WEBVTT - What's the deal with accents? 0:00:01.120 --> 0:00:04.600 Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from how Stuff Works 0:00:04.600 --> 0:00:13.800 dot com. Hey, welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, 0:00:13.840 --> 0:00:16.239 and there's Charles to w Chuck Bryant, and there's Noel 0:00:16.360 --> 0:00:20.720 on the Wheels of Steel, So that makes this stuff 0:00:20.760 --> 0:00:25.680 you Should Know the podcast. So Chuck, Yeah, how you feeling? 0:00:25.800 --> 0:00:29.360 I before your answer, I am so excited about this 0:00:29.440 --> 0:00:32.560 one because there's just no way it's not going to 0:00:32.680 --> 0:00:39.960 be a Chuck accent Bananza. Well, I am super excited 0:00:40.000 --> 0:00:45.519 about this because I love accents almost more than anything 0:00:45.520 --> 0:00:48.760 in the world. I know it. Man not doing accents 0:00:48.800 --> 0:00:52.040 because sometimes I'm okay, sometimes I'm terrible, but I'd like 0:00:52.120 --> 0:00:55.200 to try, right, I just mean hearing. There's nothing in 0:00:55.240 --> 0:00:59.200 the world I love more than talking with someone who 0:00:59.200 --> 0:01:03.160 has a really heavy accent of some kind. I love it. 0:01:03.440 --> 0:01:05.839 I love it, I love it. I love it. So 0:01:06.520 --> 0:01:09.080 if you encounter somebody with a heavy accent that you're 0:01:09.080 --> 0:01:14.840 having trouble understanding, how do you feel, oh, like in 0:01:14.959 --> 0:01:20.679 say Scotland, Sure, well, what do you mean, Like, are 0:01:20.720 --> 0:01:22.960 you just like, gosh, this is fascinating, or are you 0:01:23.000 --> 0:01:25.880 like do you start to sweat and get nervous because 0:01:25.880 --> 0:01:30.920 the communication is breaking down? No, I'm delighted beyond words, 0:01:31.520 --> 0:01:36.640 and I will like laugh and say, man or a lady, 0:01:37.360 --> 0:01:41.320 I like, I can barely understand you, and I love 0:01:41.360 --> 0:01:43.880 it so much. I can hardly stand it. That's great, 0:01:43.959 --> 0:01:46.440 that's a great way to handle it. It's just the best. Man. 0:01:46.520 --> 0:01:49.760 I love it all accents, I mean there are very 0:01:50.160 --> 0:01:52.600 I can't think of one accent I don't like hearing. 0:01:53.880 --> 0:02:00.280 Uh what about Uh? No, I got nothing like. I mean, sure, 0:02:01.080 --> 0:02:02.840 there might be some accents that might be a little 0:02:03.440 --> 0:02:07.160 grating to your ear on a personal level, but I 0:02:07.240 --> 0:02:10.280 even like hearing those just because it's just it's so 0:02:10.480 --> 0:02:14.120 that person in that region, and especially when we travel 0:02:14.200 --> 0:02:17.359 and for these shows and get to speak with fans 0:02:17.480 --> 0:02:25.440 from you know, from Boston or from the Midwest or Canada. Yeah, 0:02:25.480 --> 0:02:28.519 god's the best. I love it. Or on the UK 0:02:28.600 --> 0:02:31.880 towards I was just like flipping out, you were I 0:02:31.919 --> 0:02:34.320 had to calm you down, like every few minutes. It's 0:02:34.360 --> 0:02:37.120 just amazing, and it makes me like, it makes you 0:02:37.160 --> 0:02:41.840 feel a little self conscious that I have such a 0:02:41.919 --> 0:02:45.160 non accent, but you do have an accent, you just 0:02:45.200 --> 0:02:49.760 can't hear it. That's one of the hilarious parts of accents. 0:02:49.880 --> 0:02:53.040 Is that person with the accent can't hear their own accent. 0:02:53.200 --> 0:02:57.840 It just sounds normal than them sort of. But it's 0:02:57.880 --> 0:03:00.720 like everyone has an accent, they even say in this article. 