# do you speak in an accent when you're nervous?



## UrbanMonkey (Jul 10, 2004)

Sometimes my SA makes me mumble so bad I can even hardly get two words out when I'm talking, let alone make them comprehensible.


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## nothing to fear (Mar 23, 2005)

Not exactly in an accent, but I will pronounce things really....strangely. My speech impediment sometimes comes back too. It's so embarrasing because I know people notice and at times when I have been "excited" and spoken really quickly with a friend they would tell me that I sound like a f*cking child. Christ. I already hate speaking, hearing that makes me never want to speak outloud again.


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## Argo (May 1, 2005)

I had a middle school teacher who originally came from Quebec. He left when he was 11 and talked like everybody else in our town, but he said that when he went home years later for a visit he was so overcome by emotion that he began blubbering in French, and his accent returned and stayed as long as he was there.


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## ColdFury (Nov 6, 2003)

I stutter and mumble a lot


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## sonya99 (Sep 5, 2005)

I've done this a few times when I've been really uncomfortable. It's so embarassing, and it makes me feel so stupid. I become so overly concious of how I'm pronouncing my words that I change my accent. If that happens it's usuallly Britishy hehe. Probably because I think Britons are all smart and dignified and ahhhhh i just can't help it. Comes out. More often though, I accidentally copy the accent of the person I'm talking to.


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## dobug (Oct 29, 2005)

I always get scared I'll do that, copy someone's accent. Or if I'm walking by someone with a limp, that I'll start limping.


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## kev (Jan 28, 2005)

Occasionally people tell me i sound like i have an accent but thats mainly people who rarely talk to me. I probably pronounce things funkily at times or talk so quietly it comes out strange. So no, youre not the only one.


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## whiteclouds (Mar 18, 2004)

That's funny. I said something aloud in class once, and the whole class laughed. The teacher scolded, "Don't laugh at her accent!" and she kindly asked me where I was from. I said Chicago, and she was just like, "Oh....." because we were in Chicago.

Then, I once talked to a guy with a Brittish accent, and I blurted out something in a Brittish accent and I was so embarrassed. He ignored it, but I hope he didn't think I was making fun of him.


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## Dampy (Apr 28, 2006)

When i'm nervous I talk in a "out of breath" tone


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## umbrellagirl1980 (Dec 28, 2005)

yes, you're definitely not alone in this. i sometimes talk oddly/with an accent when i'm most nervous. it happens especially when i'm talking to a stranger for the first time.


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## rinnibinni (Mar 3, 2006)

Yes, sometimes I start talking in a southern accent.. I'm from Philly.

I think I've read/heard something about this.. makes sense-- trying to hide behind a different identity (accent) because we're so uncomfortable with our "real" selves.


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## bellicose (Sep 16, 2004)

I just talk funny all the time, not only when I'm nervous-- about once a week someone will ask about my "accent" :lol


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## GIJOE290 (Nov 8, 2004)

I've always mumbled. I think it was caused because I feared my parents so much. Dad would whip us at the drop of a hat, usually for no reason; other than his own anger. 

Now, at 45, I'm starting to stammer when stressed, and I have no idea why all of a sudden it's happening. :sigh :con


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## cakesniffer (Nov 11, 2003)

I already have an accent, but I develop a speech impediment when I'm nervous.


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## missnat84 (Dec 31, 2004)

I stumble in my speech alot when i'm nervous and it makes me feel really stupid :afr


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## jane (Jan 30, 2006)

I tend to speak at the same pace the other person is speaking. 
And I enunciate more. And use big words.


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## nesteroff (Nov 14, 2003)

...


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## Argo (May 1, 2005)

nesteroff said:


> One time I asked for Marlboros at a gas station and the guy said "where are you from? What country?" I said "here" and he laughed at me.


