kwa group moja na @DukeOfKabeteshire
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This Jaluo, as do most nilotes, looks like a monkey.
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Of all the regional American accents he could’ve copied he chose the effeminate gay man from Philadelphia
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He is gay kwani hujui
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I don’t think it’s been confirmed but it certainly wouldn’t be surprising
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That’s not an American accent. Ask any American to tell you whether this is an American accent and they will tell you nope, not at all. This is basically how Kenyans (who studied British English) speak when they try an American accent - as do all wannabes on Kenyan media.
They don’t learn the American accent properly. Here’s the mistake they make - they assume that an American accent just means “replace all the letter ts with rs” i.e wora instead of wota when pronouncing water for example and they mistakenly think that’s all there is to it. As a result their accent is still Kenyan-British but with a bunch of rs - a very horrible accent that you can’t really place. You wanna do something interesting? Download an accent detector and put Larry’s voice against it. The detector will, with 100% accuracy, guess “SWAHILI”. I am not even kidding. The swahiili accent is very very strong, albeit not as that of the Indians or Nigerians. But it’s very very strong and the cadence and pronunciation of other swahili consonants and vowels sneaks in almost inevitably when people like Larry try to put on their best American accent.
The key to the American accent is in the vowel combinations while pronouncing words, the speed and cadence while connecting words with certain structures. If you ask all these American wannabes in Kenya to say the sentence “Go away” and ask an American to repeat the same sentence, you will immediately tell that it’s a very different way of speaking. The wannabe, due to never learning the accent, will just speak louder and faster (hehe) “G-O AWEE”. This is exactly how a Swahili accent sounds lol. An American accent instead goes something like “Goh uh-way” or “Gowuh-way.” You will be surprised at how different this sounds. So a Kenyan will always get the “COME AGAIN? PARDON ME”? And they’ll wonder why nobody understands them yet they roll their Rs.
Another mistake Kenyan speakers who try out the American accent make is mistakenly trying to put random Rs everywhere (because that’s what they think the American accent is) even in words that don’t have an R. This is actually the biggest tell-tale sign looool. Utaskia a wannabe American newscaster saying “spiiirdinG” instead of saying “speeding” (stretching the e softly and long and ending at n…the g is silent). Just disorganized placements of the rolling r sound.
I can go on and on because I am an accent nerd. When I was taking IB classes, we had an accent reductionist instructor and I was a student assistant as well as course reader for that particular class. I even helped build an app to help other African students learn the American accent. It’s a completely alien way of speaking and many African students often feel stupid when they realize how dumb they sound - of course after learning all the wrong ways they were pronouncing words. Now once you master the American accent, you start subconsciously associating that Swahili or African way of speaking English with stupidity and you constantly think to yourself “…why do they sound dumb?”, not maliciously because you know why that happens but it is what it is. Even a Canadian accent starts sounding funny and an Australian one even more stupid. This is an area I am very much passionate about so forgive my long essay. I spent so many hours reviewing student orals and all that jazz so this is what a lot of material will do to a motherfucker hehe.
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Nipe summary bwana nyuki
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ChatGPT is always at your disposal ndugu
I have never understood why Kenyans try to fake the American accent. Low self esteem I guess. Italian, German, British, Japanese, Chinese adult immigrants to the States don’t do it, so why do Kenyans do it?
In my high school and uni days, I spoke English like a Kenyan, to English, Welsh, Irish, American and German students, teachers and professors.
Not like a Briton (despite being taught by British teachers in high school). Not like an American (despite watching American movies and TV shows all my life).
As long as I was pronouncing words right, according to the British-English I learnt all my life, I had nothing to worry about.
Guess what? EVERYONE understood me. Apart from the very early days when I had problems with diphthongs, short vowels and rolled r’s (cat vs cut vs cart). But I quickly got the hang of it.
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I don’t know either. However, if you’re young and in a foreign country, it will do you a lot of good. If you’re a Kenyan living in Kenya, you have no reason to learn any other accent.
