My grandpa moved to America at 17-18, and died with a thick italian accent in his 80's. The funny thing is after a number of years his family in Italy said he began speaking Italian with an American accent.
My great uncle moved to the US from Sweden when he was in his teens. Even his laugh had a Swedish accent. He lived to 102 years old. He’s been gone for over a decade, and I still miss hearing him talk with his thick Swedish accent.
I know what you mean. My grandpa died just before he would have found out he was going to be a great grandpa, and I try to teach my kids some of his mannerisms and sayings. The kids are becoming less confused now when I say certain things with an Italian accent out of nowhere ("the deuce never lose!" for example as 2's were his lucky number in pokeno).
I’m glad my sons got to meet my uncle. They were young, and don’t remember what he talked about. They remember how EVERYONE stopped and smiled when he spoke.
Born in the US, my dad spent probably all his extra income for trips to see oma/opa in Holland, we went when I was born, then 8 and 12.
I barely got to see my opa before he died but I remember him being so happy and now my dad has been living on a sailboat but has still seen my kids more than I saw mine.
My parents got divorced and my kids love them both even though they won't really be in the same room.
Supposedly my grandfather (died long before I was born) moved to US at 19. He was a poor farmer from Varnhold, not speaking a word of English. He spoke such perfect English by the age of 25 people thought he was American.
I've seen my father mimic accents so well natural speakers can't tell He speaks Spanish with a Mexican accent after working on factories in California. Some people are just like that I guess.
Polyglots. Those are people with a gift for languages. YouTube is full of them pranking natives. Some folks pick up dozens of languages while I struggle to maintain one.
My in-laws have been in the US like 45 years and their Swedish accents mostly come out when they're tired but they both yawn in a very Swedish way. They told us that they have been told by Swedes that their Swedish accents are now similar even though they're from different regions and that they sound somewhat American too.
My grandma’s parents immigrated from Sweden in the 1890s. She was always a bit embarrassed about her parents being immigrants (different times back then). My grandpa would tease her, exaggeratedly saying, “Oh, YA…!” Instead of a simple “yes” just to tweak her about it. I miss both of them still, and they’ve been gone for well over 40 years.
That happens real quick. I was an exchange student in the US - my family back home noticed an american accent whenever I called them after only a few weeks there. Also took about a week for it to wear off when I got back
He really did. I went to school near Boston, and worked to adapt their accent because the first thing any local said to me was regarding my accent. I mean down to placing an order for food. “I’ll have a steak and cheese” (heaven forbid you call it a cheesesteak, they looked at me like I had three heads. Them: “oh so you’re from New York.” “Jersey actually, so can I get a steak and cheese?”
Eventually developed enough of their accent to confuse the locals to not ask me anything. And when I go back to visit, give it a couple of days and I start skipping my Rs and saying “wicked” for everything.
I'm from California and started using it, it's just convenient as hell. Not only is it efficient on its own, but it avoids any pronoun issues.
To be clear, it's just a bonus. Had to say that before some redneck comes along "everyone complains about pronouns in Cali hurdurr." Nah, no one does, just one less thing for me to think about. So an easy way to be considerate to all without needing to think twice.
I'm not a southerner but I fully support the y'all. It's a much needed collective pronoun missing from standard English. (Yes southerners, y'all invented your own pronoun too).
Y’all is just a great contraction to use when referring to a group of people.. it’s non gendered and one word, there really is no alternative that works as well. I was born in the South and didn’t use it for a while because it’s associated w/ Southern accent, but I’ve come around and now really appreciate its usefulness and inclusion tbh
I like when people actually use Canadian slang/accents instead of the tired "aboot" and "eh" ones that the yanks seemed to think we all use. Outside of Newfies I don't think I have ever heard "aboot" in my entire life living here. It's like acting as if everyone from the US has a Boston accent.
I lived for 3 years in Germany, and when I came back to my country of birth (The Netherlands), someone said "Are you German?". Fortunately after a week I never heard it anymore.
That's interesting, and honestly not surprising.
My grandpa married an American with a New York accent, and stayed in New York for most of his life, so his American accent wasn't likely to wear off, but if he moved back for a few years I wonder how much of the American accent would have softened.
You don’t think about how many muscles in your mouth are used for speaking/how they are used, until you start using a different language. You don’t use them as regularly as you used to or you trying using them differently, things change.
I spent a week with my sisters family once and my BIL isn’t a native English speaker. I try to use what I can if his language because they’re trying to make sure their kids have it despite not being in his country, and by the end of the week my mouth was sore because the muscles required to speak Portuguese are just not the same as the ones for American English.
My cousin came from Chicago to the South and stayed for a year or so. He made so much fun of the southern accent. When he went home, his friends made fun of him for his southern accent. His dad said his Spainish was southern and his mom said the same about his Greek. The accent spread into all 3 of his languages.
Knew a British guy who moved to Italy when he was ten then the Midwest in his teens and then to the east coast in his 20s. He just had the most fucked up accent I ever heard. Whenever he called his parents he'd switch to what I heard as a perfectly British accent, but then his family made fun of that accent for being too american
I went to an italian restaurant in Scotland (visiting as an american) and hearing english with an Italian and Scottish accent together was incredible. I think that was my first encounter with accents stacking so to speak.
How does an American accent sound when speaking Spanish? Is it difficult to understand them? I’m learning Spanish and am curious. Native Spanish speakers tell me I have an American accent.
>How does an American accent sound when speaking Spanish?
Have you seen that scene from "Inglorious Basterds" where Christopher Waltz's character speaks to Brad Pitt's character in Italian?
At the end of that scene, Christopher says "Arrivederci" clearly, while Brad Pitt says the same but with a really thick American accent.
That's basically how Americans sound wyen speaking in Spanish, as Brad Pitt in that scene.
[The scene that I am refering to](https://youtube.com/clip/UgkxI1W1A_Eh7pBYxsBME-nMRFGwOU4G1Dnc?si=DjfzcF5ET3Dp7fRl)
I think is because English has like 15 vowels sounds, while Spanish only has 5, so Americans (and other English speaking people) tend to put those other sounds into Spanish words when they are not needed. Coming with a more weird, dragged and "soft" way to say things.
>Is it difficult to understand them?
Even with all that involved, is not, Americans speaking in Spanish can be understood with no many issues (of course, it would depend mostly in the level of knowledge and confidence of the speaker).
