# Forum Learning Russian Language Pronunciation, Speech & Accent  Do Russians like American accents in spoken Russian?

## yswaq

As long as the person pronounces everything correctly and has a good understanding of the rhythm but still sounds American? I know there are lots of different accents, but it doesn't matter to me which one...has a Russian speaker ever complimented your American accent or or are you Russian and have liked the way an American sounds in spoken Russian? Or js it just plain funny no matter how well Russian is being spoken? This is a question out of curiosity.

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## Doomer

Never heard American accent yet. Looking forward  :: 
Nobody complimented my Russian accent but some people make fun of my "h" pronunciation  ::

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## it-ogo

> As long as the person pronounces everything correctly and has a good understanding of the rhythm but still sounds American?

 American speaking Russian is quite rare phenomenon.  American speaking grammatically correct Russian is very-very rare phenomenon. So I can say more or less what is heavy American accent in Russian but have no idea what is light American accent. 
As for me, the very sound of (heavy) American accent do not make any special emotions.  
Of course, if a person pronounces learned phrases without understanding meanings of separate words (parrot speech, like in Hollywood movies), that is hardly comprehensible and sounds both extremely weird and funny.

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## xdns

In the 2nd season of Russian sitcom "Interns" (resembling "Scrubs" with a few "House MD" references, but not a remake) new character was introduced - Phil Richards, an intern from the United States. He speaks fluent Russian with slight American accent.

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## xdns

The actor is Odin Lund Biron, an American who graduated from the Moscow Art Theatre School.
I think his accent sounds cute (and a little bit funny, of course - in a way every foreign accent is).
Here is a short documentary about him:    
His Russian is very impressive for a person who studied it for just 5 years!

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## Valda

" just 5 years" ? *JUST* 5 YEARS?!? 
Oh god, it never ends does it?  
....Кста́ти, вот круто́й америка́нский акце́нт из телепрограмма  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oK84N...4&feature=plcp 
At about 0:15 they start talking 
они́ перестара́юсь с акце́нтом по-мо́ему  :P 
-Valda

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## xdns

> " just 5 years" ? *JUST* 5 YEARS?!? 
> Oh god, it never ends does it?

 After just 5 years he performs on the stage of one of the top Moscow theaters ("Satirikon") and stars in Russian sitcom.
It's *REALLY* impressive.   

> ....Кста́ти, вот круто́й америка́нский акце́нт из телепрограммы  Helloween WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES - YouTube 
> At about 0:15 they start talking 
> они́ перестара́лись с акце́нтом, по-мо́ему  :P 
> -Valda

 Yes, somewhat, because it's a parody on American accent (done by Russians).

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## Lampada

> The actor is Odin Lund Biron, an American who graduated from the Moscow Art Theatre School.
> I think his accent sounds cute (and a little bit funny, of course - in a way every foreign accent is).
> Here is a short documentary about him:
> ...
> His Russian is very impressive for a person who studied it for just 5 years!

 _ "– А вам, Один, с какими сложностями пришлось бороться?_
– Я приехал из штата Мичиган всего на 3 месяца в школу-студию МХТ имени Чехова учиться по обмену. Мне нужно было найти общий язык с сокурсниками и преподавателями, а я совершенно не говорил по-русски! Однажды просто понял, что не могу высказаться. А я же актер, мне нужно показывать себя – говорить и шутить! И тогда стал заучивать по ночам стихи Пастернака и Пушкина. И помогло! " Один Байрон:

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## Marcus

> His Russian is very impressive for a person who studied it for just 5 years!

 5 лет в России - это совсем немало.

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## Anixx

Таратута, Познер говорят по-русски с американским акцентом. Звучит нормально, но акцент легко различим.

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## Anixx

Mikhail Taratuta speaks with American accent: Хочу жить в  
Look for example how he pronounces "т" like "t".  
Vladimir Posner also speaks with slight accent: Николай Азаров дал интервью Владимиру Познеру - YouTube

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## it-ogo

> Vladimir Posner also speaks with slight accent: Николай Азаров дал интервью Владимиру Познеру - YouTube

 It sounds more like personal peculiarities of speaking rather than foreign accent. And as i remember from his old Soviet TV show his very light accent (if it was) was more like French.

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## Marcus

Не заметил иностранного акцента у Таратуты.

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## alexsms

i have an American friend who has to speak Russian very often... When we hear him speaking with someone Russian on the phone, we can barely hold laughter. The thing is if an American is not trained to develop Russian pronunciation s/he will have a thick accent. In my opinion, they found funny. In the same way, Russians speaking English also sound funny if not trained how to pronounce English sounds and develop rhythm, intonation, etc.

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## yswaq

> i have an American friend who has to speak Russian very often... When we hear him speaking with someone Russian on the phone, we can barely hold laughter. The thing is if an American is not trained to develop Russian pronunciation s/he will have a thick accent. In my opinion, they found funny. In the same way, Russians speaking English also sound funny if not trained how to pronounce English sounds and develop rhythm, intonation, etc.