0:03:01.560 --> 0:03:06.520 But unmarked speech technically is what we're talking about, which 0:03:06.560 --> 0:03:13.200 is it doesn't have a hallmark sign of geographic area. Yeah, 0:03:13.560 --> 0:03:16.320 because that's, if anything, what an accent is. It's a 0:03:16.840 --> 0:03:22.600 telltale giveaway of where you where, where you live, where 0:03:22.600 --> 0:03:25.360 you're from, where you were raised. Usually, Yeah, you don't 0:03:25.440 --> 0:03:27.720 have I mean again, it's you know what I mean. 0:03:27.760 --> 0:03:30.280 But you don't have an accent either. Now we have 0:03:30.400 --> 0:03:34.680 those things are pretty unmarked. We have non regional accents, 0:03:34.800 --> 0:03:38.000 non regional American accents, I think, yeah, or jen am, 0:03:38.040 --> 0:03:41.720 I've heard it called general American. That makes sense. That's 0:03:41.720 --> 0:03:44.160 that's good. It's lovely. I mean, listen to us right now. 0:03:45.520 --> 0:03:48.080 I love this accent. But and I may have told 0:03:48.080 --> 0:03:51.160 the story before. I heard a cassette tape of myself 0:03:51.200 --> 0:03:53.680 as a like a twelve year old a couple of 0:03:53.760 --> 0:03:58.840 years ago, and it was heavily southern. Oh really yeah. 0:03:58.960 --> 0:04:01.560 And I didn't try to lose it. I didn't work 0:04:01.600 --> 0:04:04.680 on it. I never thought about it. Um, where did 0:04:04.760 --> 0:04:07.240 go Chuck, I have no idea what you do. I 0:04:07.320 --> 0:04:11.000 don't know, I really it just I was shocked. I 0:04:11.040 --> 0:04:14.240 was like, that's not me. Wow, that's really surprising because 0:04:14.320 --> 0:04:16.920 I mean from from and we'll talk about it a 0:04:17.000 --> 0:04:21.919 little bit, but accents they tend to develop in childhood 0:04:23.160 --> 0:04:27.200 and they tend to stick. I don't know, man, I 0:04:27.200 --> 0:04:29.680 can't explain it. That's pretty interesting. The only thing I 0:04:29.760 --> 0:04:33.159 can say is that at the time, I was friends 0:04:33.160 --> 0:04:37.640 with a lot of rednecks. Oh, I guess, and I'm 0:04:37.680 --> 0:04:41.080 not now, even though I love the right kind of redneck. 0:04:41.600 --> 0:04:45.839 Don't get me wrong, Um, I love the right kind 0:04:45.839 --> 0:04:49.760 of redneck, the salts of the earth. Good to each 0:04:49.839 --> 0:04:52.920 his own kind of redneck. Yah. Sure, that's a good 0:04:52.960 --> 0:04:57.520 redneck good the best. Plenty of other kinds too, plenty 0:04:57.520 --> 0:05:00.520 of other kinds. Um, boy, do you know what? This 0:05:00.560 --> 0:05:02.360 is kind of off topic, but you don't hate More 0:05:02.400 --> 0:05:08.640 than anything is when a fellow like I'll just go 0:05:08.640 --> 0:05:12.560 ahead and say it, when a fellow white dude thinks 0:05:12.600 --> 0:05:14.560 you think like them just because you're a white dude. 0:05:15.000 --> 0:05:17.080 Oh yeah, and they you don't know them, and they'll 0:05:17.080 --> 0:05:20.080 just start saying stuff right, And I'm just like, dude, 0:05:20.720 --> 0:05:24.680 that's awful. I'm not like that, and please don't presume 0:05:24.760 --> 0:05:26.960 them like that. You just throw your hands to your 0:05:26.960 --> 0:05:29.599 ears and stomp up and down and go no, no, 0:05:29.600 --> 0:05:33.560 no until they run off. That's the worst. I hate it. 0:05:33.560 --> 0:05:38.040 It's pretty bad. We're all that way. Yeah, all right, 0:05:38.320 --> 0:05:43.440 let's get into this. Oh we're not into it already. Well, 0:05:43.480 --> 0:05:46.680 I guess the first thing technically we should say, uh, 0:05:46.800 --> 0:05:50.120 is that dialect and accents are two different things. Yeah. 0:05:50.279 --> 0:05:53.239 Accent is how something sounds when you talk. And again, 0:05:53.279 --> 0:05:58.880 it's usually related to where you're from and usually where 0:05:58.880 --> 0:06:03.279 you're raised, right, yeah, and in your family too, Yeah, yeah, 0:06:03.320 --> 0:06:05.680 and a dialect you're probably going to pick up from 0:06:05.720 --> 0:06:07.840 where you're from, from your family, that kind of thing. 0:06:08.160 --> 0:06:11.800 But dialect more has to do with the vocabulary you use, 0:06:11.960 --> 0:06:14.800 the like, the words you use, the slang, that kind 0:06:14.800 --> 0:06:18.520 of thing. Um, there's grammar rules that that can be 0:06:18.760 --> 0:06:23.039 different than you know, the standard grammar of the language. 