I can't pronounce Marlboro right. Usually I say "Mowlbo", now and then I'm able to get an "r" in that first syllable. "Mawrlbo"


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## brokenlight (Mar 10, 2004)

This reminds me of the episode of Friends where Ross is really nervous about teaching a college class and somehow begins speaking with a foreign accent. The rest of the semester he keeps speaking in the accent because everyone believes he is from another country. :lol


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## Maseur Shado (Jun 7, 2005)

I've only do this a few times (a half-baked British accent will come flying out). But I think that's due to the fact I've always been interested in British history. I can't say what kind of accent it is...not Received Pronounciation, but not West Midlands or North Yorkshire, either. :lol


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## nothing to fear (Mar 23, 2005)

brokenlight said:


> This reminds me of the episode of Friends where Ross is really nervous about teaching a college class and somehow begins speaking with a foreign accent. The rest of the semester he keeps speaking in the accent because everyone believes he is from another country. :lol


haha. I don't really like "Friends", but I found that pretty funny.


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## CLS81 (May 5, 2006)

I have the same problem, but I can't hear the accent myself. Once, at the library, a Middle Eastern man asked me if I was from America. I was really confused by this question. One of my friends once told me I sound like I have a "Fargo" accent. I don't really understand why people think this, it makes me really self-conscious, though.


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## itsmemaggi (Sep 26, 2005)

I take on the accent of people I'm talking to; I think this is an unconscious way of making myself more like them, so I'm more accepted...

xoxo
Maggi


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## itsmemaggi (Sep 26, 2005)

Argo said:


> I can't pronounce Marlboro right. Usually I say "Mowlbo", now and then I'm able to get an "r" in that first syllable. "Mawrlbo"


Move to Staten Island, NY. I've had SO many supermarket customers asking me for "a pack of Mawlbros." 

xoxo
Maggi


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## sansd (Mar 22, 2006)

if i worry that i might pronounce things strangely, i will. and of course my accent in foreign languages gets worse the more nervous i am. a bulgarian guy told me that even though he knew i was american, he thought i sounded kind of british.


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## eyes19 (Mar 3, 2006)

I usually have a lot of people think I'm hispanic because of how I talk when I'm nervous.


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## quietpond (May 2, 2006)

brokenlight said:


> This reminds me of the episode of Friends where Ross is really nervous about teaching a college class and somehow begins speaking with a foreign accent. The rest of the semester he keeps speaking in the accent because everyone believes he is from another country. :lol


That episode is pretty funny! I love when he tries to fade/lose his accent and the students ask what's wrong with him! :lol

I live in an area that has a lot of Mexican migrant workers, so during parent teacher conferences I would often need an interpreter. I would get so nervous that I would actually talk like I was the one who couldn't speak English. I would talk slowly and like I was searching for the words, just like you might imagine someone who is just learning the language might talk! :lol


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## brokenlight (Mar 10, 2004)

quietpond said:


> I love when he tries to fade/lose his accent and the students ask what's wrong with him! :lol


 :lol I forgot about that.


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## apprentice1 (Feb 9, 2005)

I am an american from Missouri. It used to be people from Missouri didn't have accents, or so it was said. The young people there sure do now. I was 33 when I moved to a foreign country and started learning a new language. It has never stopped being a nightmare. I always had trouble expressing myself in english, my boss once asked me if I was talking in code or something...and nothing is different here. People do not hesitate to ask what country I am from after I say the simplest, shortest of things. So, yes, I speak in an accent every day. It makes me feel dumb.


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## apprentice1 (Feb 9, 2005)

good point, Hermit! I was just up north to Foehr and Amrun and could never get used to saying Moin' Moin', either! and I have to admit, when I hear an obvious non-bavarian accent, I sometimes get my revenge with "und was sind Sie für ein Landsman?" I have a colleague from Kiel. She is very nice and okay, she has a very severe hearing problem but she is always complaining that she can't understand our niederbayerishen Chef, so it makes me feel better. I feel dumb most of the time, anyway. How are you, what's going on?


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## mismac (Oct 27, 2005)

I'm the opposite; I lose my accent when I'm nervous. I have a slight English accent (or Canadian?), which gets replaced by this high and pitchy voice.


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## Curmudgeon64 (Dec 5, 2003)

My cousin's wife in Illinios does this (speaks in an accent when nervous)! The first time I heard her, I thought "how strange" but very quickly I came to realize what a great coping mechanism it is. Really seems to work for her.


