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Comment by cblum | Hacker News Reader

I’m Brazilian but I’ve had people think I’m American since I’ve lost most of my accent. It’s funny though that when I’m tired my accent shows up.

I do the immersion thing without even calling it so. My view is that if I’m living in another country, I should integrate and learn the culture. I stopped associating with Brazilians who were only interested in staying within a Brazilian bubble doing Brazilian things. Might as well just go back to Brazil if that’s what you want to do.

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Just wanted to echo this. Moved from Russia to Atlanta, and did not go out of my way to do the whole immigrant community thing (unlike what a lot of my parents and their friends did). 9 years later, living on West Coast now, and I definitely attribute my proficiency in English to not joining the Russian expat community. Meanwhile, there are people I personally know who were BORN in the US in one of those communities, and they barely speak more than just the very basics, despite their community not being an isolated one at all.

P.S. still have an accent, but it has been getting much better, and almost no one manages to guess where it comes from correctly. Heavy majority of the guesses go in the direction of Scandinavian countries :)

> Meanwhile, there are people I personally know who were BORN in the US in one of those communities, and they barely speak more than just the very basics, despite their community not being an isolated one at all.

Really? Outside of communities that educate their children in their own language second generation children everywhere generally end up fluent speakers of the language of instruction, even in communities where their home language speakers are a plurality or majority of a school population. You do see Indian and Chinese kids in Silicon Valley with accents intermediate between FOB and more general Californian but they speak English perfectly.

Yes, really. I grew up in a Mexican neighborhood and can give you the names of people whose families have been here for generations and barely speak any English. Same with the Russian communities in Chicago and Long Island.

I have the exact same experience, though I starting learning English at a young age. Out of the 100+ Brazilians I met in Business School, I was the only one who was interested in hanging out with non-Brazilians.

There's a reason I left Brazil, and it mostly has to do with wanting to live in a better culture.

> There's a reason I left Brazil, and it mostly has to do with wanting to live in a better culture.

Same. Plus the insane violence.

My grandmother is from Rhode Island, which has a very distinctive accent; she put a lot of effort into getting rid of it and I could always tell as a kid when she was mad because her accent snuck back in.

Don't know if this is common, but when I'm tired my accent sort of turns British. Seems North American accent requires more effort.

Yeah, the rhotic thing is the first thing that goes when I get tired. I fall back to rolling my r's though, instead of making them soft like in British English.

"I’m Brazilian but I’ve had people think I’m American"

I am German and I often get asked if I am Irish :-)

I get that. But isn't this some kind of reverse bias ? What if a genuinely good Brazilian wants to be your friend ? You're precluding them based on their nationality.

"Brazilians who were only interested in staying within a Brazilian bubble doing Brazilian things."

I don't think he treats random brazilian differently, just that he isn't seeking a brazilian community.

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