0:06:23.400 --> 0:06:27.720 So it's it's more like, what you're saying is dialect 0:06:27.880 --> 0:06:30.480 how your how you sound when you're saying it. That's 0:06:30.520 --> 0:06:32.920 the accent. That's the big difference. Yeah, have you ever 0:06:32.960 --> 0:06:37.320 taken one of those dialect tests online? No, it's pretty neat. 0:06:37.360 --> 0:06:39.159 And the New York Times has one where you basically 0:06:39.160 --> 0:06:43.640 go through like twenty questions that say things like, um, 0:06:43.800 --> 0:06:47.600 what do you call the the strip of land between 0:06:47.640 --> 0:06:51.240 two streets? Or what do you call a house on 0:06:51.360 --> 0:06:55.120 the opposite corner of your own? Um? And stuff like that. 0:06:55.200 --> 0:06:59.159 It's not just like soda pop um. I gotta okay, Yeah, 0:06:59.160 --> 0:07:01.320 that would be interesting. Like I say median, I say 0:07:01.360 --> 0:07:04.640 kitty corner. Oh, I say catty corner. No, see, that 0:07:04.720 --> 0:07:06.599 was one of the choices, but I would say median 0:07:06.680 --> 0:07:09.720 as well. Right, some people say devil stra. One of 0:07:09.720 --> 0:07:11.520 them was interesting was what do you call it when 0:07:12.960 --> 0:07:15.800 it's No, that's a thing. That's not a thing it is. 0:07:16.560 --> 0:07:18.680 What do you call it when the when it's raining 0:07:18.680 --> 0:07:23.160 with the sun shining? Apparently that's highly regional raining with 0:07:23.240 --> 0:07:25.640 the sun shining. I didn't even know there was a 0:07:25.720 --> 0:07:28.600 name for that. Yeah, people call it different things. We 0:07:28.800 --> 0:07:31.880 grew up calling it the devil's beating his wife. But 0:07:31.960 --> 0:07:34.480 what's up with all this devil's stuff? Don't know, it's 0:07:34.480 --> 0:07:37.680 all the devil's beating his wife? Is what you call that? 0:07:37.760 --> 0:07:41.760 When rain it's coming down while sun was shining. That 0:07:41.880 --> 0:07:46.000 crazy yeah, anyway, it's got It has an interactive map 0:07:46.440 --> 0:07:48.960 that as you answer the question, it turns different colors, 0:07:49.000 --> 0:07:53.400 like from red to blue. How heavy You're like, no, no, no, no, 0:07:53.840 --> 0:07:56.560 it's like that went back, well not politically, um. And 0:07:56.600 --> 0:08:00.760 then eventually after the last question, the reddest hot zones 0:08:00.800 --> 0:08:04.600 will be where you are from. And mine was like 0:08:04.680 --> 0:08:12.080 Atlanta or not Decator specifically, but Atlanta Decatur or Atlanta, Birmingham, Alabama, 0:08:12.080 --> 0:08:15.360 and I think like Nashville. Huh, so I was in 0:08:15.400 --> 0:08:19.200 the zone. So cosmopolitan southern is your dialect? Basically it 0:08:19.200 --> 0:08:23.640 sounds cosmo southern. Yeah, southern Mo. Anyway, I highly recommend 0:08:23.640 --> 0:08:26.000 it's gonna be a fun test. Yeah, it sounds pretty fun. 0:08:26.040 --> 0:08:28.280 But nothing to do with accents. What what I mean? 0:08:28.360 --> 0:08:31.680 Can you put like not applicable for the one about 0:08:31.720 --> 0:08:34.839 the rain when the sun shining? Yeah? Most of them 0:08:34.880 --> 0:08:36.640 have an option that says I know what this is, 0:08:36.679 --> 0:08:39.080 but I don't have a name for it. Gotcha, Okay? Cool, 0:08:39.160 --> 0:08:42.640 Well then yeah, i'll take it. I'll take it right now. 0:08:43.040 --> 0:08:47.679 All right, So we've established what dialect is, we've established 0:08:47.679 --> 0:08:51.200 what accents are, and apparently now that we're diving into 0:08:51.200 --> 0:08:55.400 that world of accents. If you are a linguist, there 0:08:55.400 --> 0:09:00.840 are basically two categories that you would put accents into. 0:09:00.880 --> 0:09:03.520 If you want to start talking accents with linguists, they're 0:09:03.559 --> 0:09:06.440 gonna be like, wait, wait, wait, are we talking about 0:09:06.480 --> 0:09:08.719 the accent that a person has when they're speaking their 0:09:08.760 --> 0:09:11.920 native language or are you talking about the accent of 0:09:11.960 --> 0:09:15.599 person has when they're speaking what is not their native language. 