00:13
...mentioned to me that, you know, after living in the U.S. for almost 10 years now,
my accent has more or less Americanized. But when I'm giving seminars or when I'm giving like
a talk that I am kind of nervous about, my British accent creeps in and I didn't know
that about myself. I just didn't. And I didn't think so until I caught myself saying something
like, I don't know, it's just some few words like saying like millimeter or I don't know,
I can't remember. It's just, it sounds, and I know I always had this few words that I cannot
seem to Americanize. Like, I say I can't all the time. That's consistent. I always say q instead
of line. I say bin, not trash, and things like that. But the accent thing is very interesting
because I think it's typical of people like me who picked up English halfway through their growing up
stage. And I'm very moldable because first time I learned English was by Australian person.
And then I moved to very British system where most of my teachers were British.
So if you had met me immediately after my high school, I sounded way more British than I do now.
And I remember distinctly when I first came to the US and I was ordering something in the canteen,
you know, because universities, I didn't make food. So I just go to the canteen and, you know,
order sandwiches or something. And I was asking them to put stuff in the sandwiches. They're like,
what do you want to put in your sandwich? I'll go like, I'd love to have some lettuce,
tomato, mayonnaise, and stuff like that. And she was like, what? She truly didn't understand
what I meant by tomato. And I was like, tomato. Yeah, tomato. You know, I'd like some tomato.
And that was like the first time I realized that like, I'm not not fluent in English anymore,
but my accent in America sounds weird. And I sort of started to fix my accent into American way
03:09
so that like, and subconsciously, it's not like I was trying to sound American. I didn't work hard
to sound American. It just so happened that when you're around mostly American people,
your accent as a non-native speaker kind of switches. And recently, I have a postdoc in our
new, in our lab, a new postdoc who's from Liverpool, very strong Northern British accent.
So my accent is all over the place now again. And, you know, if a Japanese person's here,
I mean, for most, I would say like 80% of people think that I sound like American. But
to American people, they know that I'm not from here. You know, they know that I don't sound like
I'm from here. And but they can't tell. They're like, don't know where I'm from, because I have
this confusing accent. Yeah, yeah. I just thought it was interesting, you know, because getting the
accent right, getting the pronunciation right, that's usually a hallmark of mastering a language,
right? Yeah. I don't think, yeah, I think that's fine, having an accent.
Yeah, what's wrong with accent? Yeah, that's, you know.
And in a way, it's kind of like you're sharing a little bit about yourself without even
sharing it. Yeah, yeah, I think so too. Even in Japanese, yeah, it's not, yeah, it's not something,
you know, confined to English language. It's, it's all, oh, yeah, also about Japanese. Yeah,
hougen. I really love some hougen in Japanese, because that, that is a, you know, speaking of
like your background, how you brought up, how you were brought up. And then it's, yeah.
Yeah. Like, I, I think that's nice. And, you know, you can do that without like,
advertising that, like, I am from here. Yeah, that's, that's also true in English. I think,
you know, it's, it's okay to have an accent. Yeah, and, yeah, like, I think it's, it's,
there's, there's sometimes a sort of over-emphasis on how you sound, like, you know,
do you sound fluent? And you measure, your, your fluency is measured by, do you have your
regional accent? How well can you remove that? And I don't necessarily think that's needed. And
it's kind of, if anything, endearing. But thanks to my international school upbringing, I am very
good at listening to different accents. I, I, I can, and also, this is only for Asian language
06:08
speakers specifically, but I can usually find the words for that person if they're looking for words.
You know, if my, like, Chinese colleague is like, oh, what do I say this in English? I can usually
tell what they're trying to say based on the context. And because I can sort of follow their,
like, thought process, you know, they're like, it's not this word, it's not that word. It's like,
it's like, do you mean this? And they're like, ah, yeah. Like, I think I'm really,
weirdly good at that. That's like my secret. And yeah, but this only happens to, like,
my fellow Asian friends. Yeah. And so, yeah, it's just, it's just interesting. And I, you know,
So, yeah. Okay. That's all I wanted to talk about for that topic.
Yeah. Okay. That's all I wanted to talk about for that topic.
That's it for the show today. Thanks for listening and find us
at Agodescience on Twitter. That is E-I-G-O-D-E-S-C-I-E-N-C-E. See you next time!
