Quote Originally Posted by adoc
Quote Originally Posted by chaika
adoc, I meant speech-wise, not heredity. When you move to live in a foreign country, you native accent takes a hit. In college I knew a Greek guy who after a year in the US said he was losing his native language. I have often heard people talk about going back to visit the family in Moscow or somewhere and have them comment on their American accent. That's what I meant by "Americanized."
I've heard people saying that, but it doesn't mean jack. It's their nostalgia or whatever insecurity/personal problems talking. Noone loses their native accent after let's say 15. Noone acquires american accent just like that either. It is physically impossible. How many Russians do you know speaking English without an accent, even having lived in the US for many years? Moreover, an average "Americanized Russian" has a lot better command of Russian than an average "native speaker" for a single stupid reason: he is on average better educated.

FYI, most of the Americanized Russians have difficulties letting it go. This is the reason they whine about forgetting Russian and all this nonsense. American accent? Ha-ha fifteen times. I, for one, would gladly exchange my perfect Russian and imperfect English for perfect English and imperfect French. But there is no way.
This is not quite true; it is possible to "lose" the proper Russian accent.
I knew several people who spoke like that; without exception they were wives of Americans, who have lived in the US for 15+ years without communicating with other expatriates or visiting home (it was in the early 90's, when suddenly there were a lot of jobs in the former Soviet Union for people like that so they came back). The accent was not strong but definitely noticeable, mostly in the intonation patterns, and in the lack of vowel reduction (i.e. overpronouncing).

Also, once I learned how to pronounce English 'p' and 'k', I noticed myself putting those sounds into Russian words. .

Yet another issue is a particular (slight) accent, found in some old expatriate communities in the US (usually in older ppl who left, say, before 1985 and their American-born descendants). These people are mostly Jewish, and probably had the accent even back home.

And of course all expatriates mix the English words and Russian grammar a lot