0:09:15.920 --> 0:09:20.240 Explain yourself, says the linguist. Right, and when you go 0:09:20.360 --> 0:09:24.560 to learn a second language as a a non you know, 0:09:24.720 --> 0:09:28.680 developing infant, like let's say high school, middle school, or 0:09:28.679 --> 0:09:33.280 beyond um, you have to I mean, you took language 0:09:33.280 --> 0:09:36.920 class in high school, right, sure, French? But was this 0:09:37.000 --> 0:09:42.000 in Georgia or yes? And there are plenty, plenty of 0:09:42.240 --> 0:09:46.280 thick Southern accents speaking French and it is about as 0:09:46.320 --> 0:09:49.240 grading as it gets. Well, it's funny because that's a German. 0:09:49.360 --> 0:09:52.120 It was the same thing. And I always had a 0:09:52.200 --> 0:09:57.280 knack for Um speak and a Deutch. Yeah that's how 0:09:57.320 --> 0:09:59.360 it sounded. And it was always funny to me because 0:09:59.360 --> 0:10:02.240 our teacher would you know, dictating or say something in 0:10:02.320 --> 0:10:05.760 perfect German and we would repeat it back individually. And 0:10:05.800 --> 0:10:09.440 I always had a pretty good knack for not accents, 0:10:09.440 --> 0:10:11.240 but just sort of parenting. I'm much better if I 0:10:11.320 --> 0:10:13.840 hear someone say something, I can kind of say it 0:10:13.880 --> 0:10:16.600 back like they say it. And I just figured, like, 0:10:17.400 --> 0:10:20.920 just do that and then you're speaking correct German. And 0:10:21.040 --> 0:10:24.280 some of these dudes would, you know, prekin ze Deutsche 0:10:24.960 --> 0:10:26.760 And I would just be like, how can you just like, 0:10:27.240 --> 0:10:30.680 can you not pretend to speak German, like with a 0:10:30.720 --> 0:10:34.080 German accent? And they couldn't, And it's just fascinating. I 0:10:34.160 --> 0:10:36.400 just thought everyone could pare it something back, and that's 0:10:36.400 --> 0:10:38.800 when I realized, no, not at all. Well they have 0:10:39.160 --> 0:10:44.719 those people have very well formed, non plastic synapses, is 0:10:44.760 --> 0:10:46.520 really what it comes down in a lot of ways. 0:10:47.360 --> 0:10:49.440 Do you, uh, you want to take a break before 0:10:49.480 --> 0:10:52.600 we get into the development of accents? I guess, so, well, 0:10:52.679 --> 0:11:23.160 let's do that, m all right, Chuck. So, there's been 0:11:23.200 --> 0:11:26.520 a lot of study about accents about when we developed language. 0:11:26.600 --> 0:11:28.920 There's a lot of debate about whether we're born with 0:11:28.960 --> 0:11:32.400 a language instinct or if it's just something we we 0:11:32.840 --> 0:11:36.520 naturally develop as a result of being social animals. Who knows, 0:11:37.240 --> 0:11:42.800 but one of the studies on accents specifically has found 0:11:42.840 --> 0:11:49.280 that apparently babies they recognize accents in the womb. They've 0:11:49.320 --> 0:11:53.600 tested newborn kids. I don't know what parents let this happen, 0:11:54.280 --> 0:11:59.000 but apparently in the delivery room or shortly after um delivery, 0:11:59.400 --> 0:12:01.440 the baby was born. It's another way to put it. 0:12:02.400 --> 0:12:06.520 They've had people speak with different accents to the baby, 0:12:06.600 --> 0:12:09.560 and the baby just based on their gaze, tend to 0:12:09.600 --> 0:12:12.240 prefer the accent that they heard while they were in 0:12:12.280 --> 0:12:16.640 the womb. It is pretty interesting, right, And apparently from 0:12:16.679 --> 0:12:21.240 that moment on, even from the time their brains developed 0:12:21.320 --> 0:12:25.800 enough to to start hearing and soaking this in, and 0:12:25.840 --> 0:12:29.640 then after they're born, they're they're taking all of these 0:12:29.800 --> 0:12:33.600 these little things we take for granted when we speak, 0:12:33.600 --> 0:12:36.680 when we use dialect, when we when we um form 0:12:36.720 --> 0:12:39.199 an accent. All of the stuff is sinking in their 0:12:39.240 --> 0:12:45.120 little baby brains and it's helping them develop UM what 0:12:45.559 --> 0:12:49.440 is called basically a map, a language map, a dialect map, 0:12:49.480 --> 0:12:53.280 and accent map, and they're hearing