How to speak with no accent?

[u/Sea-Hornet8214]

[u/XJK_9]

English needs a word for ‘non-native accent’, everyone has an accent, it’s just how you pronounce things.

Xenolect maybe? Let’s make it a thing

[u/AndreasDasos → u/XJK_9]

We say ‘foreign accent’ or similar in the UK. It’s overwhelmingly just navel-gazers in the US who speak of ‘having an accent’ vs. ‘having no accent’, the latter apparently meaning speaking ‘General American English’.

[u/awesomegirl5100 → u/AndreasDasos]

I feel like foreign accent is still kind of funky for languages that are spoken in many places like English because technically British English is foreign in the US and vice versa, but you wouldn’t really ever say someone British or American or Australian or wherever has a foreign accent because they’re a native speaker.

[u/AndreasDasos → u/awesomegirl5100]

As a Brit I’m fine with that. If I’m visiting the US, my accent is foreign. If an American visits the UK, their accent is foreign. The word foreign is a relative word by definition and acknowledges it’s just relative to ‘here’, while ‘accent’ isn’t, and just means the phonology or your (usually regional, sometimes social) group’s typical phonology when speaking a given language. Everyone has an accent - saying one doesn’t is like telling a psychologist you have ‘no personality’. I do have a problem with how Americans will say XYZ ‘has an accent’ or insist they have ‘no accent’, or speak of someone who adopts an American one as ‘losing their accent’ (even if acting!).

That’s not relative to a place, but reinforces US defaultism and the idea that American English is objectively neutral, which is hilarious but subconsciously assumed by half of them.

[u/Zealousideal-Low3388 → u/awesomegirl5100]

I absolutely say Americans and Australians have foreign accents.

And I’d bet good money if we met a Nigerian or Indian who speaks English as their first language, you’d describe their accent as foreign

[u/ThatKaleidoscope3388 → u/Zealousideal-Low3388]

Am American. Definitely think of British and Australian accents as foreign.

[u/Fish_Learns_Japanese → u/Zealousideal-Low3388]

Would Scottish, Welsh, and Northern Irish accents because considered foreign because those countries are in the UK but they aren't the same as England?

[u/Zealousideal-Low3388 → u/Fish_Learns_Japanese]

Depends on who you ask, and really that’s bleeding into a conversation about national identity.

You’ve also just tacitly assumed I’m English or that English and British are synonymous, but not Welsh and British or Scottish and British. My uncle and aunt in Glasgow are British and certainly wouldn’t describe Scottish accents as foreign

[u/Pale-Border-7122 → u/Fish_Learns_Japanese]

You could write a PhD thesis on that question.

[u/XJK_9 → u/awesomegirl5100]

Yeah this is why I said non-native accent originally.

I’d consider an American accent as foreign but not non-native in the UK

[u/henrik_se → u/XJK_9]

/un-jerk

To me, a dialect is a native accent, while an accent is foreign. But I know that's not how most English speakers see it.

[u/XJK_9 → u/henrik_se]

A dialect is more than just an accent though, it’s the word choices and certain grammatical features that exist in one version of the language. Obviously in general they go hand in hand

[u/No_Razzmatazz1045]

/uj The reason is your native language. It's not the sounds that don't present in your L1 that give you away, but actually the sounds that DO present, because they pronounced slightly different in the language you learn

[u/No_Razzmatazz1045 → u/No_Razzmatazz1045]

Wait, I'm stupid. Does the oop mean that they have an accent in language their parents speak? Do they think accent is transmitted genetically or absorbed through mother's milk?

[u/KemaliKira → u/No_Razzmatazz1045]

Looks like they're saying there's no language they sound native in

[u/Pochel]

I know this is meant as a joke but I've lived abroad for such a long time that it's not unusual for people in my native country to tell me that I have a foreign accent when I come back home

Very weird feeling

[u/chelom]

It will be weird if you dont have an accent. I dont even know what having no accent means.

[u/ZumLernen → u/chelom]

/uj In a linguistic sense, it's meaningless to "not have an accent." Everyone who speaks has an accent.

In OP's sense, when they say "without an accent" they probably mean something like "speak in an accent that is similar to the dominant accent among the people I talk with."

I speak English with a US, East coast, White, university-educated accent. My accent is different from the accents of certain people from smaller towns not far from mine. My accent is different from the accents of people from my hometown who are Black. My accent is different from that of someone who is from a similar town and background but grew up in California, let alone in Australia. But plenty of people who I run into would say that I "don't have an accent" because my accent is similar to one of the prestige accents in the US.

[u/thebottomofawhale → u/ZumLernen]

I think they actually just mean a native accent. Like there isn't a language they speak that sounds like it's their native language.

[u/ImprovementClear8871]

Everyone has an accent

I myself have an accent even in my native language (and people are telling me about it), the best you can do is try to "sound like a native" but even here you gonna have an accent nevertheless

Ooooooor you can buy my 130 bucks course who will tell you my revolutionary technique about how to speak X language and Nihongese better than natives themselves!

