I just picked Japanese at random. The same question applies to any other language/accent combo: German with a Spanish accent or Italian with an Irish accent or whatever.
To Americans, English spoken with a British accent sounds cultured and intelligent. English spoken with a French accent sounds sexy and exotic. Do accents have this effect with other languages? For example, does Japanese spoken with a certain accent sound more sexy and exotic than normal Japanese?
r/ask
Comments
📣 Reminder for our users
>1. Check the rules: Please take a moment to review our rules, Reddiquette, and Reddit’s Content Policy.
>2. Clear question in the title: Make sure your question is clear and placed in the title. You can add details in the body of your post, but please keep it under 600 characters.
>3. Closed-Ended Questions Only: Questions should be closed-ended, meaning they can be answered with a clear, factual response. Avoid questions that ask for opinions instead of facts.
>4. Be Polite and Civil: Personal attacks, harassment, or inflammatory behavior will be removed. Repeated offenses may result in a ban. Any homophobic, transphobic, racist, sexist, or bigoted remarks will result in an immediate ban.
🚫 Commonly Asked Prohibited Question Subjects:
>1. Medical or pharmaceutical questions
>2. Legal or legality-related questions
>3. Technical/meta questions (help with Reddit)
This list is not exhaustive, so we recommend reviewing the full rules for more details on content limits.
✓ Mark your answers!
>If your question has been answered, please reply with
Answered!!to the response that best fit your question. This helps the community stay organized and focused on providing useful answers.I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.
The “romance” languages usually make for a nice accent while speaking English. Most other languages are hilarious at best and downright unrecognizable at worst.
I think we hear our own language, dialect and accent and all, as unsexy and uncultured because we’re so used to hearing it
As an American, I’d like to say that there are only a couple of British dialects that sound cultured to me. A lot of them grate on my ears. … There are also many American accents that are hard to listen to
I have heard that to non-Americans, the “American” accent is a vaguely southern/texan accent, and it is sexy.
As part of your question, you’re making a statement with which people may not agree. For example, posh British accents sound pretentious and snobby and cockney sounds the exact opposite of cultured and intelligent. French does not sound sexy or exotic to me.
It is rare enough to find a non-Japanese person speaking fluent Japanese, such that people in Japan can have a fictional idea of what it would sound like.
eg. Many Japanese-speaking foreigner characters in manga and anime pronounce the です (désu) sentence suffix by elongating the é sound, like でーす (déés); real Japanese-speaking westerners wouldn’t do this, often rather elongating the u sound like でっすー (déssuu).
Russian accent makes every language sound harsh. You know, like you’re about to invade that country. Just kidding!
I think women with Slavic accents are sexy. Not entirly sure why but I think it has something to do with James Bond movies. There was always a sexy Russian agent that he ended up shagging.
Amazing that literally not a single comment has even attempted to answer the question so far.
The answer is yes. For example, Arnold Schwarzenegger was dubbed over in the German dub of the Terminator, even though he obviously speaks German, because to german speakers his rural accent doesn’t sound threatening enough.
Also apparently in the original Resident Evil 4, Spanish speakers could tell that the villagers were speaking with Mexican accents even though the game is supposed to be set in Spain.
I’ve also heard that there’s a particular Japanese accent (not sure which, somewhere rural) that often gets turned into a Southern American accent in english dubs because that’s the closest equivalent to how that accent is perceived in Japan.
This is just not true btw
Accents kinda fell off as got older. A pretty voice is a pretty voice. I do find aussi lass exceptionally cute tho
This question makes me think of that John Cleese Jamie Lee Curtis scene in A Fish Called Wanda
As a Brit, our accents definitely don’t sound cultured or intelligent lol, usually quite the opposite. That being said, I absolutely cannot stand American accents, why so high pitch?
German is about the only one that maybe struggles a little?
Years ago, Johnny Carson had Elke Sommers on the show.
He mentioned that German sounded guttural and harsh to him.
So the gorgeous miss Sommers whispered some German “sweet nothings “ to him, and he just melted….
PR sounds cultured. Cockney does not.
I don’t know if I represent a typical American opinion, but anyways. There are so many British accents. Patrick Stewart, Christopher Lee, and Charles Dance sound cultured. The Beatles sound working class. David Mitchell sounds prissy. The hobbits sound rural. Jason Statham sounds thuggy.
I’m interested to hear what native speakers of other languages feel about foreign accents, though. So, good question.
There are some Chinese accents / dialects that just sound like the person is cursing even when they’re not
I once heard that Danish spoken with a Canadian accent was considered sexy the same way English with a French accent is. I’m Canadian but don’t speak Danish, but this was told to me by while I was traveling in Denmark
Most Americans only ever hear two British accents unless they come to the UK. Only ones that you hear on tv/movies are SSBE (standard southern British English) and Cockney.
Apparently Americans speaking Norwegian sound really sexy
Although that guy might have been stretching the truth 😂
Imagine Roseanne Barr speaking with an English accent. You’ll never want to hear it again.
Periodic reminder for folk that never seem to learn: there is no such thing as a British accent.