how to talk, learning 0:12:53.280 --> 0:12:56.120 how to talk just by listening to the people around them, 0:12:56.160 --> 0:13:00.599 even before they're six months old. Yeah, this UM researcher 0:13:01.120 --> 0:13:05.199 UH speech professor named Patricia cool k u h L 0:13:06.320 --> 0:13:11.599 you dub go Huskies um. She said that she was 0:13:11.640 --> 0:13:14.200 describing the map, and she said, you know, the sounds 0:13:14.240 --> 0:13:18.600 they don't hear, their synapses aren't firing when they don't 0:13:18.640 --> 0:13:20.760 hear those sounds, so they just sort of fall away. 0:13:21.160 --> 0:13:23.400 And you can think of it as like pruning of 0:13:23.480 --> 0:13:27.079 that network of the brain, which I thought was really interesting. 0:13:27.080 --> 0:13:28.920 It just makes sense. You know, the sounds they hear 0:13:29.520 --> 0:13:33.400 most often will be reinforced over and over, and that's 0:13:33.440 --> 0:13:36.520 how a dumb little baby gets an accent. And there 0:13:36.640 --> 0:13:40.520 there's a really good example, if not a super stereotypical one, 0:13:40.559 --> 0:13:45.520 but um speakers of Japanese have a very hard time 0:13:45.880 --> 0:13:51.040 saying L making the L sound right. So rather than lake, 0:13:51.280 --> 0:13:53.520 they may say rake, they tend to they tend to 0:13:53.600 --> 0:13:57.360 replace the L with an R sound. And it's simply 0:13:57.440 --> 0:14:00.240 because that's what they were exposed to growing up up 0:14:00.800 --> 0:14:04.200 and there they didn't learn to make the L sound 0:14:04.520 --> 0:14:06.280 just in the same way that you and I might 0:14:06.360 --> 0:14:09.600 have a lot of trouble rolling our rs, where if 0:14:09.640 --> 0:14:12.160 we had been raised in a society or a group 0:14:12.240 --> 0:14:15.040 or a family even that rolled there ares we could 0:14:15.080 --> 0:14:18.880 probably roll our rs perfectly. But all of for all 0:14:18.920 --> 0:14:22.560 of this research is starting to show that accents are 0:14:23.080 --> 0:14:29.520 just acquired and developed, and they're reinforced through through exposure 0:14:29.640 --> 0:14:32.160 by hearing other people around you and then speaking that 0:14:32.200 --> 0:14:36.640 way yourself. And that map that that's formed starting before 0:14:36.720 --> 0:14:41.800 even six months old. Um, it's what you it's what 0:14:41.880 --> 0:14:47.600 you use to navigate through through spoken communication with the world. Yeah. 0:14:47.640 --> 0:14:51.640 She found out this is cool still in studying babies 0:14:51.680 --> 0:14:55.880 in Sweden, Japan, US and other places that at six 0:14:55.920 --> 0:14:59.560 months old, Japanese babies could distinguish between the elm are 0:14:59.720 --> 0:15:03.320 just American babies, but by the time they were one, 0:15:03.840 --> 0:15:06.080 they had lost that ability again because that was just 0:15:06.120 --> 0:15:08.320 sort of pruned away. Yeah, and I looked into this, 0:15:08.400 --> 0:15:11.160 I'm like, how how would you set that up? And 0:15:11.200 --> 0:15:14.160 this is actually pretty clever. Right, So they would put 0:15:14.160 --> 0:15:16.440 these babies in a room and let them all hang out, 0:15:16.680 --> 0:15:19.040 and then they'd be like a loud speaker and then 0:15:19.080 --> 0:15:24.400 over the loud speaker, hopefully it a normal normal, right, 0:15:25.280 --> 0:15:27.960 they would say they would just have a voice, a nice, 0:15:27.960 --> 0:15:31.920 pleasant voice saying like la la la la la la 0:15:32.120 --> 0:15:36.040 la la la la la la, right, and then every 0:15:36.040 --> 0:15:38.160 once in a while the voice would say la la 0:15:38.440 --> 0:15:41.720 ra la la, right, And when that r would come 0:15:41.720 --> 0:15:46.120 out instead of a la a like a bear would 0:15:46.240 --> 0:15:49.240 light up and start dancing and playing like a drum, 0:15:49.400 --> 0:15:52.880 like something that babies would love would happen, right, So 0:15:52.920 --> 0:15:56.840 they came to associate rather the like the what would 0:15:56.840 --> 0:16:00.440 be construed as an error in