If I should point to a language I would have to practise a lot with in order to learn to pronounce it correctly, it would be vietnamese!! This language is one tough mother, and I find it hard to distinguish some of it's sounds.

Chinese (chinese dialects) aren't absolutely easy either.

I love spending time reading aloud from texts written in languages I don't understand.
Of course I'd prefer to understand what I was reading. It's meant in the sense that I love doing this since I can't understand them all here and now.

*******

As a romanian (gypsy) who grew up in a country far to the north of my own, a painful reality to me is that I don't speak my own language. But it's one of my greatest wishes to get an opportunity to learn it.


Apart from that I have ancient hebrew, ancient greek, bettering my latin, and spanish (and the other common latin based languages), as well as some russian, on my menu for the coming time. Later I'm looking forward to some of the many languages I find so fascinating, as some of those I just mentioned are part of my private study (mythology, epistemology, religious history, i.e.) and more of a need than a fascination. But because of that I'm grateful that it comes fairly easy to me.

*******
^L^,

Puzelle.

Fo-Rum,

I think I know what you're talking about here. And if I'm right, this is something that is not funny to be aware of at all.
I have done this a lot!! And I really have to excersize the strictest self-control in order to not do it, and even then I often end up doing it anyway.

Mostly people don't think I'm making fun of them , because mostly it's with people who has a lot of accent. And people with a lot of accent usually can't hear that they have accent, nor can they hear if your accent is New York or Lousiana accent (in the case of american).

People who speak the same language as I do, and who can hear the accent of the person I "imitate", probably have at times thought I was mocking the foreigner. I don't know for sure, but it would be logical to think so. I do know for certain that many have wondered greatly about why I do this.

It's really strange actually, because I often feel it's a weakness on my part. As if I can't hold on to something that should represent me and my personality, It's almost as if I don't have a personality in those situations. And I know I very much DO have a personality ... I mean, we DO have personalities, don't we? Being an autist or having Asperger's doesn't mean we don't have personalities.

There are other areas in behaviour where I have noticed the same kind of tendency. Mimics mannerisms is one. I have all my life adopted mannerisms from people around me. And just like with the accent thingy, it is very annoying and even stressful when I do it against my will.

At other times I really enjoy the mannerism I have "taken up" and do in fact adopt it, at least for a period (which can be one of years). But what I adopt is always fragments. Not a complete personality.

Do you guys think I'm weird because I do this?

Remember, it isn't really something I have chosen to do. I had to "do something", and it didn't seem like I had some mannerism of my own by nature, so I had(have) to get it somewhere.

... I really hope people aren't going to take this in the wrong way. I am not psychotic or psychopathic or anything like that! Believe me, it IS related to autism in some way. I know this for a fact, even if I have no numbers or research to point to for confirmation.

Then again, sometimes I speak with a native tongue that while understandable, I just can't stand...

I spoke 3 European languages, in addition to English, by the time I was 20.

My French teacher once said that I could 'see through languages'

I learned Italian as a teen ager, in 3 weeks, whilst on holiday in Italy.

I can easily distinguish between American and Canadian accents too, despite not being a citizen or living in either country.

My pronounciation was always good too, probably that mimicking thing you mentioned.

I think it might also be the 'chameleon effect' as portrayed in the Woody Allen movie, 'Zelig'

Zelig was a socially isolated individual who would literally become the people around him just to 'blend in'.

In one scene he is shown growing a long beard in a few minutes, whilst in the company of some Rabbis

It's funny because I have no talent for learning languages. I wish I did.

But, I've made attempts to learn a few other languages and my pronunciation has always been good. I remember being complimented by a Japanese person on my accent in Japanese, I was very proud of that.

I do this. I think of it as "learned personality" or "behavior". I question a lot of my responses, because when I use a response, I seem to know that I've learned it somewhere. The response comes to me as a "choice", but unfortunately it is the -only- choice I have, otherwise I wouldn't know what to do. It just doesn't come naturally. The idea of the response comes first, then I decide whether or not I want to use it.

One could question if a learned personality is real or not. Given though that I don't deviate from whatever choices I make, I'd have to say it is my personality, learned or natural.

Ja jestem najebana i pojebana

I second this notion. It's not limited to singing, though.

There exist very distinctive fiddle styles in the world. I often describe them as accents. They used to be very regionally based, but since the advent of recordings and global music sharing, the lines have blurred quite a bit. That said, there are still inflections in any particular fiddle style which makes it sound like that style: Irish, Scottish, Cape Breton, Quebecois, American old-time, bluegrass... they all sound different. Within each of those styles are distinctive sub-styles, some of which are regionally based, others which are more expressions of individuality inspired by the older regional styles.

I learned how to fiddle "Irish" style, and I will to some degree probably always carry a bit of that accent with me in whatever style I play in. However, I've noticed that I can much more effectively and thoroughly "cross over" into other styles that many other fiddlers.

I also seem to have this ability. Besides doing well in foreign languages in school (I studied German, French, Classical Greek, Hungarian, and Turkish in addition to my native English), I like to study foreign languages for fun. And it's usually the sound of the language, the phonology (as well as the grammar and structure) that really interests me about a language. I do seem to have a knack for picking up the pronunciation. My German accent isn't quite native, but native German speakers generally do not think it sounds American either. (As a sidenote, I should mention that I studied in Vienna, and picked up an Austrian accent when speaking German. Many people from Germany think it sounds somewhat odd to hear an American speaking Austrian German.) I love to read, or attempt to read, languages I never studied, especially really obscure ones. I did this even as a kid. I do think it's related to my musical abilities (both are symbolic/logical systems organized around sound.) And sometimes it's worked out well for me - I recited medieval Occitan troubadour poetry to a woman on our first date, and now we're married.

Mimicing sounds, voices, words is also a talent for me. I even mimic writing styles! It comes naturally and I enjoy it. I think it is due to the overinterest of aspies towards the structure and shape of things. In primary school I was getting laughed when I pronounced some english words perfectly, then I started to hide it with a regular turkish accent.

I love languages, but I'm not terribly good at the pronunciation. In school (studying French and German) I'm better than all my classmates, but this is probably just because I'm actually interested in the languages. German is OK, but I find French really hard to pronounce. (They say German is a harsh-sounding language, but for more, French with all its rounded front vowels and nasal vowels sounds much more unpleasant.) I'm usually better at pronunciation than any other aspect of the language anyway.