 This applies with every accent of course. It's especially funny when things are seriously mispronounced or with different pronunciation mean something different. One example is the word писать (when "a" isn't stressed, its meaning changes to "urinate"). I remember during Russian class one of the students said (with a heavy Vietnamese accent) said: "я писаю на бумагу сейчас"  and of course he meant to say "I am writing on paper" and the teacher understood that, but she herself is Russian, so she has been used to "пишу" since early childhood. She cracked up laughing, and tried to hold it back, but just couldn't do it. The moral of the story is be careful with foreign languages and pronunciation cause sometimes it means something very different. I am talking mostly to tourists but this applies to everyone. This is not new advice but it goes good with this story. BE CAREFUL KIDS ::

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## zxc

It sounds to me like the American ambassador to Moscow speaks Russian fairly well, but with a thick American accent (his Russian isn't perfect, he has a tendency to directly translate English into Russian, which doesn't always make sense, but overall he gets his point across).

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## Deborski

> It sounds to me like the American ambassador to Moscow speaks Russian fairly well, but with a thick American accent (his Russian isn't perfect, he has a tendency to directly translate English into Russian, which doesn't always make sense, but overall he gets his point across).

 His accent doesn't sound too bad to me, I agree it's strong, but I've heard much worse))  But I think he messed up his perfective and imperfective verbs a tad)))  I'd be happy to speak as well as he does!

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## Marcus

> His accent doesn't sound too bad to me, I agree it's strong, but I've heard much worse))  But I think he messed up his perfective and imperfective verbs a tad)))  I'd be happy to speak as well as he does!

 And cases, and genders. his accent is OK.

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## Deborski

> And cases, and genders. his accent is OK.

 Go easy on us Americans!  You know we're doing pretty good if we can speak more than one language.  Even if we are clumsy  :: )

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## Valda

Я была́ о́чень впечатлена от посо́ла, и честно я могла́ понима́ть его́ лу́чше чем носи́телем языка́. Он говори́т ме́дленный и я́сно. как должно.

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## it-ogo

> Я была́ о́чень впечатлена послом, и, честно говоря, я смогла понять (or поняла) его́ лу́чше чем носи́телей языка́. Он говори́т ме́дленно и я́сно. Как должно.

 Это всегда так. Говорить на неродном языке гораздо проще с теми, для кого этот язык тоже неродной. Международный английский я понимаю гораздо лучше, чем американский, или британский. Не говоря уже об австралийском.

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## zxc

> Не говоря уже об австралийском.

 Australian pronunciation can really be awful (sorry to any of you Australian users!).  As an American, sometimes I can't even understand them.  It's not so much the way they pronounce their sounds, it's the way they completely omit so many of them in speech.  Of course, there's reduction in every language, but Australians really take it to a whole new level.

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## Valda

По-мо́ему э́то зави́сит к хоро́шему произноше́нию (enunciation), и не обяза́тельно к ме́сту рожде́нию. 
Спаси́бо для погребко́в  ::

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## Lampada

> По-мо́ему э́то зави́сит к хоро́шему произноше́нию (enunciation), и не обяза́тельно к ме́сту рожде́нию. 
> Спаси́бо для погребко́в

 
По-мо́ему*,*э́то *зави́сит от* хоро́шего произноше́ния, и необяза́тельно* от* ме́ста рожде́ния.

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## Hanna

I think everybody is pleasantly surprised to hear native English speakers master a foreign language, including their own. It is well known that native English speakers don't usually have the same motivation to learn a foreign language. As a result only those who are genuinely interested and motivated even get as far as a half decent level of fluency... It is different for people who more or less have to learn English as a foreign language.  It would probably be quite a novelty in Russia, to hear an American speak good Russian! Or an English person. I know an American who lives in London now, but lived in Moscow for 3 years before moving there. He only learnt a few words of Russian during this period, and said it was "impossible". He worked in banking and I suppose he was able to get by in English at work.   I have noticed that American and British accents sound quite different in Swedish and in French.  The British accent is less characteristic and could be mistaken for something else unless the person isn't very obviously British.  The American  accent is much more obvious since American English has some rather unique sounds that makes it stand out.   But there are exceptions - I once heard an American speak beautiful French with only a very faint accent - obviously he'd made a big effort.  * Americans are usually outgoing and and friendly, so accent or no accent - that helps to make a positive impression!*

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## Ann

> American speaking Russian is quite rare phenomenon.  American speaking grammatically correct Russian is very-very rare phenomenon. So I can say more or less what is heavy American accent in Russian but have no idea what is light American accent.

 Can you really tell that the accent is "American" as opposed to just "foreign"?  ::

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## it-ogo

> Can you really tell that the accent is "American" as opposed to just "foreign"?

 Well, I definitely can distinguish it from, let us say, Chinese accent. (Unless, maybe, both of them are used simultaneously.  ::  ) Or some others.

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## Shady_arc

> Can you really tell that the accent is "American" as opposed to just "foreign"?

 Maybe not specifically American, but I'd say it's pretty easy to recognize an accent as English. The language has a rather atypical collection of sounds. For example, could you find that many examples of languages that have the same R,T,D, "er" sounds? Any, among popular languages, please  :: . And that pounding rhythm typical of English speech, but foreign for Russian or, say, Japanese.

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