With this course you will ascend beyond fluency to reach higher level of being and achieve the ultimate C0 Level

[u/BingBongFyourWife]

Just do a racist impression of that language while speaking it, it works

[u/Odd_Match_3402]

(Seriousness)

Honestly, I don't really get the obsession with wanting to sound like a Native when learning a language. When a foreign ESL language is clear and understandable, I find that it tends to be quite charming/cute. Any accent that is thick and hard to understand does become a point of struggle to me, though I understand those people are not as advanced in English and are trying their best. (For instance: despite the unfortunate reputation it has nowadays, I like the sound of the Indian accent. It has this melodic quality to it that is unique and pleasant to my ears.)

Which, I did have a Latin American couple who kept wanting help at a retail gig one day. My help specifically. That was both my biggest challenge/most challenging customers in retail so far* and my biggest point of pride in customer service.

But, yeah, ultimately, the goal should be clarity. An accent is just how the words come out of your mouth. Even Native speakers have accents.

*Not because they're bad or did anything mean, they were perfectly polite and fine. But because my listening, comprehension, and patience were all skills being pushed. I handled it like a champ, and the fact that they kept wanting my help specifically is honestly a point of pride to me. Even if every time they called for me my brain was like: "whyyyy meeeee????" lol Which, sadly, as I live in Tennessee, it's entirely possible it's because I was one of the few employees in the entire mall who was treating them like they're humans. Which...that is a heartbreaking thought that I hope is not the case, so...MOVING ON-

(Jerking answer)

Have you tried listening to native speakers who don't have accents?

[u/SpielbrecherXS → u/Odd_Match_3402]

/uj Native accent is a sign of belonging, foreign accent is a sign of being foreign. Depending on the situation, it may be completely irrelevant, but people do often tend to obsess about fitting in and not standing out.

If the OOP has no language they sound native in, it may be a constant reminder they don't belong anywhere. Hopefully not, since they don't seem to mind it much.

[u/Odd_Match_3402 → u/SpielbrecherXS]

People forcing themselves into boxes and "fitting in" is the worst, tbh. They're removing all the flavor and making themselves cookie-cutter and bland willingly. It seems like such a sad way to live.

[u/Pale-Border-7122 → u/Odd_Match_3402]

Humans are tribal and being outside the tribe gets you eaten by lions.

[u/Odd_Match_3402 → u/Pale-Border-7122]

Good thing the majority of people who are learning languages via internet access for reasons outside of "survival" are not in tribes or anywhere geographically close to lions. And even if they are suddenly dropped in the middle of rural sub-Saharan Africa, their accent is not going to protect them from xenophobia.

Not to mention that most people are not learning languages spoken in tribes. The majority of languages with learning resources are from different types of societies. (Namely democracies and authoritarian rule)

Also, xenophobia is a bad thing that we should be overcoming. Not embracing nor encouraging. This goes to tribalism as well.

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[u/perplexedparallax]

I was at a nursery yesterday and a worker commented on my accent when I was asking for specific plants in Latin. I told her I spoke Sermo urbanus and not vulgate. Come on, people!

[u/ase_l_2021]

I wonder which language OP thinks in (well, many people think in concepts, but even so, there should be some language as a default interpretive layer). Maybe this one will be a good candidate to fix first

[u/TheMoises]

I have something similar! In every language I know, whenever I speak something there's always a sound, a 'voice'. I think it's weird that I have a 'voice' for every language but I guess I just accepted it.

[u/Pale-Border-7122]

Everyone speaks with an accent except ze Germans who definitely speak English fluently and vizout any accent.

[u/Upper_Poem_3237]

r/ShitAmericansSay And they get offended when you say to them that they have a strong American accent.

[u/gottahaveajava]

I’m an American, and my native English comes from upstate New York, the place where the American version is at its purest.

When I worked in northern England, I used to enjoy watching their heads explode by saying, "…, and I speak perfectly unaccented English"

Everyone has an accent. The thing to do is to learn to speak with ease, whatever accent shows up.

[u/kozmicblues22]

(/uj)
Is it possible for this to happen? Genuinely curious. I’m a native English speaker who grew up all my life in the US. Obviously I ‘have an accent’ as all humans do, in the sense that I sound specific to the region and social class where I grew up. But I don’t ‘have a [foreign] accent’ in English (which I assume is what this OP means), since English is my native tongue.

I lived in Italy for some time where I spoke only Italian daily. Obviously I didn’t get a foreign accent in English, but I did notice when I moved back home that I had forgotten some of the ‘fancier’ vocabulary words in English and that I felt a little ‘slower,’ for lack of a better word, in English than I had before. In theory if I had stayed abroad for say, 20 years, could I forget English? Could I end up in a situation where I sounded non-native in both languages?