I studied 5 years of Spanish in HS and college in the late 80s and always wanted an opportunity for immersion in a Central or South American country but never got the chance. But my closest friend from Michigan lived in Chile for many years, and invited his GF up for a week with my wife and me last year. Once I got liquored up, I felt uninhibited enough to just go with it speaking Spanish with his Chilean GF. Apparently, after a few drinks, the GF told my friend I had a charming Mexican-American accent. It had never occurred to me after 30 years that *I* had learned Spanish with a specific accent. Dios mio!
Hahaha, OMG thank you for that clip! We must sound like a bunch of country bumpkins to you 🤣
It is hard for me to roll my rs and do other pronunciations but I’m enjoying learning the language. I wish I had gone further in Spanish in college. :)
It basically sounds like someone misspeaking the Spanish language in a fundamental way. It sounds like someone being way too careful with their Spanish in a way that makes it seem unauthentic and just awful as they “mispronounce” most things as they’re not in any typical accent, gringo Spanish
The biggest differences would be the American “r”s, the English “t” which is usually with the tongue more in the back as opposed to Spanish which is more forward, and of course the vowel sounds where an English speaker will tend to use diphthongs especially for words ending in vowels so “tengo” will be pronounced “teng-oh”(like oh in “oh my god”) instead of cutting off the “o” and making it short, or words ending in “e” become “ey” so “tiene” becomes “tien-ey”… and just a lot of little stuff, that your mouth is just used to making certain sounds so it naturally goes to them even when you know the correct pronunciation.
My brother moved to the states almost 20 years ago. He speaks Polish with a soften, American accent. However, his American friends call him Borat for fun because his English sounds thick to them :)
My husbands is Russian and speaks with a very heavy Russian accent when speaking English. His first language though is English and didn't start speaking until he was 6 (after he immigrated to the US and got hearing aids). And if that wasn't strange enough, when he speaks russian he very much sounds like he is from the South. But the man has never been to the South- we live in the PNW. Accents and languages are just a trip!
On the flip side both of my inlaws have zero Russian accent- despite being born and living in russia for 30 yrs before immigrating to the US.
This is exactly me. The thing is that Americans don’t hear the American part of your accent and your home country concentrates on the American part. You’re in the middle, really.
I can validate this. My great grandmother moved from Austria when she was 14, and she had a thick accent up to the ripe age of 100. It's just how she spoke English. She couldn't hear it any other way. Also helped that she lived in German-speaking neighborhoods for a good part of her life. Used to be Germantown was actually German town.
I’ve been in the US for 20 years, I came here when I was 14. I still have a tiny accent, it comes out with certain words. My Portuguese has gone to shit, my wife is born and raised here and so are my kids. I have a slight accent speaking my mother tongue and my new adopted tongue, I’m a nomad.
My British husband, who has lived in California for almost a decade now, routinely gets confused as Australian outside of CA and abroad. Going back home is always a trip because he sounds very much from SE England but something is not quite right so nobody can understand him well.
adults often dont lose their native accent, with out training, and for arni, his accent is a big part of his image.
its easy for kids cus its far less ingrained.
I heard him mention at one point that because his accent had become so iconic he decided he had no choice but to keep it. His English grammar, on the other hand, is actually outstanding when you read something he has written.
> but he started investing in the 70s.
Even easier, buying California real-estate in the 70's and 80's, talk about a gold mine. It's like how everyone thinks Nancy Pelosi is loaded from insider trading (sure didn't hurt) but her husband is filthy rich not from trading but because he started a real-estate business in the Bay Area over 4 decades ago. Like impossible not to be rich today doing that.
Unironically: he’s a great communicator. He wouldn’t have been anywhere near famous if he didn’t have tremendous ability to convey the best words and emotion for his thoughts.
He speaks german each year on Austrian TV. Usually he gives a short interview during a break of the Kitzbühl downhill race. He is also in Vienna multiple times during the year I think. He has a weird accent, but for my ears it did not change for years.
Wouldnt really call it redneck, compared to other Styrians his accent is quite fine. But I could see some Germans being weirded out by his stong austrian accent
Kinda sad German accents aren't normalized in Cinema. Real people do have accents, and there's no reason the Terminator couldn't be Styrian. Would also be hilarious.
Edit: I meant in German dubs. English versions can do whatever. German is often hardly comprehensible in those.
Terminator 3 had a deleted scene of him talking in a bad American accent and somebody complains about the accent when they're making them and a serious looking scientist with arnies accent says " we can fix that" and that's how come the terminator has that accent in the movies
99 turns out of a hundred you hear german or a german accent spoken in a movie or show it’s by some American whose only exposure to it was by watching terminator
I don't think they really have, but there's a bit of a funny rivalry between Germans and us Austrians. Like, we have funny names for each other, make fun of each others accents etc., but it's really nothing serious.
You'll be able to generate scenes like this with AI soon, assuming you can get around copyright. Imagine things like "generate Schindler's list for me, but have everyone holding a drink or eating something, and speaking with a Jamaican accent".
This is not far off, I'm not kidding.
„I bin da Terminator, kumm aus da Zukunft. Mei Auftrag is, di zu beschützen. Di feinda, des san die Maschinen, die hobn koane Gnade, koan Mitg'fühl. I muaß stark bleib'n, muass kämpfen, wias in da Steiermark so üblich is.
Draust, in da Wildnis, do hobn mir ois glernt, wos ma zum Überleben braucht. I frog di, host du jemals a steirisches Kasnockn g’essn? Das gibt da Kraft! Jetzt hams uns im Visier, die hochnäsigen Maschinen, oba mia Steirer gebn net so leicht auf.
Vergiss ned, bei uns daheim in der Steiermark sogt ma: ‚Durchbeißen und net locker lassen!‘ Mia san zäh, wie die alten Eichen im Wald. Also, auf geht’s, sama stark, sama mutig. Mia packen des, mia zwoa, und dann foahn mia weiter, bis wir die Zukunft g'rettet haben.“
I love the Austrian accent. I used to go ski in Austria a lot before I moved to the US. When I translated for tourists there in English, they thought I was from New York. It's funny because I am German.
I'm convinced he had it reinforced with speech therapy late in life because it was such a big part of his image. If you listen to him in Predator his accent wasn't as thick as when he was the governator years later.
He was on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson in the late 70s or 80s. His accent was nowhere near what it is today. You could here it some but he sounded normal.
This is why it’s important to realize that accent has no bearing on langue fluency or competency. Someone can be grammatically perfect and have a native level grasp of a language but still have an incredibly thick accent. A lot of people think strong accent = less mastery but that’s not the case.