the act center the 0:16:00.480 --> 0:16:04.480 dialect um with something going on with the bear. So 0:16:05.160 --> 0:16:07.840 the babies that were Japanese by the time they were 0:16:07.880 --> 0:16:10.800 a year when there was an error, they wouldn't look 0:16:10.800 --> 0:16:14.640 over at the bear any longer because they stopped hearing 0:16:14.760 --> 0:16:17.560 that that la la la and just heard it as 0:16:17.640 --> 0:16:21.560 la la la. Interesting, isn't it. Yeah, And apparently they 0:16:21.600 --> 0:16:25.600 found that babies crying can even sort of mimic the 0:16:25.640 --> 0:16:33.120 intonation of their nationality. So like French babies, apparently French 0:16:33.160 --> 0:16:35.760 speakers go up an intonation toward the end of the sentence, 0:16:35.760 --> 0:16:39.680 and so French babies would when they cried, I guess, 0:16:39.720 --> 0:16:43.240 would go why wawa and go up at the end, 0:16:43.720 --> 0:16:49.360 whereas German babies would go down just like Germans. Yeah, wow, 0:16:51.400 --> 0:16:57.360 all right, they wouldn't say law no. Uh. Super interesting though, yeah, 0:16:57.400 --> 0:16:59.440 And so all of this forms of the basis of 0:17:00.080 --> 0:17:02.000 a lot of people already know but you might not 0:17:02.120 --> 0:17:06.240 know why. But it is way, way easier to learn 0:17:06.760 --> 0:17:10.120 multiple languages when you're younger than it is, say when 0:17:10.119 --> 0:17:12.639 you're in high school. And there's a big push among 0:17:12.680 --> 0:17:19.520 American educators to start language development second language, third language, uh, 0:17:19.640 --> 0:17:22.320 when you're much younger, like even as young as nursery school, 0:17:22.560 --> 0:17:25.720 rather than waiting until high school, which is little baby 0:17:25.760 --> 0:17:29.600 is being raised bilingual from birth. Yeah, and that's a 0:17:29.680 --> 0:17:32.119 really good way to raise a smart kid like you. 0:17:32.200 --> 0:17:34.720 May speaks Japanese in English. She was raised in a 0:17:34.800 --> 0:17:38.440 household that spoke Japanese in English, right, And I mean 0:17:38.440 --> 0:17:41.160 it's the same thing. There's I read another article about 0:17:41.200 --> 0:17:44.920 a woman who was raised in the Philippines and her 0:17:44.960 --> 0:17:49.120 father was raised I think her father spoke Tagalog, which 0:17:49.119 --> 0:17:50.919 is the national language, and then her mother spoke a 0:17:50.960 --> 0:17:55.400 regional language. And um, so she spoke two forms two 0:17:55.480 --> 0:17:59.880 languages from birth and then learned English as an older person. Yeah. 0:18:00.320 --> 0:18:02.960 So the whole idea that you should wait until high 0:18:02.960 --> 0:18:05.480 school to learn language because then you're old enough to 0:18:05.560 --> 0:18:09.160 understand is the exact opposite of what you should be doing. 0:18:09.200 --> 0:18:12.800 Like you're supposed to be teaching kids multiple languages from 0:18:12.840 --> 0:18:15.320 a very young age because that's when their brains are 0:18:15.359 --> 0:18:18.879 plastic enough, and they wanted to know how that's possible. 0:18:19.760 --> 0:18:24.879 It turns out that you your brain creates multiple language maps. 0:18:25.160 --> 0:18:27.600 So you have a language map for your native language, 0:18:27.600 --> 0:18:30.639 you have another language map for this other one you 0:18:30.720 --> 0:18:33.280 learned in school, than another one that you're for the 0:18:33.359 --> 0:18:36.760 language your grandmother speaks, and you can just switch between 0:18:36.800 --> 0:18:40.800 them depending. Amazing and that So when you do learn 0:18:40.840 --> 0:18:45.640 another language, though, Um, and I guess it's probably true 0:18:45.640 --> 0:18:47.960 for any age, but as an adult for sure, or 0:18:48.000 --> 0:18:50.720 a teenager for sure, when you already have your your 0:18:50.720 --> 0:18:54.760 own home language solidified, there's something called language transfer that 0:18:54.880 --> 0:18:58.240 can happen, or that always happens, uh, And it can 0:18:58.280 --> 0:19:00.600 