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I totally understand for a young person, or a kid born in the States, coz American English will be their primary language for most of their lives.
But for a foreign journalist like Larry, whose contract can end with a short notice, just like Jeff Koinange’s did, it doesn’t make much sense to me.
Heck, Richard Quest has been with CNN since the early 80s. And he’s never dropped his British accent for an American one!
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Wacha kutuandikia paragraphs za ujinga. Weka summary like a normal burukenge.
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Ambia @administrator atengeneze feature mpya with a ChatGPT plugin ya kusummarize comments using AI. Choke jingli.
Mimi niko hapa doing a more convincing one, but I don’t even use it because the natural Kenyan accent is less annoying on the cords
The problem comes when you subconsciously emulate a white mans accent and you are a Black man. Barrack Obama doesn’t sound like that. But Madawa doesn’t realize, there’s levels to American accenting.
0-3 years. Stage 1
3-5 years. Stage 2
5-10 years. Stage 3
10-15 years. Stage 4
15- eternity Stage 5
I usually can pick out a Kenyans length of stay in America by his accent: Even the ones from ocha with deep tribal accents.
Ok
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First of all, there’s a standard American accent and every American, regardless of where they’re from or their race can speak it if they so wish. Obama’s accent is actually very American. It’s a standard mid-west accent. Of course there’s also AAVE that Black Americans use with each other but suddenly code-switch to a standard American accent at work or in corporate settings.
Now, this might surprise you, plenty of articulate people can learn the American accent in 3 months with lessons. The problem is most immigrants don’t even bother to take accent reduction classes so they attempt to learn it, like you said, subconsciously and that’s why you can easily tell that they’re immigrants. Immigrants who take those classes sound very American (if they were articulate in the first place - many people don’t even know how to communicate in English regardless of the accent they’re using). It’s actually what actors in Hollywood do.
People like Idris Elba in some movies, sound American because they’ve taken accent reduction classes. Mathew Macfayden is British but he played a very American character (accent and mannerisms) in Succession. Similarly, Sarah Snook is Australian but you wouldn’t tell because she uses a standard American accent in Succession.
The American accent is very easy to learn for people who are already articulate but you have to learn it the right way. I always break out in laughter when people say you can only acquire one if you were born here or came here very young. Now onto Kenyans who have tribal accents (for example the kikuyu one) - those can never fully learn the American accent and it will always sound off because they can’t pronounce some consonants along with their combination with ease in the first place so it becomes very hard.
However, most of the kids who came here for uni (not from your regular Kenyan high school - those don’t care about optics like learning a new accent) from international schools acquire an American accent within the first few months of arrival. Guess what they do? They already have perfect command of the English language so a few months of accent reduction classes cleans their British one up. Some of these guys can code switch effortlessly between an American, British and a Kenyan accent. It’s wild because they’ll use a Kenyan accent when they meet other Kenyans and then immediately pull off a perfect American accent when engaging with others. It’s amazing to watch for linguistics nerds like myself.
I’ve seen people swear that so and so hasn’t changed their accent at all but that’s because said person only ever uses a Kenyan accent whilst with other Kenyans. However, in zoom calls with diverse groups of people, you see those same guys sound perfectly American. The thing is other Kenyans won’t ever know and it’s because people want to fit in and don’t like being shamed, especially with how brutal Kenyans can be. Wataanza kusema “uyo jamaa anajifanya ni wa uku”.
But yeah, accents are fun. Linguistics is fun. There’s also a strong correlation between the care that certain people use in pronunciation and socio-economic success vs those that don’t. For example, advanced societies place a strong emphasis on learning a language correctly while poor ones don’t have an organized way of speech and writing. You can make very interesting conclusions once you start exploring why some languages are xyz and others aren’t.
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Women are the ones known to write acres of verbose text, have you been laid yet?
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Kindly appreciate the free lesson you got today.
Instead of asking for a summary, why not ask for a knife so you can shave those pubic hairs? It’s embarassing. Unapaka sabuni fudhi.
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