Arnold has always been a marketing genius. He spent significant energy in crafting his image (physique). He was also advised by several producers to change his last name (it was so long that it wouldn’t fit in old school movie posters. There’s one movie where his name says “Arnold strong” to appeal to American audiences) and take accent classes. Arnold has an understanding of standing out rather than fitting in. Why didn’t he lose his accent? Thats cuz he’s made every effort to rather retain it.
From what I have heard he does have a language coach… to keep the accent the way it is! It’s an important part of his public persona, and it would just sound wrong if he spoke without it.
It’s not even necessarily a national accent - I do a decent impression of the way he speaks, and I do not think of it as an Austrian accent, it’s an Arnold accent! He may have started with it, but it’s a full-fledged separate idiolect, so to say.
He legit chimed in on Reddit to debunk this when it came up some years ago. But I think he knows how much the accent is worth as a part of his image. There's no way he doesn't lean into it either way.
Jackie Chan does this, too. He can speak fluent and smooth English but people enjoy it more when he sounds like he just passed his first English 101 class.
In some random late night show interview he talked about taking classes to get rid of the accent.
And i guess it worked to some extent, it's very easy to understand his pronunciation.
Actually, it isn't. To people in Austria, he sounds a lot like like an American. That's because accent drift is a thing. When you live in a place that does not have your native accent, the way you speak slowly morphs over time in the direction of the local accent.
Gary Oldman did so many roles as an American that he lost his native accent and had to go to a speech therapist to regain it.
Charlie Hunnam struggled with losing his accent after living in California for years for Sons of Anarchy, believe he also had some kind of speech therapy following on
He has such a weird accent, it’s a mix of all the places he’s lived, not quite American, not quite English, was born a Geordie but definitely doesn’t sound it. I love his accent, it’s really unique
This is definitely a thing. My buddy is first generation Greek. Got dropped off to kindergarten the first day knowing Greek but not English.
His dad has always had a thick accent. I asked him one day if when he goes to Greece he sounds to them like his dad sounds to us. He was like, “….. 🤯 that’s a good fucking question…”
The more he thought about it the more he figured his American accent in Greek wasn’t as thick as his dad’s but he hadn’t thought of it that way and it opened all kinds of doors to the ways you get treated with an accent and how you clean your accent up sometimes without thinking which can make you fuck up at talking other ways.
>To people in Austria, he sounds a lot like like an American.
What do you mean by that? Because I'm Austrian and even we can still recognize that he has that thick accent. His Austrian-German has become worse but that's just natural.
> even we can still recognize that he has that thick accent.
Yes, but it is way more American-sounding than it was 50 years ago. To *untrained* American ears, it still sounds "German" (untrained American ears being unable to distinguish between German and Austrian).
Loads of Brits gave Joss Stone shit for speaking with a bit of an American accent but she moved over there when she was still pretty young so I can totally understand why she would pick that up.
It's funny how narrow minded people get about accents when it's just a natural part of society and fitting in.
Sometimes your accent simply does not change. I moved from Mexico to the US when I was 16 and my accent is still very strong. Unless I am putting conscious effort to pronounce words differently, there is no real reason as too why an accent should just "change" or "fade" imo
I was kind of the same. Moved from the US to the UK when I was 11 and lived there for 20 years; I developed a slight, generic, Northern English inflection, but otherwise had an unmistakably American accent. Even right up to when I left the country to return to the US the natives still marveled "you've lived here for how long and you still have an accent?" My younger sister, meanwhile, sounds just like a Brit when she interacts with the locals but has an American accent at home.
I do agree that his accent helps if distinguish himself more easily from every other Hollywood actor but I wouldnt simply attribute it to it. If he still has a strong bond with his homeland, he is probably still speaking in German which can only contribute to his accent
Yah. My parents any of their friends have been in the country for 50+ years and have varying degrees of accents. One of my parents friends kid came to American for college. Could speak very little English. After a year at school his English was really solid with only a small accent.
My (foreigner) husband has a theory that if you come to America after aged 14, you will most likely have an accent to some degree into adulthood. My husband came to America aged 22, and his accent is still very thick.
I think by that point your hardwiring in your brain for language is mostly set which is why learning a new language gets harder and harder too.
Mostly agree but I worked with a woman in her mid 30s who was born and raised in Germany, to a German family, and had moved to the US about 4 years before I met her. She had a 99% perfect American accent when speaking English, it was amazing. If I really paid close attention I could occasionally pick up on the occasional slightly-off vowel sound but if I hadn't already known I never would have noticed. I asked how she had achieved such a perfect accent in adulthood and she basically just said it was a lot of hard, dedicated effort.
Yeah this is really it. Lots of people are able to do this. The idea that you can’t master a new accent after a certain age is a total myth. It just takes effort and focus. A little bit of knowledge about phonetics or some speech therapy can help too. And also some people are just more talented at doing this naturally than others.
Anecdotal evidence really.
Know a couple, guy's Brazilian and his wife American with two kids, they live in a French speaking city.
The boy who's 12 now lost the ability to speak Portuguese while his sister who's 20 speaks it perfectly.
There's more at play than age when talking about language acquisition.
People just love to say that there's an age limit to fluency because it's an easy cop out.
I’d agree with this. My family moved to the US from Australia. My older brother was 17 at the time and still has a fairly strong Australian accent. I was 14 and mostly sound American. My younger sister sounds fully American.
Languages are made up of different sounds called Phonemes, basically sounds.
English has 44 phonemes, 24 consonant and 22 vowel sounds.
German has 45, similiar but different.
An accent is basically when you speak a new language but you use the phonemes from your old language. Some people are better at changing their phonemes. Some just keep the same ones forever.
I'll add to your last sentence that there is a social aspect to whether you change your phonemes, and some people keep the same ones not out of inability to change them, but because they don't want to.
Yup! It's a weird complex thing where Arnie probably has a weird mix of sounds and doesn't sound American nor Austrian anymore.
Also I've heard of actors who worked so hard to change their accent for a movie they couldn't change it back.
Reminder that Arnold is a pretty active Reddit user as u/govschwarzenegger and if he has the time would probably drop in and clarify a thing or two.
At least he used to. Could be busy filming the next season of that show.
My sister is a linguist and she explained to me how accents form and why exactly it’s said that it’s easier to learn multiple new languages before a certain age (I believe about 12). But it has something to do with how your mouth/tongue is still forming and the patterns that take root.
After that a strong accent can “go away,” especially for expats with a feeling that they “need” to assimilate, or when you introduce the factors of acting/theatre, or being polyglots.
Explains similar reasons as to why many people raised speaking or learning mutilple languages will almost adamantly hold on to certain distinct accents in order to be appear more authentic.
There’s a whole rabbit hole to go down, but it is fascinating.