be either good or bad. So, depending on what your 0:19:00.680 --> 0:19:04.720 language is and what language you're learning, it might be 0:19:04.920 --> 0:19:07.200 a little bit easier to learn that language and say 0:19:07.200 --> 0:19:09.200 certain words, or it might be a little harder can 0:19:09.920 --> 0:19:12.480 depending on how close it is to your native tongue 0:19:12.480 --> 0:19:18.960 and accent. So Um, like a German learning to speak English, 0:19:19.480 --> 0:19:22.000 UH may have a tougher time with the th h sound, 0:19:22.160 --> 0:19:24.760 and they may say like a like a t z 0:19:25.560 --> 0:19:28.760 or or harder s in place of it, like instead 0:19:28.800 --> 0:19:34.240 of the German z Germans right or if you're Italian 0:19:34.280 --> 0:19:36.440 and you're learning Spanish, you might have an easier time 0:19:36.920 --> 0:19:40.280 because those are a little more similar, uh, like with 0:19:40.520 --> 0:19:43.919 especially with the ps in Spanish, right, because in Spanish 0:19:44.000 --> 0:19:50.360 the P is a non aspirated, short onset time sound right. Um. 0:19:50.760 --> 0:19:54.439 In English we would have a hard time with the 0:19:54.520 --> 0:19:58.760 P because we say P. We aspirate it, right, P 0:19:59.359 --> 0:20:04.080 like your breathe when you say it he um, and 0:20:04.560 --> 0:20:07.400 it's it's a It has a long on set time right. 0:20:07.840 --> 0:20:11.240 So which is That also explains why native English speakers 0:20:11.280 --> 0:20:16.640 often have trouble distinguishing between P and B when they're 0:20:16.680 --> 0:20:20.000 listening to Spanish being spoken. Yeah, and so depending on 0:20:20.040 --> 0:20:23.040 if it's um easier or harder, it's called negative positive 0:20:23.040 --> 0:20:28.200 transfer or negative transfer um. And I remember in German 0:20:28.320 --> 0:20:31.560 learning to roll those rs was probably the hardest thing 0:20:31.600 --> 0:20:34.280 for most of the kids in the class. Sure, right, 0:20:34.520 --> 0:20:37.920 And again it's the same thing. It's like the the 0:20:38.040 --> 0:20:42.240 with the southern accent with German. Right. So their language 0:20:42.280 --> 0:20:47.920 map is so well formed and so immovable that they 0:20:48.119 --> 0:20:52.320 are following the rules of that language map even when 0:20:52.359 --> 0:20:56.000 they're trying to speak this foreign language. Well, languages don't 0:20:56.040 --> 0:20:59.199 have the same maps, which accounts for different languages and 0:20:59.240 --> 0:21:01.760 accents and all all sorts of things like that. So 0:21:02.119 --> 0:21:05.040 on the one hand, it's cognitive, but on the other hand, 0:21:05.240 --> 0:21:09.239 there's also um differences in in motor function. Right, just 0:21:09.320 --> 0:21:12.359 like when you say L but not are as a 0:21:12.440 --> 0:21:15.679 kid and there they seem interchangeable to you. When you 0:21:15.720 --> 0:21:21.600 grow up, you have trouble actually making the the the 0:21:21.920 --> 0:21:26.359 L sound like making your tongue make the L sound instead, 0:21:26.400 --> 0:21:28.760 it wants to make the R sound right, So you 0:21:28.800 --> 0:21:32.159 have the cognitive trouble with your language map applying your 0:21:32.200 --> 0:21:34.760 language map to this new language, and you also have 0:21:34.960 --> 0:21:38.720 the physical trouble of actually making your mouth and your 0:21:38.760 --> 0:21:43.160 tongue in your airway do the things that it has 0:21:43.200 --> 0:21:46.520 to do to make those sounds like rolling in our Yeah, 0:21:46.560 --> 0:21:49.600 it's just it's simply unpracticed in doing so. Yeah, but 0:21:49.680 --> 0:21:52.000 that's it. That's what the good thing about it is 0:21:52.040 --> 0:21:55.320 that you can learn a good accent, You can learn 0:21:55.400 --> 0:21:59.200 to speak another language. It just is harder because your 0:21:59.240 --> 0:22:02.960 brain is pretty well set. You can retrain it, though, 0:22:03.000 --> 0:22:05.760 it just takes practice. And apparently, from what I saw, 0:22:06.160 --> 0:22:08.440 the best way to learn an accent and