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I'm interested in learning a little more about the acquistion of languages.
I find accents quite fascinating and how they came to be.
I am sometimes a little disappointed that I do not have an accent in any of the languages I speak.
I speak three languages and have done so from birth. Therefore I speak three languages without an accent. I can think in all three, dream in all three, switch between them easily. I do not remember not being able to understand any of them either.
What I do remember though, is finding words that sound similar. For example the name Claire is pronounced similar to Klee (clover in German). I remember wondering why someone would be called Clover. As I grew older I was the differences became apparent.
What I have found strange though, is when I try to say a word in a foreign language, I do so with a German accent and not an English or Afrikaans one. I wonder why this is? Why would the accent automatically becomes German even though the other two languages feature equally strongly.
There is only one sound in Afrikaans which I struggle with and that is the rolled-r. German has a gutteral r and that takes over the Afrikaans r. But people usually think I am from Malmesbury where they use the gutteral r.
How did I assimilate three languages simultaneously, never mixing them up and not producing an accent?
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