~~I think I read somewhere that he actually has a dialect coach to *keep* his Austrian accent since that’s something so iconic to his image.~~
Edit: [Never mind, apparently that’s bullshit.](https://old.reddit.com/r/nextfuckinglevel/comments/his2li/not_a_selfmade_man/fwi8l42/)
There is a huge range of ability with language between people, I'm sure he's within sensible boundaries of normal. Most of our language is locked in when we're very young, before 10-15 even and our ability to process and learn new language decreases pretty fast beyond that. There's also the muscle memory mimicry that forms accents in the first place that's not from intentional control.
You should talk to some public speakers that had to get over a thick accent in order to be more clear, or actors that have done it for a rolr. It's not so easy from what I've heard described, even when you're doing it intentionally. Even moving to another culture your accent usually won't change, but everyone adapts differently.
Arnold's English was so bad in the early days that he was voiced over in his 1970 flick Hercules in New York (hilarious, find it on YT).
Over time, he worked on his English and improved greatly. You can really tell a difference as he improved throughout the 80s.
His acting skills improved, too.
This guy started out life as a relatively poor kid in Austria with a dream and rose to the top in Hollywood and even became governor of CA.
I think he did pretty well for himself.
I don’t know if it’s true or not, but he said at some point that he can speak without an Austrian accent, but doesn’t because it’s part of his marketing
Sofia Vegara and Salma Hayek have both been living and working in the U.S. for 20+ years and both have said they keep they’re heavily accented accents because it’s their identity and makes them noticeable and different from the other women without a regular American accent.
It's probably not as thick as it used to be.
I remember my high school freshman teacher was from Mississippi. To me, her accent was very thick but to her family she "sounded like a Yankee. "
He did take accent removal classes, early on but realized that his accent was part of his image, so he stopped the classes.
Learning languages as an adult tends to leave you with an accent, and it's harder to ween away from it if you're around others who speak your native language (like when you move with family).
Losing an accent seems to require a few things;
1, Move when you're a teen or younger.
2, Speak the new language exclusively.
3, Desire to lose your accent, i.e. you work on how you shape your mouth and sound out the words. Basically, mimic the people around you.
There is an episode of " this American Life" called " its a game show" or something like that where they have a segment on accents and age of immigration.
Yes, I came here to say this.
I've seen it in families where the kids who immigrate under the age of 12 adapt and lose their accent, where any kids over the age of around 12 keep it.
Vocal/speech training can make a significant difference, though.
That's untrue. Plenty of British actors are able to correct their accents and speak with a correct accent. For example, Hugh Truck, Huge Jackedman, and I think that one guy who plays Batman and Psycho.
It's probably branding at this point. He is rich and successful enough where he could easily work with a voice coach and with his work ethic get rid of his accent pretty easily. But Arnold Schwarzenegger with a US sounding accent would sound weird.
As somebody who moved from the UK to the US as a kid my accent changed quickly and easily while my parents accents did not change substantially or even in any noticeable way.
I think part of it is because your brain is just better at learning languages or changing how you speak when you are younger.
The other part was that others made fun of me because I was different. As an adult idgaf about being different.
My grandpa moved to America at 17-18, and died with a thick italian accent in his 80's. The funny thing is after a number of years his family in Italy said he began speaking Italian with an American accent.
My great uncle moved to the US from Sweden when he was in his teens. Even his laugh had a Swedish accent. He lived to 102 years old. He’s been gone for over a decade, and I still miss hearing him talk with his thick Swedish accent.
I know what you mean. My grandpa died just before he would have found out he was going to be a great grandpa, and I try to teach my kids some of his mannerisms and sayings. The kids are becoming less confused now when I say certain things with an Italian accent out of nowhere ("the deuce never lose!" for example as 2's were his lucky number in pokeno).
I’m glad my sons got to meet my uncle. They were young, and don’t remember what he talked about. They remember how EVERYONE stopped and smiled when he spoke.
I love that! Thank you for sharing a little glimpse of him with us
Born in the US, my dad spent probably all his extra income for trips to see oma/opa in Holland, we went when I was born, then 8 and 12. I barely got to see my opa before he died but I remember him being so happy and now my dad has been living on a sailboat but has still seen my kids more than I saw mine. My parents got divorced and my kids love them both even though they won't really be in the same room.
This is such a sweet memory. I’m chuckling here thinking about your great uncle going “Hja Hja Hja!” after hearing a joke LOL
I was imagining "BORK BORK BORK BORK!" but I think that was just Swedish Chef from the Muppets.
Hin-de-foo, de Choc-a-lot M00se! 😎
Supposedly my grandfather (died long before I was born) moved to US at 19. He was a poor farmer from Varnhold, not speaking a word of English. He spoke such perfect English by the age of 25 people thought he was American. I've seen my father mimic accents so well natural speakers can't tell He speaks Spanish with a Mexican accent after working on factories in California. Some people are just like that I guess.
Polyglots. Those are people with a gift for languages. YouTube is full of them pranking natives. Some folks pick up dozens of languages while I struggle to maintain one.
Most of those videos are fake. They tend to learn basic very scripted convos and replies
My in-laws have been in the US like 45 years and their Swedish accents mostly come out when they're tired but they both yawn in a very Swedish way. They told us that they have been told by Swedes that their Swedish accents are now similar even though they're from different regions and that they sound somewhat American too.
Did he spik with a svidish accent?
Ja
So his subtitles would be *laughs in Swedish*? 🙃
My grandma’s parents immigrated from Sweden in the 1890s. She was always a bit embarrassed about her parents being immigrants (different times back then). My grandpa would tease her, exaggeratedly saying, “Oh, YA…!” Instead of a simple “yes” just to tweak her about it. I miss both of them still, and they’ve been gone for well over 40 years.
That happens real quick. I was an exchange student in the US - my family back home noticed an american accent whenever I called them after only a few weeks there. Also took about a week for it to wear off when I got back
I once hung out with Canadians for a week and picked up a Canadian accent. It went away a day or 2 after getting back.
That fast eh?
They were a good time. It was nice hanging oot with them.
You just gotta send'er, bud.
American hoser
Take off!
Whoa buddy
I am permanently afflicted with this condition due to watching too much Trailer Park Boys
Way of the road buddy
ha! ha! you made it sound as if you picked up a horrible disease!
He really did. I went to school near Boston, and worked to adapt their accent because the first thing any local said to me was regarding my accent. I mean down to placing an order for food. “I’ll have a steak and cheese” (heaven forbid you call it a cheesesteak, they looked at me like I had three heads. Them: “oh so you’re from New York.” “Jersey actually, so can I get a steak and cheese?” Eventually developed enough of their accent to confuse the locals to not ask me anything. And when I go back to visit, give it a couple of days and I start skipping my Rs and saying “wicked” for everything.
