I have a keen ear for accents. I love to hear someone with two accents--one of my neighbors is Kenyan and speaks British English; another was born in China with a British grandparent--so fun to listen to the not-quite-American mixtures of vowels and consonants!
I hear you, though. When I lived amongst first-generation Italians, many regretted that their parents didn't teach them Italian because they wanted their kids to fit in at school, etc. So when I was studying Italian for my own interest, I had to ask around a lot in the neighborhood to find someone who still spoke it. My friend the gardener did, so I could sit out front on the sidewalk and practice with him.
One thing I learned, living in a large city, about the Czech people I met is that they had great, witty senses of humor and loved a good laugh. There is a fantastic film, if you ever run across it, set in a Czech village while it was under communist rule before glasnost. It is so funny—My Sweet Little Village.
My grandpa had a great sense of humor, and it got passed down to my mom and several of her siblings. They were fun to be around! I will look for that movie. I have cousins that have been back to visit the old village where they were from, and they stay in touch with the folks there still.
As for the accent, a year ago I was back home for a family wedding, and outside the hotel I struck up a conversation with a man while waiting for my husband to get the car. Anyway, he told me that I had a very pleasant accent and that he couldn’t quite place it, and wondered where I was from. I had to tell him that I was born and raised there, but had since moved to the Midwest, so my Southern accent has changed a bit. It was a neat conversation.
“I have a keen ear for accents.”
Beau and I were laughing about this just yesterday. There is NOTHING melodious about the way we speak.
I sound like Officer Margie from ‘Fargo,’ LOL!