I am jealous of my American friends who speak with heavy accents and receive praise about their mastery.
It's not surprising that people initially took my version of French as an effort to learn a language properly, and hers as a sign of cognitive issues or trouble with language. Even once someone's aware of it, it won't necessary change the fundamental reaction (kind of what taller children go through - even when people learn they're much younger, they still apparently have trouble applying the standards they normally would for younger children).
Not sure what else to say about this, other than that I've seen it exactly was you describe (though not quite with the "heavy" accent, more of a moderate but immediately noticeable one).
Damn, now I wonder if that's how I come off when speaking English.
I'm from South America and have been living in the US for the last 8 years. But even before that, I always really liked English and as a kid worked really hard to emulate the way I heard it spoken in American TV shows.
The way I speak has been described as, "pretty much no accent, but you don't sound like you're from anywhere in particular." Other immigrants sometimes think I'm American, but most people say I sound like someone who speaks English as their first language, but they aren't be able to tell which country I could be from.
Maybe I should just have a bit more of a foreign accent, after all :D
Interesting. I'm gonna watch that movie when I get chance.
I recently stumbled across a French/English comedy special which has a bit specifically about this, and how much French people judge other French people's French.
I have absolutely zero experience with French and I still found most of the clips entertaining
I had a girlfriend who did exactly the same as his wife.
Staten Island has a very large population of Italian-Americans. Italian-American culture pervades many facets of Staten Island life and culture, even among non-Italians — so much so that many residents (and former residents like me) sometimes jokingly refer to it as Staten Italy.
It was a helluva realization about psychology.
On one call I recall a team from Paris snickering as my Quebecois co-worker spoke who was confused and embarrassed.
Heureusement, mon professeur était parisien.
I'm not from the south so I'm not as sure what the stereotype is in the opposite direction -- about the "yankees". Probably that they are inept and arrogant? Any time I've heard American southerners talk about "yankees" that's pretty much the tone
Out on the west coast I never hear about these dynamics anymore. People don't care about north/south here. Though curiously to me, I have encountered many westerners who sound more southern than northern to my ear.
On the other hand French speaker can get confused by strange intonation or stresses. Also there are several sounds that do not exist in English (e.g. /eu/, /u/, and the nasals /an/, /on/, /in/, the /ill/ can be problematic as well). Approximations of these sounds are distracting and can be genuinely confusing. And contrary to some English accents you can’t count on properly stressed syllables to help carry the meaning.
During my time in New York I had the opposite problem. As a native French speaker with some English education (having lived in London), apparently people understood me without difficulty. On the other hand, it took me a while to get the meaning of what other people were saying without asking them to repeat. After months it was still difficult to understand announcements in the subway.
Don't worry, native English speakers also have difficulties with this
long, l/on/ng, l/an/ng?
The /on/ nasal vowel is also approximated in “don’t” in some English accent, but again often imperfectly. In French, you don’t hear the n at all, whereas it is most often noticeable in “long”. AFAICT, the closest is /ão/ in Portuguese.