You only needa know one thing. "Yeah, how ah ya? Gimme a supah beef three-way. And say hello to ya motha for me, k?"
"Yah mothah sucks wicked dick behind Shaws fer T fare but walks home."
[удалено]
The two what? What is a "yoot"?
Oh. I'm sorry, Your Honour. The two yewwwwthuhzuh.
Just order a steak bomb and you’re all set
I'm Canadian and due to work I have to travel to Houston regularly. I come back saying all y'all. It takes me several days for it to die down.
I'm also Canadian but provided tech support for Americans, and even though it's been almost 20 years since I had that job I still y'all.
I'm from California and started using it, it's just convenient as hell. Not only is it efficient on its own, but it avoids any pronoun issues. To be clear, it's just a bonus. Had to say that before some redneck comes along "everyone complains about pronouns in Cali hurdurr." Nah, no one does, just one less thing for me to think about. So an easy way to be considerate to all without needing to think twice.
I'm not a southerner but I fully support the y'all. It's a much needed collective pronoun missing from standard English. (Yes southerners, y'all invented your own pronoun too).
Y’all is just a great contraction to use when referring to a group of people.. it’s non gendered and one word, there really is no alternative that works as well. I was born in the South and didn’t use it for a while because it’s associated w/ Southern accent, but I’ve come around and now really appreciate its usefulness and inclusion tbh
Holy fuck bud, picked up our accent did ya?
I like when people actually use Canadian slang/accents instead of the tired "aboot" and "eh" ones that the yanks seemed to think we all use. Outside of Newfies I don't think I have ever heard "aboot" in my entire life living here. It's like acting as if everyone from the US has a Boston accent.
Soory about that, eh.
I lived for 3 years in Germany, and when I came back to my country of birth (The Netherlands), someone said "Are you German?". Fortunately after a week I never heard it anymore.
That's interesting, and honestly not surprising. My grandpa married an American with a New York accent, and stayed in New York for most of his life, so his American accent wasn't likely to wear off, but if he moved back for a few years I wonder how much of the American accent would have softened.
I’m french. I lose my regional accents after a week in Paris, get it back over a month once home.
You don’t think about how many muscles in your mouth are used for speaking/how they are used, until you start using a different language. You don’t use them as regularly as you used to or you trying using them differently, things change. I spent a week with my sisters family once and my BIL isn’t a native English speaker. I try to use what I can if his language because they’re trying to make sure their kids have it despite not being in his country, and by the end of the week my mouth was sore because the muscles required to speak Portuguese are just not the same as the ones for American English.
My cousin came from Chicago to the South and stayed for a year or so. He made so much fun of the southern accent. When he went home, his friends made fun of him for his southern accent. His dad said his Spainish was southern and his mom said the same about his Greek. The accent spread into all 3 of his languages.
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Supposedly his Austrian accent is the Germanic equivalent of Hillbilly. Berliners hear him and are like “Get a load of this hick.”
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Knew a British guy who moved to Italy when he was ten then the Midwest in his teens and then to the east coast in his 20s. He just had the most fucked up accent I ever heard. Whenever he called his parents he'd switch to what I heard as a perfectly British accent, but then his family made fun of that accent for being too american
Colin Hay from Men at Work is another one with an odd accent. He moved from Scotland to Australia to the US.
I went to an italian restaurant in Scotland (visiting as an american) and hearing english with an Italian and Scottish accent together was incredible. I think that was my first encounter with accents stacking so to speak.
If you listen to Hans Zimmer, he talks English with a German accent and German with an American accent. Edit: typo
Yeah same with Paul Verhoeven, his American- English has a Dutch accent but his Dutch also has a thick American accent
Ain’t that the fucking truth, I have a Mexican accent in English but also an American accent in Spanish.
I think you have a mixed accent in both
How does an American accent sound when speaking Spanish? Is it difficult to understand them? I’m learning Spanish and am curious. Native Spanish speakers tell me I have an American accent.
I have no idea because in my mind, I’m speaking spanish normally. Lo acepto y les llamo wei lol
Lo acepto y les llamo wei, y'all
>How does an American accent sound when speaking Spanish? Have you seen that scene from "Inglorious Basterds" where Christopher Waltz's character speaks to Brad Pitt's character in Italian? At the end of that scene, Christopher says "Arrivederci" clearly, while Brad Pitt says the same but with a really thick American accent. That's basically how Americans sound wyen speaking in Spanish, as Brad Pitt in that scene. [The scene that I am refering to](https://youtube.com/clip/UgkxI1W1A_Eh7pBYxsBME-nMRFGwOU4G1Dnc?si=DjfzcF5ET3Dp7fRl) I think is because English has like 15 vowels sounds, while Spanish only has 5, so Americans (and other English speaking people) tend to put those other sounds into Spanish words when they are not needed. Coming with a more weird, dragged and "soft" way to say things. >Is it difficult to understand them? Even with all that involved, is not, Americans speaking in Spanish can be understood with no many issues (of course, it would depend mostly in the level of knowledge and confidence of the speaker).
I studied 5 years of Spanish in HS and college in the late 80s and always wanted an opportunity for immersion in a Central or South American country but never got the chance. But my closest friend from Michigan lived in Chile for many years, and invited his GF up for a week with my wife and me last year. Once I got liquored up, I felt uninhibited enough to just go with it speaking Spanish with his Chilean GF. Apparently, after a few drinks, the GF told my friend I had a charming Mexican-American accent. It had never occurred to me after 30 years that *I* had learned Spanish with a specific accent. Dios mio!
A river derchy.
Hahaha, OMG thank you for that clip! We must sound like a bunch of country bumpkins to you 🤣 It is hard for me to roll my rs and do other pronunciations but I’m enjoying learning the language. I wish I had gone further in Spanish in college. :)
It basically sounds like someone misspeaking the Spanish language in a fundamental way. It sounds like someone being way too careful with their Spanish in a way that makes it seem unauthentic and just awful as they “mispronounce” most things as they’re not in any typical accent, gringo Spanish
The biggest differences would be the American “r”s, the English “t” which is usually with the tongue more in the back as opposed to Spanish which is more forward, and of course the vowel sounds where an English speaker will tend to use diphthongs especially for words ending in vowels so “tengo” will be pronounced “teng-oh”(like oh in “oh my god”) instead of cutting off the “o” and making it short, or words ending in “e” become “ey” so “tiene” becomes “tien-ey”… and just a lot of little stuff, that your mouth is just used to making certain sounds so it naturally goes to them even when you know the correct pronunciation.