to learn 0:22:08.480 --> 0:22:12.199 a new language is lots and lots and lots of 0:22:12.280 --> 0:22:16.239 listening up front, that you shouldn't just jump in and 0:22:16.280 --> 0:22:18.959 start trying to speak. You should spend a lot of 0:22:19.000 --> 0:22:22.560 time just sitting around listening to it first. Yeah, I'm 0:22:22.600 --> 0:22:26.720 way out of practice now with remembering German and speaking it, 0:22:26.840 --> 0:22:29.320 but I got pretty good at one point to the 0:22:29.440 --> 0:22:31.720 um to the point where I went. When I went 0:22:31.760 --> 0:22:35.639 to Germany, I had Germans saying, you know, you speak 0:22:35.760 --> 0:22:38.960 very good German. And that's like the best best thing 0:22:39.000 --> 0:22:41.080 that can happen when you traveled to a different country 0:22:41.240 --> 0:22:43.080 and you're trying is for someone to say, wow, you 0:22:43.119 --> 0:22:46.840 speak really good uh, French or German or whatever. Here, 0:22:46.880 --> 0:22:50.480 have a schnitzel on me. It's funny. My buddy and 0:22:50.520 --> 0:22:52.959 I Brett, who did my first big Europe trip with, 0:22:53.040 --> 0:22:57.600 we went to a beer garden in Germany and um 0:22:57.640 --> 0:23:01.920 in Munich and got uh had a lot of beers, 0:23:02.520 --> 0:23:05.880 a lot of steins because this local dude who didn't 0:23:05.880 --> 0:23:09.199 speak English and I spoke very little German. And we 0:23:09.320 --> 0:23:12.480 drank with this guy for about four hours and bonded 0:23:12.520 --> 0:23:14.960 in two different languages over the music of the Beatles, 0:23:16.000 --> 0:23:19.560 and it worked somehow, and got our picture with the 0:23:19.560 --> 0:23:21.439 guy and it was just one of those travel moments 0:23:21.480 --> 0:23:24.520 that just one of the best travel moments of my life. 0:23:24.520 --> 0:23:28.520 And I always wonder if this guy remembered that at all. 0:23:29.359 --> 0:23:34.720 And that guy turned out to be christof Walls, Yeah, 0:23:34.800 --> 0:23:36.480 I have a feeling this guy didn't remember. It's one 0:23:36.480 --> 0:23:38.520 of those things like as a young American, I was like, 0:23:38.560 --> 0:23:40.640 oh my god, that was a posting. Ever I could 0:23:40.640 --> 0:23:44.680 see that happening in Germany. In France, no French person 0:23:44.720 --> 0:23:47.040 has ever said, hey, your French accent is pretty good. 0:23:47.640 --> 0:23:52.400 Exactly what's gonna help you? Right? Um, Well, let's talk 0:23:52.440 --> 0:23:54.000 a little bit because this, to me is one of 0:23:54.000 --> 0:23:57.479 the more fascinating parts of accents is the fact that 0:23:58.000 --> 0:24:04.760 uh British English, uh and in England, as colonizers all 0:24:04.800 --> 0:24:07.640 over the world, we still ended up with so many 0:24:07.760 --> 0:24:13.600 variations of the English accent. Yeah, which makes sense, fascinating, 0:24:14.520 --> 0:24:17.960 but it's basically like, um, Britain went around the world 0:24:18.000 --> 0:24:21.360 and said, oh, we're we're gonna have an illegitimate child here, 0:24:21.400 --> 0:24:23.359 and we'll have an illegitimate child here, and in an 0:24:23.400 --> 0:24:25.560 illegitimate child here, and they all just kind of look 0:24:25.720 --> 0:24:28.400 like us a little bit. Right, Okay, it's a little 0:24:28.440 --> 0:24:31.719 bit like that, but language wise or accent wise. So 0:24:31.800 --> 0:24:35.280 everybody um who speaks English, I should say, in India 0:24:35.760 --> 0:24:40.199 and in Australia and in Canada and in the United States, UM, 0:24:40.240 --> 0:24:42.640 they all speak English. All of us speak English. Were 0:24:42.640 --> 0:24:46.280 speaking the same language, but we um speak it with 0:24:46.359 --> 0:24:49.760 different accents. And when you start to look into why, 0:24:49.880 --> 0:24:53.600 it just becomes extremely fascinating. Like you were saying, like Australia, 0:24:53.680 --> 0:24:56.960 all right, the Australian accent. Anybody in the world can 0:24:57.000 --> 0:25:01.920 pick out an Australian accent no problem, and it's such 0:25:01.920 --> 0:25:04.919