Accent
From Wikipedia, a free encyclopedia written in simple English for easy reading.
The word accent has more than one meaning. Here are some:
- the way that a group of people say words; how they pronounce words and sentences
- the correct way to say parts of a word, more or less loudly (often called "stress")
- one of the marks on letters to see how to say those letters in words (e.g. ö, ñ, or é, as used in the word née ) (often called "diacritics").
Sometimes people will talk about someone's accent, meaning the way that person speaks. They might say that the person has a German accent, or an Australian accent. An accent is the way words are said.
The way a person says words usually comes from where he or she was a child, and other people where he or she lives. People learn how to say words and sentences so that they sound the same as when others speak.
People speaking the same language can have different accents. Even people in the same country can have different accents. Sometimes people can tell what city someone lived in when as a child, by the way that person speaks. (e.g. a New York City accent)
When first trying to learn a new language, often a person will still have his or her old accent. People may be able to guess what country or place that person lived in before.
If someone can learn another language well enough, he or she may not have the old accent anymore. These people may get a new accent in the new language. If someone studied German in Austria, people in Germany may think that person was Austrian.