My colleague's phone rang just as I entered my office this morning, opps, I should say OUR office as I'm sharing it with him. Once again, he forgot to divert his phone calls to his voicemail and he's on a meeting the whole day, darn! So before I could even start my daily morning habit - removing my winter gadgets (coat and scarf), hanging them at the corner, opening my PC, pushing the start button, and lastly opening my window - I frantically grabbed the phone and answered:
Me: Analyse, Bonjour.
Early Morning Caller: Good morning. Can I please talk to Colleague?
Me: Oh, Colleague won't be in his office the whole day, do you want to leave a message? May I know who's on the line please?
EMC: It's Khun EMC. (Khun = Mr, Ms or Mrs in Thai language)
Me: Oh hi Khun EMC, it's Khun Analyse.
EMC: Oh, sorry, I didn't recognize you, I thought you were French!
And this wasn't my first encounter with this troubling bizarroide remark!
Encounter # 1:
I was on vacation in my beloved Philippines and was chit-chatting with my sister (in our dialect of course) with our usual 7-11 midnight snack when she looked at me seriously and said You know what, you sound Bisaya! No kidding!
Encounter # 2:
I was on vacation (again?) in the énormes US and was chit-chatting (again?) with my friend and suddenly, she told me Funny, you sound like frenchguy! Darn it!
Encounter # 3:
Pause-café. A colleague told me Sérieusement, je trouve que tu n'as pas beaucoup d'accent. (Seriously, I think that you don't have a lot of accent). Waaaaaaaaaaaah!
I don't believe this happening. Naman, it's just 2.5 years that I could consider myself francophone and voila the result? Oh my..
Where did my accent go?
13 years ago
5 comments:
i was one time doing a presentation in pinas to a customer. afterwards, the marketing manager with a by the way too american slang accent (as in talaga! lol) told me in a shock tone complete with round eyes, "wow, your english is now very european, with an accent the AAHHH"
I guess here in NL many speak good english following the english style accent (with a little mix of american twang due to hollywood hehe) but i am glad i do not have the dutch english accent, i would hate that lol! i find it rough!
hehe...
I lost my Filipino English accent a long time ago. I miss it! Whenever I go on extended vacations in the Philippines back in my college days I would regain my Filipino English accent. :D
They say I speak with an American Accent (Californian), although I have since given up speaking in slang.
But when I speak in tagalog, I speak it with proper tagalog accent.
But my mom says that my ilocano is very rusty.
My kapangpangan is really bad, I can bare form sentences. sigh :D
oooops, I hope you dont mind my little stories here! :D
yey..im not alone!
jorz, i probably wont mind having a dutch accent, their accent is not as harsh as the french one :). hey, did you take the remark as a complement? i take mine hard to swallow..arggh!
mell, not at all, kwento ka lang. actually, i told to myself i had to re-accustom myself at least a day before really entering into the battle. i remember i once called up an agency to get my passport done on the same day as my arrival, and so the girl asked me to spell my name...gosh, i pronounced 'i' as 'i' in tagalog (same as in french)..naging matigas yung name ko hehe...i was really ashamed *blushing*
to think that i thought those 'slang' balikbayans are just maarte...
me isa pa, on the first few meals, i unconsciously reverse my spoon and fork palagi taking the spoon as the knife...arte ko daw...nagkamay na nga lang ako..
i love the accent of french people when they speak english *swoon*
at work, people tell me i speak English with a french accent, and french with an english accent. haaalp!!!
kala
kala, i love their accent too..until now, when frenchguy speaks english with me...i still find it sexy hehe..
but me having a french accent while speaking tagalog, it's a totally different story... :(
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