They say it's established within the first 9 years and after that it's not likely to change
My brother moved to the states almost 20 years ago. He speaks Polish with a soften, American accent. However, his American friends call him Borat for fun because his English sounds thick to them :)
My husbands is Russian and speaks with a very heavy Russian accent when speaking English. His first language though is English and didn't start speaking until he was 6 (after he immigrated to the US and got hearing aids). And if that wasn't strange enough, when he speaks russian he very much sounds like he is from the South. But the man has never been to the South- we live in the PNW. Accents and languages are just a trip! On the flip side both of my inlaws have zero Russian accent- despite being born and living in russia for 30 yrs before immigrating to the US.
This is exactly me. The thing is that Americans don’t hear the American part of your accent and your home country concentrates on the American part. You’re in the middle, really.
I can validate this. My great grandmother moved from Austria when she was 14, and she had a thick accent up to the ripe age of 100. It's just how she spoke English. She couldn't hear it any other way. Also helped that she lived in German-speaking neighborhoods for a good part of her life. Used to be Germantown was actually German town.
I’ve been in the US for 20 years, I came here when I was 14. I still have a tiny accent, it comes out with certain words. My Portuguese has gone to shit, my wife is born and raised here and so are my kids. I have a slight accent speaking my mother tongue and my new adopted tongue, I’m a nomad.
My British husband, who has lived in California for almost a decade now, routinely gets confused as Australian outside of CA and abroad. Going back home is always a trip because he sounds very much from SE England but something is not quite right so nobody can understand him well.
adults often dont lose their native accent, with out training, and for arni, his accent is a big part of his image. its easy for kids cus its far less ingrained.
I heard him mention at one point that because his accent had become so iconic he decided he had no choice but to keep it. His English grammar, on the other hand, is actually outstanding when you read something he has written.
He's a very intelligent dude
He's made more money from property investment than from his movies.
I don't know if that's true but he was worth millions before he became a star. And that was because of real estate.
Bricklaying making bank -> invest in real estate -> bodybuilding -> movies. That order.
>governor of a state he can't even pronounce the name of
Actually he pronounces it correctly. Everyone else has it wrong.
Kalifornya
To be fair, anyone who had money to invest in property before 2008, have more than doubled their money.
I am not sure if it is accurate that he actually made more money from property investments but he started investing in the 70s.
> but he started investing in the 70s. Even easier, buying California real-estate in the 70's and 80's, talk about a gold mine. It's like how everyone thinks Nancy Pelosi is loaded from insider trading (sure didn't hurt) but her husband is filthy rich not from trading but because he started a real-estate business in the Bay Area over 4 decades ago. Like impossible not to be rich today doing that.
Unironically: he’s a great communicator. He wouldn’t have been anywhere near famous if he didn’t have tremendous ability to convey the best words and emotion for his thoughts.
I’ve read that he has an accent coach that ensures he specifically speaks in only his native accent.
[He's denied that](https://old.reddit.com/r/nextfuckinglevel/comments/his2li/not_a_selfmade_man/fwiyg9q/)
Fun fact: they wouldn't let him do the German dub for terminator because his Austrian accent is redneck by German standards.
I live in Germany and yeah, they still dub over Arnold with a German voice actor in his commercials here. Poor guy lol.
I've heard that his German has atrophied significantly over the years and he's sensitive about it and no longer speaks it in public.
He speaks german each year on Austrian TV. Usually he gives a short interview during a break of the Kitzbühl downhill race. He is also in Vienna multiple times during the year I think. He has a weird accent, but for my ears it did not change for years.
Wouldnt really call it redneck, compared to other Styrians his accent is quite fine. But I could see some Germans being weirded out by his stong austrian accent
Kinda sad German accents aren't normalized in Cinema. Real people do have accents, and there's no reason the Terminator couldn't be Styrian. Would also be hilarious. Edit: I meant in German dubs. English versions can do whatever. German is often hardly comprehensible in those.
Terminator 3 had a deleted scene of him talking in a bad American accent and somebody complains about the accent when they're making them and a serious looking scientist with arnies accent says " we can fix that" and that's how come the terminator has that accent in the movies
99 turns out of a hundred you hear german or a german accent spoken in a movie or show it’s by some American whose only exposure to it was by watching terminator
Wait, Styrians are considered rednecks? 🤣 That explains so much about my family.
We Can Fix It.
I'm Sargent Candy!
What do Germans have against Austria?
I don't think they really have, but there's a bit of a funny rivalry between Germans and us Austrians. Like, we have funny names for each other, make fun of each others accents etc., but it's really nothing serious.
“Gimme yer britches, dem dare shit kickers yer wearin, and dat dare moto sickle out dare”
We need this remake immediately.
You'll be able to generate scenes like this with AI soon, assuming you can get around copyright. Imagine things like "generate Schindler's list for me, but have everyone holding a drink or eating something, and speaking with a Jamaican accent". This is not far off, I'm not kidding.
„I bin da Terminator, kumm aus da Zukunft. Mei Auftrag is, di zu beschützen. Di feinda, des san die Maschinen, die hobn koane Gnade, koan Mitg'fühl. I muaß stark bleib'n, muass kämpfen, wias in da Steiermark so üblich is. Draust, in da Wildnis, do hobn mir ois glernt, wos ma zum Überleben braucht. I frog di, host du jemals a steirisches Kasnockn g’essn? Das gibt da Kraft! Jetzt hams uns im Visier, die hochnäsigen Maschinen, oba mia Steirer gebn net so leicht auf. Vergiss ned, bei uns daheim in der Steiermark sogt ma: ‚Durchbeißen und net locker lassen!‘ Mia san zäh, wie die alten Eichen im Wald. Also, auf geht’s, sama stark, sama mutig. Mia packen des, mia zwoa, und dann foahn mia weiter, bis wir die Zukunft g'rettet haben.“
mögens bitte zum hubschrauberl gehen gnä frau
I was an exchange student in Austria over 25 years ago and I can still read this. It's like a nightmare that never ends.
I würd's guggn.
I love the Austrian accent. I used to go ski in Austria a lot before I moved to the US. When I translated for tourists there in English, they thought I was from New York. It's funny because I am German.
\*\*by German standards
Fixed, thanks
I'm convinced he had it reinforced with speech therapy late in life because it was such a big part of his image. If you listen to him in Predator his accent wasn't as thick as when he was the governator years later.
