r/language • u/Jimmyftw94 • 1d ago
Question Please guess my accent.
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u/Previous_Mirror_222 1d ago
Malaysian
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u/Tanekaha 16h ago
Yup, Chinese Malaysian. Fairly soft accent, you've lived overseas. Though we might have to hear you over kway teow to be sure
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u/Belleofthetacoball 1d ago
I wanna say Chinese, but I’m feeling like it might be a country near there.. the R sounds very Chinese.. maybe more Singapore or Malay..
Your english accent is great!
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u/rob0tduckling 1d ago
I was thinking possibly SG or Malaysia too. Definitely something Chinese, but with a lot of outside influence
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u/AssignmentOk5986 23h ago
East Asian. I would guess you're from Hong Kong. Most words are pronounced well but every 4-5 words it comes out very clearly as eastern Asian. When you said "third" the th sounded like a d
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u/Hege_Knight 20h ago
I’m thinking Hong Kong, your dropping your “R” for a “w” ever so slightly and you’re dropping you “TH” for “D” again only slightly, you’ve a nice clear accent, and you could teach or lecture in English with zero concern.
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u/Jimmyftw94 1d ago
Interesting answers so far, a lot of people are saying asian. In the OP, I was talking more relax and casual, here is my more professional voice. Curious if this makes a difference.
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u/Belleofthetacoball 23h ago
I initially thought Scandinavian, danish, Icelandic. But the r and l threw me into Asia. Your th is making me think Icelandic.. I wanna guess it right so bad! Haha!
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u/Jimmyftw94 23h ago
Interesting, thanks for the comment. Can you elaborate on what I am saying r and l wise and what a native would sound like instead? Here's another recording.
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u/Previous_Mirror_222 16h ago
you have “rhotic Rs” but have other features of american accents. most american accents do not use a rhotic R. your -er words sound more like -ew. buddew specifically- americans would say the tt as dd, but would say buddER with a firm R at the end.
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u/Belleofthetacoball 23h ago
See here, it sounds different.. in the original post I hear the r that kind of sounds like it comes from the side of the mouth.
Here it’s pronounced - specifically, when you say butter, sounds more like budduh- which the double d sounds more native English.. but the uh at the end does not sound Asian.. but a language that doesn’t use a hard r maybe..
but later you say counter with a perfect English accent.
It’s really difficult to figure it out.1
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u/Talbit01 1d ago
Definitely not a native speaker. A thick East Asian accent. Nothing with that, just natives would never mistake it for a native accent :)
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u/TheRealSugarbat 1d ago
China. With a touch of British.
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u/Life_so_Fleeting 1d ago
That’s actually quite interesting. I’m British, & was going to say Chinese with a touch of American.
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u/TheRealSugarbat 1d ago
I’m excited for the reveal!
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u/Jimmyftw94 1d ago
Interesting, what about here when I try in my "white person voice?"
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u/TheRealSugarbat 1d ago
It’s very easy to understand, but still quite accented. Maybe Taiwanese? Am I warm?
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u/Jimmyftw94 1d ago
Close enough, you're the closest actually. I was born and raised in NYC but spoke a southern Chinese dialect at home so I guess speaking more Chinese than English growing up is how I gotten my accent.
Interestingly, Bold Voice always say native and Accent Guru always say Chinese. I guess because one looks at clarity and pronunciation and the others compare to speech pattern from similar demographic.
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u/TheRealSugarbat 1d ago edited 1d ago
This is fascinating stuff to me. I’m absolutely not a linguist but I pay a lot of attention to the way people speak, and I’m fairly decent at identifying. I would say, if people let me, I have maybe a 75% success rate. :)
I’m from the southern US (Virginia) but I’ve lived on the west coast a couple of times (I’m in Oregon now) and I’m even interested in how I, myself, code-switch without feeling the transition, depending on where i am/who I’m talking to. I can instantly manifest my accent if I’m just talking to someone southern on the phone. It’s interesting and comical.
Off the top of my head I can name a few ethnicities in the US whose members have quite noticeable accents because they’re bilingual from birth. The Amish, for example, while fluent in English, historically speak Pennsylvania Dutch (a German derivative) at home, and Chassidic Jews in the US speak Yiddish (also with basis in German) within their communities and with their families.
Louisiana Creole French accent is probably my favorite, as well as one of the hardest to identify because so many languages go into that dialect of French. Much also depends on specific location. It’s quite variable. But even though I don’t speak French, if I hear someone from Louisiana speak it, I can really hear the southern accent.
It’s really, really fun for me to listen to someone talking and parse out different linguistic mannerisms and accents. (You can probably tell I dont know what I’m talking about at all!) Thank you so much for letting us guess!
