American Accents in Russian

[mangiami.livejournal.com]

Is there a stereotyped impression about American-accented Russian? For example, do many Russians usually think it sounds goofy, pompous, sexy, etc.?

What are the main speech characteristics that identify an American accent in Russian?

Are there any typical usages of Russian that will immediately identify a person as an American, even if they are speaking perfectly accented Russian? (E.g. In Japanese, I believe, overusing "I (watashi)" as a pronoun would make you sound American, even if you are using perfect pronunciation)

Comments

[apollotiger.livejournal.com]

(Well. Hatashi if you're female; boku if you're male.)

[oryx_and_crake]

I wonder, does overusing "I" in Japanese makes you sound specifically American or just generic foreigner?

[steppinrazor.livejournal.com]

Hatashi isn't used very often. Watashi is probably more common, in the grand scale of things. I imagine at this point, in modern Japan, boku is even used by women more than men. Either way, boku and hatashi are pretty casual and pronouns in general aren't used much. A foreigner would be more inclined to use watashi as it's not as casual as boku or hatashi.

It's difficult to explain, really, as it falls into cultural nuances.

[steppinrazor.livejournal.com]

That would probably depend more on the emphasis of pronouns such as I in one's native language ;)

[rooskiyroulette.livejournal.com]

Isn't this a Russian community anyway? ;-)

[apollotiger.livejournal.com]

Ahh. I was under the impression that ha and wa were written the same way? Sorry, then.

[apollotiger.livejournal.com]

Oy. No clue where I got that idea. My apologies for the whole idiocy. :)

[apollotiger.livejournal.com]

I wonder if that occurs in people speaking Russian as a first language and American as a second? Doesn't Russian often drop pronouns?

[padruka1988.livejournal.com]

Could someone please answer this question as it pertains to RUSSIAN, not JAPANESE? I'm actually really interested to find out, as my boyfriend always teases me because of my accent, and though I'm well aware I sound nothing like a Russian when I speak... Russian... I would like to know just how I sound.

[padruka1988.livejournal.com]

There is no American language. :)

[steppinrazor.livejournal.com]

Wait, you're making me dip into my rusty knowledge base... >.<

They're written using the same hiragana character, yes. But watashi is a much more common, neutral usage, whereas hatashi appears in the spoken language, but from my experience (Fleeting as it is) it was considered fairly old-fashioned. Actually, really old-fashioned, if I recall correctly. It was really just a feminine softening of the word.

[branwen.livejournal.com]

That's debatable!!! ;)

[padruka1988.livejournal.com]

Actually, no it's not. There is no national language in the United States - never has been.

How can you say English is the language of the United States (I'm assuming that would be the common response)? Yes, MOST people here speak it... But a rapidly growing amount of people speak Spanish as a first language. American English and British English are still the same language, but different dialects. Some words and pronunciations are different, but if an American (given that he/she is fluent in English) goes to Britain (and vice versa), there will be few problems understanding what British people are saying (and vice versa). American English has certain slang terms and phrases not commonly found in other dialects of English (and vice versa), but that doesn't mean I speak American. I DON'T SPEAK AMERICAN, I speak ENGLISH... more specifically, the American DIALECT of English.

So how do you think there is any debate over whether or not there is an American language?

[malaya-zemlya.livejournal.com]

One of the best giveaways is intonation. I am not sure about the exact difference, but it seems that Americans tend to raise pitch at the end of interrogarive senteces much more than native Russians (and in a different way). This is not peculiar to Americans though, Bulgarians do the exact same thing and so do native Russians who stayed in US for too long :)

I don't think this sound has any peculiar character to a russian ear, it just sounds Western. Then again, I didn't meet all that many Americans while _in_ Russia, in their own country they sound perfectly normal : )

[rowaasr13.livejournal.com]

No, they don't. Only particle "wa" is written with "ha". Everywhere else "wa" and "ha" are わ and は respectively. Femine "I" is "atashi" and I hear it pretty often.

[steppinrazor.livejournal.com]

That's right. Though, I've still been told "atashi" is old fashioned, by the Japanese families I tutored. Maybe it has to do with the area they're from in Japan. And I still hear more girls using "boku", in a tomboyish sense.

...

[branwen.livejournal.com]

Okay, that was a joke, and that's why I put the winky face there.

I was merely making a joke pointing to the difference of English in the UK and English in America. I swear, they say things in the UK that I have no idea where they mean.

Joke.

[zhp.livejournal.com]

Another giveaway is the use of the personal pronouns (мой, твой, его, etc) where in Russian you use either nothing at all or the pronoun "свой". For example, He told his sister.. - Он сказал его сестре...

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

In my entire life, which lasted unbelievably long :)), I have never heard an American with "perfect pronunciation" in Russian -- and I have heard dozens of them, if not over a hundred already.
For example, the current U.S. Ambassador in Moscow, Mr. Alexander Vershbow, speaks perfect Russian - I mean, grammatically perfect, with rich vocabulary, extensive use of the idioms, deep knowledge of commonly-known film and/or book quotations that everybody would use in speech, etc. What gives him away is pronounciation.
The problem is that the phonetic systems of Russian and American English (and English in general) are too different - they require very different positions of tongue, jaws etc., so that someone who grew up using one system has to apply literally supernatural efforts to completely change his/her speaking skills and habits.
The most specific sounds that give Americans away are consonants, like R, T, and, sometimes most critically, V/W (because hard Russian "в" is neither of those two.) It's always quite funny to hear Americans pronouncing simple Russian names, like Ivan. It normally comes out like "Ивфаан" :) Softened consonants at the ends of the words (marked by Ь) are a big problem for most Americans, too. The infinitive forms of verbs give them away at once, because English T requires a totally dufferent tongue position than Russian "т", so all those "...вать" and "...дать" are a srious problem. I remember that funny "Independence Day" movie, when imaginary Russian military men sit in the clouds of tobacco smoke (of course, all Russians drink their vodkas and smoke their... babushkas?... all the time :)))) listening to radio signals from brave Americans, who are about to save the whole world again, and one of the "Russians" asks with terrible American accent:
- Когда они будут наступать?
Leave alone that it's bad word-to-word translation of English "when are they going to attack" (a Russian officer wold never use "наступать" in this case, when the enemy is discrete and surrounding) - the pronounciation is terrible: for a Russian ear the last verb sounds like "настоопач" :))

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

Yup. "Я парковал мою машину" instead of "я запарковался" :))

[dontbeakakke.livejournal.com]

the word は [wa] is written using 'ha' as an exception, and only for that one word.


Also, I've never ever heard はたし but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. I just have never heard it.

[dontbeakakke.livejournal.com]

Just because a rapidly increasing number of people speak Spanish natively doesn't mean that English isn't the language of the United States. Public schools are still by default taught in English, and virtually all media is by default in English.

Re: ...

[aciel.livejournal.com]

Quite right. Consider Cockney rhyming slang. Most Brits understand it no problem, if I recall my facts correctly. I, however, can't get past the apples and pears.

I would compare it to Arabic, which while considered to be one language has several dialects.

Naturally, we're talking about American English here. Not American Spanish. I won't even get into that...

[ja-va.livejournal.com]

Most russians thing american accent sounds horrible.
The best way to identify american,- dreadful mistakes in every sentence.

[malaya-zemlya.livejournal.com]

:dreadful mistakes in every sentence
Or any other foreigner for that matter...