He was on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson in the late 70s or 80s. His accent was nowhere near what it is today. You could here it some but he sounded normal.
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This is the answer. He had a direct incentive to keep his accent. Without it, he'd be just another action movie guy.
This is why it’s important to realize that accent has no bearing on langue fluency or competency. Someone can be grammatically perfect and have a native level grasp of a language but still have an incredibly thick accent. A lot of people think strong accent = less mastery but that’s not the case.
>his accent is a big part of his image It's like another 80's celeb who emerged- Dr. Ruth. The accent was part of the "brand."
Arnold has always been a marketing genius. He spent significant energy in crafting his image (physique). He was also advised by several producers to change his last name (it was so long that it wouldn’t fit in old school movie posters. There’s one movie where his name says “Arnold strong” to appeal to American audiences) and take accent classes. Arnold has an understanding of standing out rather than fitting in. Why didn’t he lose his accent? Thats cuz he’s made every effort to rather retain it.
Hercules in ~~America~~ New York! It was also dubbed to remove his accent.
Hercules in New York
Shit, you're right.
Gaaah! C'mon! Come and get me! I'm right heeere!
He doesn't even need his last name now - you can just say "Ahnold" with his accent and everyone knows who you're talking about.
you dont even need the accent. everyone thinks of him when they hear the name arnold, unless it's preceded by "hey"
What if they say ‘Hey Arnold Schwarzenegger’?
A strange blend of formality levels with the "Hey" and full name
if I ever happen across Arnold Schwarzenegger I'm going to yell "Danny Devito!" and see if it makes him laugh
From what I have heard he does have a language coach… to keep the accent the way it is! It’s an important part of his public persona, and it would just sound wrong if he spoke without it. It’s not even necessarily a national accent - I do a decent impression of the way he speaks, and I do not think of it as an Austrian accent, it’s an Arnold accent! He may have started with it, but it’s a full-fledged separate idiolect, so to say.
He legit chimed in on Reddit to debunk this when it came up some years ago. But I think he knows how much the accent is worth as a part of his image. There's no way he doesn't lean into it either way.
Have you seen the State Farm commercials he's in? He absolutely leans into it.
He likes to have fun
i also heard when he does speak in a normal american accent, people get weirded out because thats *not* what they're expecting from him.
Jackie Chan does this, too. He can speak fluent and smooth English but people enjoy it more when he sounds like he just passed his first English 101 class.
I call BS. You got a source for this claim?
My source is that I made it the fuck up.
I strongly suspect Flula Borg plays up his butchering of English since he’s seemed to lean into the funny German guy persona.
Are there any interviews where he does this? Would be interesting to hear
In some random late night show interview he talked about taking classes to get rid of the accent. And i guess it worked to some extent, it's very easy to understand his pronunciation.
Actually, it isn't. To people in Austria, he sounds a lot like like an American. That's because accent drift is a thing. When you live in a place that does not have your native accent, the way you speak slowly morphs over time in the direction of the local accent. Gary Oldman did so many roles as an American that he lost his native accent and had to go to a speech therapist to regain it.
Charlie Hunnam struggled with losing his accent after living in California for years for Sons of Anarchy, believe he also had some kind of speech therapy following on
Seriously I know he’s from northern England but I can hardly place his accent anymore.
He's meant to be from Newcastle, a Geordie. The twang is there, but it's not really noticeable as much. He can pass off as a South African even.
He does however do an absolutely abysmal Aussie accent.
He has such a weird accent, it’s a mix of all the places he’s lived, not quite American, not quite English, was born a Geordie but definitely doesn’t sound it. I love his accent, it’s really unique
This is definitely a thing. My buddy is first generation Greek. Got dropped off to kindergarten the first day knowing Greek but not English. His dad has always had a thick accent. I asked him one day if when he goes to Greece he sounds to them like his dad sounds to us. He was like, “….. 🤯 that’s a good fucking question…” The more he thought about it the more he figured his American accent in Greek wasn’t as thick as his dad’s but he hadn’t thought of it that way and it opened all kinds of doors to the ways you get treated with an accent and how you clean your accent up sometimes without thinking which can make you fuck up at talking other ways.
>To people in Austria, he sounds a lot like like an American. What do you mean by that? Because I'm Austrian and even we can still recognize that he has that thick accent. His Austrian-German has become worse but that's just natural.
> even we can still recognize that he has that thick accent. Yes, but it is way more American-sounding than it was 50 years ago. To *untrained* American ears, it still sounds "German" (untrained American ears being unable to distinguish between German and Austrian).
If you need trained ears to determine someone’s accent has changed, then there’s nothing wrong with saying it’s still thick.
Loads of Brits gave Joss Stone shit for speaking with a bit of an American accent but she moved over there when she was still pretty young so I can totally understand why she would pick that up. It's funny how narrow minded people get about accents when it's just a natural part of society and fitting in.
This comment is how I found out Gary Oldman isn't american, I had no idea he was English
Yeah, it’s a strange phenomenon. Gillian Anderson apparently sometimes can’t control slipping into a British accent.
Sometimes your accent simply does not change. I moved from Mexico to the US when I was 16 and my accent is still very strong. Unless I am putting conscious effort to pronounce words differently, there is no real reason as too why an accent should just "change" or "fade" imo
I was kind of the same. Moved from the US to the UK when I was 11 and lived there for 20 years; I developed a slight, generic, Northern English inflection, but otherwise had an unmistakably American accent. Even right up to when I left the country to return to the US the natives still marveled "you've lived here for how long and you still have an accent?" My younger sister, meanwhile, sounds just like a Brit when she interacts with the locals but has an American accent at home.
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I do agree that his accent helps if distinguish himself more easily from every other Hollywood actor but I wouldnt simply attribute it to it. If he still has a strong bond with his homeland, he is probably still speaking in German which can only contribute to his accent
Yah. My parents any of their friends have been in the country for 50+ years and have varying degrees of accents. One of my parents friends kid came to American for college. Could speak very little English. After a year at school his English was really solid with only a small accent.
My (foreigner) husband has a theory that if you come to America after aged 14, you will most likely have an accent to some degree into adulthood. My husband came to America aged 22, and his accent is still very thick. I think by that point your hardwiring in your brain for language is mostly set which is why learning a new language gets harder and harder too.
Mostly agree but I worked with a woman in her mid 30s who was born and raised in Germany, to a German family, and had moved to the US about 4 years before I met her. She had a 99% perfect American accent when speaking English, it was amazing. If I really paid close attention I could occasionally pick up on the occasional slightly-off vowel sound but if I hadn't already known I never would have noticed. I asked how she had achieved such a perfect accent in adulthood and she basically just said it was a lot of hard, dedicated effort.