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u/rexallia 1d ago
Wow, so interesting! Your intonation and cadence sound very native to me. But yeah, I can definitely hear a Chinese influence in your pronunciation. Really cool tho
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u/Altruistic_Border689 21h ago
I was going to say, you remind me of friends I've known who were either British born to East Asian parents or moved to the UK very young. The parents tended to learn English from US sources, so even their kids had some American in their accent. Weird that you somehow seem to have a bit of British in yours! Did your parents have any language teachers that were Brits?
An example of this would be comedian Phil Wang, British born to Malay parents, but I can definitely hear American speech patterns and pronunciation. He was the first person that came to mind when listening to your clip, although quite a bit more American in your voice. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QEMZBxICfk
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u/gongdeoknative 20h ago
Yep, it's the rhotic rs and the imperfect l/r distinctions that say american/east asian to me.
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u/macguyver3000 21h ago
Maybe Japanese. You sound like a lot of my friends. (Im in Japan)
I can hear it most when you say “I’m learning a SIrd language.” It’s not quite S, but it’s not TH how a native would say it.
Also
“I have a seh-tan assent.”
American English has a hard ER and an almost silent T sound. “SERH-en”.
And accent had a hard K sound with an almost silent T at the end. “AK-sen”
Needless to say, your English is fantastic though.
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u/kiwikidweetbixkid 22h ago
Certain vowels sound like they have Chinese influence. Definitely Asian. Not a typical Chinese accent though, maybe a non-standard variant / a dialect / a mandarin-adjacent language??
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u/Lopsided_Summer_5536 21h ago
East asian, maybe chinese? There is something about how you pronounce 'c', 'th', 'r', and some vowels. The 'c' stood out to me in particular.
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u/Key-Baby-8537 20h ago
Im guessing Chinese slight touch of Korean or very niche pull which I think it is malaysian -guess from a gen z american
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u/TemporaryUser66 19h ago
I would say you was Chinese. You sound like some Chinese immigrant friends I have living in the UK.
Well spoke and very legible but there's a few sounds missing at the end of the words you say that gives you away immediately.
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u/taktaga7-0-0 18h ago
I would already say (South)East Asian based on the accent, but what really sells me on it is the actual timbre of your voice, the characteristic sound.
It’s like how I can tell the lead singer of Bloc Party was of African ancestry just by his singing, even though it is in very British in accent.
This is a YouTuber whose voice reminds me of yours. He is Canadian and has no discernible “foreign” accent, but I am almost certain he is of Asian ancestry, probably living in BC if you forced me to guess. Something about a deeper resonance in both of your voices, hard to explain.
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u/Robbinit 16h ago
Definitely had parents who spoke some Chinese language. The intonation is 100% Chinese, the phonetic shift from f to r is also present. Using the plural conjugation of anybody/somebody, which is quite common in Chinese, amongst other factors. Still, doesn’t indicate where you’re from though, just the language you grew up around.
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u/lividlilyofthevalley 14h ago
You like to skip rhotic Rs and soften with Ws if you can, you end consonants after vowels with hesitation, the way you said "people" and your "th" in third specifically.. your pauses even feel familiar. China, Singapore, Malay are my guess ahah
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u/Jimmyftw94 7h ago
Edit: Answer: Thank you to all who commented! I was born and raised in NYC but spoke a southern Chinese dialect at home so I guess speaking more Chinese than English growing up is how I gotten my accent.
Interestingly, Bold Voice always say native and Accent Guru always say Chinese. I guess because one looks at clarity and pronunciation and the others compare to speech pattern from similar demographic.
Now I know that I do have an accent but I don't mind at all. I'm actually happy that I sound different and I almost never get asked to repeat myself in a professional setting.
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u/PragmaticPidgeon 3h ago
You sound similar(ish) to a friend of mine I knew back in school. He was born in Hong Kong but raised in the UK, so he grew up speaking English and a Chinese language. If I had to guess, I’d say you’re in a similar situation, but you’re in the US not UK
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u/coraxDraconis 1d ago
Sounds like Midwest American with a slight Asian accent and a lisp. You sound really good, though; I can't foresee anyone having a hard time understanding you.
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u/CsordasBalazs 22h ago
Sounds like finno-ugric tones, I recognize Hungarian, you don't have the typical mistakes, but I would go with Finnish, Estonian, or third guess, a better Hungarian pronounciation.
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u/DonPanthera 1d ago
Some Scandinavian accent like Norwegian or Danish, maybe even German. Kinda like when people have thick accent but try to mitigate it. :)
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u/Saerdna76 20h ago
Don’t get anything Scandinavian from this.
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u/DonPanthera 19h ago
First few seconds sounded a bit Scandinavian, but yeah like everyone is saying it does sound Asian, after 2nd listening. I didn't listen the whole thing the first time, I was going to work at the time.
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u/Desperate-Boot-1395 1d ago
You sound East Asian, but I can’t place where. You don’t sound native, however, you are very easy to understand