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## [insert_name_here] (May 26, 2006)

I actually did the British accent thing with my ex-girlfriend...usually on the phone when we were talking about something private or sexual...and partially because it was usually late at night and there were other family members around sleeping who I didn't want to clearly overhear our conversations... It did actually ease some anxiety...and, as a really nice bonus, she thought it was cute when I got all shy and started talking British...hehe


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## Curmudgeon64 (Dec 5, 2003)

I have never asked her; and I haven't seen her enough times to know from observations (though I may be going over there next month!). I assumed that, as [insert_name_here] wrote, it reduces her anxiety. I guess it's a little like playing a role. It's been said that several famous actors were surprisingly shy in public, and only bold when in the personae they were playing. I suppose it justs puts a little space between her and the world.

Her accent is also British, though she's an American born and bred.


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## Curmudgeon64 (Dec 5, 2003)

On the other hand, what you do may be something entirely different. When I am nervous, my speech sometimes comes out _stilted_, as if I lacked confidence in whether I wanted to say what I was saying.

Yet another thing to do with accents: when I was growing up, I had a really odd accent (though I was at that time not shy at all). People used to ask my mother where in Europe we were from! I was sent to speech therapy for a while in elementary school. In retrospect, I think my "accent" came, in part, from a combination of my father's Canadian, imitating Bugs Bunny's Brooklynish, and pronouncing words the way they are spelled. (My folks used to read to me alot, and I was a _very_ literal-minded child). For instance, I used to say "pence-ill" for "pencil", and then stubbornly insist that this was the correct pronounciation!


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## ShesKrayZ (May 9, 2006)

Oh man do I ever have an accent when I'm nervous. Also my voice sounds like a little kid but that's all the time. I've been told I sound Northern, (I live in the South), latina, British, etc..but really listening to myself lecture on tape it's native american which makes sense because my dad is.


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## Cherry (May 30, 2006)

Yes, I've gotten that before when people ask where I am from? But I'd never associated to SA. People actually ask if I am from the south or even where that accent is from? I had a blind guy I was treating who said I had an European accent. Sorry to say folks I've never left this state, been here all my life in Mi. I had a Speech Therapist when I was a kid so that's has a lot to do with the way I talk now.


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## keem (Jun 23, 2006)

quietpond said:


> I live in an area that has a lot of Mexican migrant workers, so during parent teacher conferences I would often need an interpreter. I would get so nervous that I would actually talk like I was the one who couldn't speak English. I would talk slowly and like I was searching for the words, just like you might imagine someone who is just learning the language might talk! :lol


I did that when I was in Germany. I picked up a German accent and I would speak in broken English. For months after I got home any time I would get nervous I would speak in a German accent.

Now I get an extremely Minnesotan accent when I'm nervous. Just like the people in the movie "Fargo". I normally don't sound like that at all.


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## Partofme (May 23, 2004)

I got asked about my accent once by a sales lady. That was so embarrassing. First time, out of blue that I'd ever been asked that. I took that as an insult. I just said "Washington" and gave her a dirty look. Needless to say, I didn't buy anything from her. lol.


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## nairam (Jun 9, 2006)

When i get very nervous i used to mispronounced the words and my voice gets very shaky and soft...What makes it worst is when i'm forced to speak in english which is not my language in the first place, i always have a hard time translating words (in my mind ) and couldn't speak at all... ops ops


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## Guitaraholic187 (Jun 3, 2006)

I have a french accent I'm told but I'm not even French.


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## Aquashift (Jun 6, 2005)

I find the topic very interesting.
I thought I was the only one who did this - who spoke in a fake accent when in social settings.
People always wonder where I'm really from. I speak with a new england accent, even though I've only been there once when I was a child.

I'll also copy people's accents and mannerisms.. almost as if I were absorbing their personalities and making them my own.

Weird stuff, but I'm glad other people with my condition do it too.


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## Catarina (May 3, 2006)

Kids used to think I had a British accent, I don't know why. O.O


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