Jealous of American Accents?

[moondin]

Here's a serious question i've always wondered.

Do any of you immigrants ever get jealous every now and then of American-borns who can speak so fast, and know so many slang terms and sayings, have no accent, and seem to be so eloquent with their speech and conversation?

Do you ever wish you could ramble off a 30-minute speech like a Tony Robbins or talk to someone without getting a "Cool, where are you from btw"? being asked?

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[moondin]

Here's a serious question i've always wondered.

Do any of you immigrants ever get jealous every now and then of American-borns who can speak so fast, and know so many slang terms and sayings, have no accent, and seem to be so eloquent with their speech and conversation?

Do you ever wish you could ramble off a 30-minute speech like a Tony Robbins or talk to someone without getting a "Cool, where are you from btw"? being asked?

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[Wish]

the "cool where are you from," people already ask me. makes me different that i am a foreigner already. makes me cooler that i have a foreign accent. maybe some people like it and some others might just think its annoying- but never by no means i wish I had an american accent or could ramble a millions words an hour. i come from a mellow easy going place. to hear people talk so fast i think they are crazy and they are always running out of time.

[Aguila]

At the beginning I was upset by the fact of realizing that I would never lose my accent. Today although it would be great not having an accent taking into account that I pretend to be a lawyer in the near future, I feel most of the times flattered by many women who find my accent s.exy/exotic. Because I am a hispanic, but I also speak Portuguese and Italian my accent is not the natural hispanic accent, it seems that it comes weird. Guys sometimes try to put me down with looks when they are listening to me, specially co-workers, my girlfriends tell me that is because they are jealous about my accent...I don't know..sometimes the negativity is really high that I wish I wouln't have it, but as everything else in life, I am happy as to who am I and where I came from, losing my accent would be reflecting a person I am not...

[Glühbirne]

Personally, I think foreign accents can be very attractive. I love my husband's thick Mexican accent. Sometimes I tell him to speak English (I understand Spanish) just so that I can listen to his accent.
Before I started dating my husband, I had a friend from Brazil and his accent made me week in the knees. Sometimes I would close my eyes when he was talking to me on the phone and just listen to him talk.

[Boritos la star ivoirienne]

With all due respect, I think this is a very stupid question.

Having an accent shouldn't even be a question at all.
Want to know what most immigrants like myself have always wondered. And I think that is what YOU should have asked rather than the whole accent question.

America with all due respect is a great country, lots of opportunity and lots of freedom which I am loving and with lots of great people some can even be found on this forum like Pasha, Old man etc... and IGNORANT ones here and there.

This country sometimes, claim to not do what's called racial profiling.

Now answer this question:
Why is it that on every job application, companies ask one to identify their race?
How important is that?
Should it matter what race or who is applying for the job?

We all know animals DO NOT apply for jobs.

The applicant therefore is a human being so in my opinion, it is very sad to see that you have to state your race before they consider hiring you.

About 5 weeks ago, a company with whom I was applying for a position, contacted me back and this HR person, asked me to tell her my race as I left it blank when I was filling out the application because, I didn't see no point as of why they were asking or should ask for it).

My wife whose a caucasian, got upset and told me not to respond to the email and told me that it wasn't right.
She said that's called racial profiling and that I may or may not get the job because of the race I belong to.

I said okay but still I went behind her back because where I am from, WE DO NOT CARE what color you are, race, *** or whatever if you're right for the job, you'll get it.
None of the job applications back there have nothing as of race checkbox listed on them.

Anyway, as I was saying above, I went behind her back and told them that I was black.

Guess what, 1 day after sending the email to that company, I got notified by my Microsoft outook 2003 that my email was displayed on the recipient computer then deleted.

That made me sit down and think. Wow!! How sad.
I am a being not a thing. Why make me feel as if I had **** on me or as if I was cursed on or as if I was a nobody.

I said okay and I later said in a positif atittude to myself that:
" Oh well, they are the ones missing out. I am a smart fellow and I have a lot to give and loyalty is my number one thing so they are the ones missing out. Too bad.".

