Re: OT: New Restaurant in Phoenix

Hello Graham,


I have heard that the cut-off time for learning another language
without keeping an accent is around 8 years of age.

In fact, there are two sorts of people. One adapts very quickly, even as
an adult, to a new language environment, but imperfectly if adult, while
the other keeps a strong 'foreign' accent for decades. There may be some
examples among your friends.

I am probably in the first group since people say my accent is light,
unlike Ahnold's :-)

My English has become pretty mushy and influenced by having teachers
from the south and from Australia, Canadians, staying in Scotland and so
on. But what really floored me was when I called HP in California,
someone with a Bavarian accent picked up and told me point-blank that I
must have grown up in the Ruhr area in Germany (which is true).


I remember two elderly women in a pub, conversing in impeccable BBC
English, but ordering Löwenbräu with perfect German pronunciation,
prompting my German friend to talk to them for 15 minutes in German,
forgetting his turn to buy beer! He had been in UK for around 40 years
and you would have no trouble at all in placing him as German.

Amazing. I just met a guy at the Borders book store. He had learned
German on his own here in the US and spoke it nearly accent-free. I
really thought he was German.

Berliner ?


His folks came from the south, Schwaben or Bavaria, some time around the 1850's.

I studied French for 8 years but hadn't been to France when some visitors at my
g/f's said I had a Provencale accent ! Seems I picked it up from the Frenchies I
met over here !

Apparently my German is now quite Schweiz Deutsch too.


Happens easily. That's why my Dutch has (had?) a Belgian twang to it. Because I was a member at a sports club in Belgium and I hung out at their airport most weekends.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com
.

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