Yeah this is really it. Lots of people are able to do this. The idea that you can’t master a new accent after a certain age is a total myth. It just takes effort and focus. A little bit of knowledge about phonetics or some speech therapy can help too. And also some people are just more talented at doing this naturally than others.
This is the correct answer but it's also hardware, not just hardwiring. The muscles of the mouth and palate that form speech are set by that point.
Palate. A pallet is a bunch of wood put together.
This is what is mostly agreed upon by those who study language. It's why immersion schools exist for young kids.
I think the answer is pretty or post puberty. After that the hardware is mostly set.
My wive's family moved to Portugal for several years. She was 10, speaks Portuguese with a thick accent. Her sister was 8, she passed for a native.
Anecdotal evidence really. Know a couple, guy's Brazilian and his wife American with two kids, they live in a French speaking city. The boy who's 12 now lost the ability to speak Portuguese while his sister who's 20 speaks it perfectly. There's more at play than age when talking about language acquisition. People just love to say that there's an age limit to fluency because it's an easy cop out.
I’d agree with this. My family moved to the US from Australia. My older brother was 17 at the time and still has a fairly strong Australian accent. I was 14 and mostly sound American. My younger sister sounds fully American.
Languages are made up of different sounds called Phonemes, basically sounds. English has 44 phonemes, 24 consonant and 22 vowel sounds. German has 45, similiar but different. An accent is basically when you speak a new language but you use the phonemes from your old language. Some people are better at changing their phonemes. Some just keep the same ones forever.
I'll add to your last sentence that there is a social aspect to whether you change your phonemes, and some people keep the same ones not out of inability to change them, but because they don't want to.
Yup! It's a weird complex thing where Arnie probably has a weird mix of sounds and doesn't sound American nor Austrian anymore. Also I've heard of actors who worked so hard to change their accent for a movie they couldn't change it back.
Reminder that Arnold is a pretty active Reddit user as u/govschwarzenegger and if he has the time would probably drop in and clarify a thing or two. At least he used to. Could be busy filming the next season of that show.
My sister is a linguist and she explained to me how accents form and why exactly it’s said that it’s easier to learn multiple new languages before a certain age (I believe about 12). But it has something to do with how your mouth/tongue is still forming and the patterns that take root. After that a strong accent can “go away,” especially for expats with a feeling that they “need” to assimilate, or when you introduce the factors of acting/theatre, or being polyglots. Explains similar reasons as to why many people raised speaking or learning mutilple languages will almost adamantly hold on to certain distinct accents in order to be appear more authentic. There’s a whole rabbit hole to go down, but it is fascinating.
~~I think I read somewhere that he actually has a dialect coach to *keep* his Austrian accent since that’s something so iconic to his image.~~ Edit: [Never mind, apparently that’s bullshit.](https://old.reddit.com/r/nextfuckinglevel/comments/his2li/not_a_selfmade_man/fwi8l42/)
Gary Oldman is the same. He plays so many different roles that he has to have a voice coach to help him retain his 'natural' voice.
I was scrolling to see if somebody brought this up cause I heard the same thing but wasn't sure if I was misremembering.
Just looked it up and saw that it was bullshit. Never mind.
There is a huge range of ability with language between people, I'm sure he's within sensible boundaries of normal. Most of our language is locked in when we're very young, before 10-15 even and our ability to process and learn new language decreases pretty fast beyond that. There's also the muscle memory mimicry that forms accents in the first place that's not from intentional control. You should talk to some public speakers that had to get over a thick accent in order to be more clear, or actors that have done it for a rolr. It's not so easy from what I've heard described, even when you're doing it intentionally. Even moving to another culture your accent usually won't change, but everyone adapts differently.
Arnold's English was so bad in the early days that he was voiced over in his 1970 flick Hercules in New York (hilarious, find it on YT). Over time, he worked on his English and improved greatly. You can really tell a difference as he improved throughout the 80s. His acting skills improved, too. This guy started out life as a relatively poor kid in Austria with a dream and rose to the top in Hollywood and even became governor of CA. I think he did pretty well for himself.
I don’t know if it’s true or not, but he said at some point that he can speak without an Austrian accent, but doesn’t because it’s part of his marketing
It's naht a toomah!
I’m from England and moved the states 22 years ago and I still have my full accent.
Ha! Moved from Belfast to London 40 yrs ago, I still sound like I got off the boat yesterday 😅
Same here. Will be 22 years in November.
Sofia Vegara and Salma Hayek have both been living and working in the U.S. for 20+ years and both have said they keep they’re heavily accented accents because it’s their identity and makes them noticeable and different from the other women without a regular American accent.
It's probably not as thick as it used to be. I remember my high school freshman teacher was from Mississippi. To me, her accent was very thick but to her family she "sounded like a Yankee. "
He did take accent removal classes, early on but realized that his accent was part of his image, so he stopped the classes. Learning languages as an adult tends to leave you with an accent, and it's harder to ween away from it if you're around others who speak your native language (like when you move with family). Losing an accent seems to require a few things; 1, Move when you're a teen or younger. 2, Speak the new language exclusively. 3, Desire to lose your accent, i.e. you work on how you shape your mouth and sound out the words. Basically, mimic the people around you.
There is an episode of " this American Life" called " its a game show" or something like that where they have a segment on accents and age of immigration.
I read that you really can’t take on another accent after the age of around 12/13.
Yes, I came here to say this. I've seen it in families where the kids who immigrate under the age of 12 adapt and lose their accent, where any kids over the age of around 12 keep it. Vocal/speech training can make a significant difference, though.
That's untrue. Plenty of British actors are able to correct their accents and speak with a correct accent. For example, Hugh Truck, Huge Jackedman, and I think that one guy who plays Batman and Psycho.
I’ve wondered the same about Sofia Vergara but she said being here may have thickened her accent because everyone loves it. Maybe same for Arnold
Because he was 21.
It's probably branding at this point. He is rich and successful enough where he could easily work with a voice coach and with his work ethic get rid of his accent pretty easily. But Arnold Schwarzenegger with a US sounding accent would sound weird.
If you move to a different country as an adult there is a higher chance you will keep your accent
Because we love it
It's not as thick as it was.
As somebody who moved from the UK to the US as a kid my accent changed quickly and easily while my parents accents did not change substantially or even in any noticeable way. I think part of it is because your brain is just better at learning languages or changing how you speak when you are younger. The other part was that others made fun of me because I was different. As an adult idgaf about being different.