Would I always just have a funny American-ish accent in any language unless I focused on it a lot, immersed myself, lived with the language enough to know....?
My understanding is that after a certain age (about 5), it is very difficult to pick up new sounds, and so any foreign language you attempt will always be spoken with an accent. There are some speech coaches who can do a very good job of disguising it, though.
LOL, as if you Americans don't have enough trouble with English.
Betty bought a bit of better butter.
Beddy bada bida bedder budder.
My understanding is that after a certain age (about 5), it is very difficult to pick up new sounds, and so any foreign language you attempt will always be spoken with an accent.
This is certainly NOT true. I started learning Russian (my 9th language) at the age of 40, and I can easily pass for a native.
I think [...] I'm not sure.
Paul, which languages do you speak? I'm envious!!!
Everylanguage disclose you an intere way of 'seeing' and 'thinking' the world, or a new world altogether.
in Italian we say: "tradurre=tradire"....
Haha.... Stick with Latin. Who knows how they actually pronounced it?
You will never loose your American accent the same as you will never loose your American look and mannerisms.
The poster of this thread is an American guy, like me. You can spot us anywhere no matter how well we speak the language.
I recall only one typical example of an American guy that really drew everybody's attention. I met him in the center of Moscow (he was talking really loudly in a very broken Russian accent). He was not satisfied with his hotel room because there was no toilet paper there, which was not unusual some years ago. I invited him to my home to call other hotels. We found one that looked attractive, so on the phone he started the conversation by asking in his best Russian: "AllOa, Vi govorEEtye pa rOOsski?" (an attempt at "Hello, do you speak Russian?"). On the other end, they didn't understand the humor and hung up: beep, beep, beep... Paul
Well we have a hard time pronouncing english... words such as piece and cheekExamples: i want a piss of cakeMy butt chick hurts.