Thread: Russians... Your thoughts on accents?

Hello. I have been studying Russian now on my own for a few weeks; I have always loved the sound of it (except when spoken by me so far )

I like the sound of some accents in English and don't think of them as pronunciation failures... For instance I love the sound of English spoken with a Russian or French accent though the speaker might think it should be 'fixed.' I'd much prefer it to listening to Australians talk (That's a joke. I think.)

So, my question for native Russian speakers is: Are some Russian-as-a-second-language accents particularly pleasant or grating, and how much do you find a certain accent interferes with being understood? I'm wondering if Canadian/American type accents have any distinctive annoying feature I could try to correct from the start.

Cheers, thanks for any input.
Bex

I am not native Russian, but I heard that they find the finnish accent particularly amusing

I wouldn't mind sounding amusing -- perhaps I should learn Finnish first

Originally Posted by Bex

I wouldn't mind sounding amusing -- perhaps I should learn Finnish first

You already sound amusing.

Germans who live in Australia and learned English there sound really bad.

In English, the worst is Asians trying to speak English...

Like kim jong il on Team american world police?

I'm sho ronrey!

Originally Posted by DDT

Originally Posted by Bex

I wouldn't mind sounding amusing -- perhaps I should learn Finnish first

You already sound amusing.

Germans who live in Australia and learned English there sound really bad.

I can imagine this terror.

Actually, I like the French Russian language. It's extremely beuatiful with right people.

I have never found a foreign accent that did not sound pleasant to me.
I like them all: British, Japanese, French, Italian, Spanish, German etc.

As far as domestic accents, I am not too keen on y'alls Texan's drawls down thar in redneck land.

I am also not too keen on like the California teen girl's like over use of like the word "like", like.

Originally Posted by kwatts59

I am not too keen on y'alls Texan's drawls down thar in redneck land.

Uuu, damn! What the Hell does it mean?

The original question was about foreigners speaking Russian with accent, right?
I always liked Estonian accent (I guess Finnish would be the same). Or southern respublics (sorry, ex-respublics) like Georgia or Armenia. This accent is often used in jokes. It sounds funny, true.

Originally Posted by CTPEKO3A

The original question was about foreigners speaking Russian with accent, right?
I always liked Estonian accent (I guess Finnish would be the same). Or southern respublics (sorry, ex-respublics) like Georgia or Armenia. This accent is often used in jokes. It sounds funny, true.

I would say it's not that funny now. Personally, I don't like their distortions of the Russian phonetics.

I like Polish and Baltic accents.

Originally Posted by saibot

Like kim jong il on Team american world police?

I'm sho ronrey!

I like the Chinese Restaurant on "Christmas Story"...

"Deck the harrs with boughrs of horrey, fa -ra -ra -ra -ra, ra-ra-ra-ra!"
-Fantom

Originally Posted by kwatts59

I have never found a foreign accent that did not sound pleasant to me.
I like them all: British, Japanese, French, Italian, Spanish, German etc.

As far as domestic accents, I am not too keen on y'alls Texan's drawls down thar in redneck land.

I am also not too keen on like the California teen girl's like over use of like the word "like", like.

"British" is not a foreign accent of English.

Originally Posted by TATY

Originally Posted by kwatts59

I have never found a foreign accent that did not sound pleasant to me.
I like them all: British, Japanese, French, Italian, Spanish, German etc.

As far as domestic accents, I am not too keen on y'alls Texan's drawls down thar in redneck land.

I am also not too keen on like the California teen girl's like over use of like the word "like", like.

"British" is not a foreign accent of English.

For an American, British is a foreign accent, simple as that. Same as Australian and Indian accents (English is an official language there too).

Dont forget south africa

I dug up these helpful posts in another thread:

Originally Posted by laxxy

Originally Posted by Geoduck

Ok, here is some advice. The incorrectly named "soft vowels" [я ё е и ю] are only pronounced as ya, yo, ye and yoo when they start words and when thet follow vowels. After those consonants which are either always soft or which have a soft face, the English "y" sound is dropped! The vowel serves to merely indicate that the preceding consonant is palatalized!! Take неделя. This word is not [n'jed'jel'ja], nothing close actually. Because the е and я merely indicate palatization after a consonant, and because unstressed е, и and ы almost always reduce to [i], and я to [ə], the word is [n'id'el'ə]

About vowel reduction... [а я о] usually reduce to ə when unstressed (ё is always stressed in native words). There are a few exceptions, but generally following this rule is a must. all of [е э и ы] reduce to [i] unstressed. That means that there should never be and ye ye sound going on outside of the stress. Even if a e meets the qualification of having a йот (polish j, English y), it is already being reduced to [i], which is merely a long form of й, and will envelop any possible йот sound.

Very nice post actually, these things are pretty much the most defining, obvious and consistent features of English accent in Russian. It's probably just as consistent and just as funny for us as the Hindi (indenglish) accent is for americans (think Apu).

There goes my plan to learn Russian without ever having to 'think Apu.'

So a Canadian (or American) accent in Russian is recognizable by a stream of unnecessary 'ye' sounds?

Only if ur a noob at russian.

Probly its recognizeable by too many hard letters when they should be soft. I can say a soft ть and н л в but, most people say they arnt soft enough, tho they can hear the diffrence.

I vote for the Baltic accent too