I told my wife, showed her the email alert from outlook and she got upset and I told her not to.

I said that's called ignorance. She agreed and we moved on.

So moodin, please be aware that are more better issues to talk about rather than one accent.
How silly.

How about asking foreigners that come here with no knowledge of the english language and later master it -both written and verbally.
Like myself for instance.

Do we get envied by other americans?
**** yeah we do.

I get paid where I work today as a cisco engineer for both my techical knowledge but also for speaking fluently French because now, I am the only one that supports all of our company customers that are based all over Canada.

How about that?

Not bad for a smart fellow?

Accent doesn't pay bills.
Have your american accent all day, it will not pay your bills so I see no point in being jealous.

I think too that people in general love accents anyways.
My wife adores mine and I appreciate her for it.

I hope I answered you and please answer my above questions.

BLSI.

[moondin]

make your own thread about your completely irrelevant rant -- you thread hijacker.

Anyways...back to my question at hand. Anyone else?

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[Boritos la star ivoirienne]

I see no point in vainting by going and creating a thread that perhaps shouldn't even have been brought up to begin with.

I see no point in doing that.
I just think that your question is stupid.

Are you jealous yourself?

Does the truth hurt?
Is it burning your eyes yet?

As I said above, we can wish all day all night that we had an accent like whomever, It just doesn't pay no bills at the end of the day.

Perhaps your lack of knowledge (which I noticed in this forum) isn't allowing you to answer my questions.

I dare you to answer my questions and speak the truth since you brought up a non immigration related thread.


BLSI.

[moondin]

ANYONE else?

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[jc]

Yes moondin, first i'm a foreigner and i could speak faster that YOU without stopping hesitating or searching for words in my mind, plus i speak 4 languages which will make you look like an illiterate. My accent is **** as hundreds of American Born Ladies have describe it. See never underestimate people, i've been in the American Language Center in my home country for 7 years before i came here, and yes i have a slight accent and i love it because it makes me different, plus i have something else that is surely bigger than yours which is more important if you know what i mean and as far as slang goes i used to sing American rap and hip hop in competitions in my home country and i understand it very well.

[moondin]

>that is surely bigger than yours

Oh there's maturity at it's finest. Impressive.

anyone else?

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[NYCImmParalegal]

I don't really know if you can accurately say that there is one American accent. Sure, you can tell an American from a Brit or an Aussie, but within the U.S. there's no one singular American accent. Instead, you hear regional variations. Going to your topic, I speak American English without a foreign accent, even though I learned it at 15. If anything, I have a bit of a southern t w a ng s, since I learned my English in North Carolina. I am not "jealous" about the American accent at all. I have learned all the slang and all the cuss words... In my job, which, as you probably guessed, involves immigration (corporate immigration, to be precise) I am expected to talk to all sorts of people, both foreign and American, and I also do a lot of public presentations. I can tell where a native American English speaker is from. I can detect southern lilts, Californian, Bostonian, New Englander, NooYawker, NooJoisey and all other types of regional inflections....


{edited to redact the word "t w a n g" which apparently gets censored}

[josephine schmo]

Quoting Boritos:

"About 5 weeks ago, a company with whom I was applying for a position, contacted me back and this HR person, asked me to tell her my race as I left it blank when I was filling out the application because, I didn't see no point as of why they were asking or should ask for it)."

This is wrong! Is there anything he can do about it?

[Aguila]

Jo:

He could sue that company for discrimination, but is really hard to win, because the company can argue that they did not consider him because they already filled the spot... Technically there is a law that doesn't allow employers to get away with this, but in real life is really hard to win these type of cases.

[Dejavultd]

These kind of ideas brings nations and people into fights and other unnecessary arguments which i really don't like. Personally myself i don't have any problems with accent as long as i understand the other person i talk to. There is no american accent cause it consists of immigrants that came to the us in the late 1700-1800's.
America is the joining of all cultures religions and human kind and that's why it's so great to live in.