I often imagine myself as having a Russian accent.
Well, no. Actually, I often imagine myself as having no accent at all. But I am rudely brought back to reality by conversations like this one:
Friend: Ooo! Your dress is so pretty!
Me: Haha, enough with all the flattery!
Friend: Why yes, I do enjoy eating jam.
Clearly, I have an accent of some kind.
Because I can’t really imagine what an American accent sounds like to a Chinese speaker, I make do with imagining myself as speaking English with a heavy Russian accent. (Fine, “generic East European”.) For example, my natural inclination might be to imagine that I’m saying:
“The U.S. is in the process of reforming its health care system.”
But a quick turn through my Mental Accent Amplifier (MAA) reveals that I’m actually saying something like
“Zee U.S. ees ree-vorrrming eetz – how you say? – hey-lth see-stem.”
Also, because my Chinese is far from perfect, I sometimes rely on simplistic synonyms to express myself. For example, instead of saying "I'm so sore after climbing that mountain yesterday. My legs feel like jello." I end up saying something like: "Yey-sterday I climb maunt-in. Too-day very sore. Mai leygs are laik a coh-stard day-zert."
I think I finally get why people are always laughing when I talk…
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