Accents, speech inflections and tones

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Yes, but the question would have to be, "Did you actually have a potato in your mouth?"

I don't notice the accents, but I do hear the music and rythym. To me, German sounds like a punk-rock band beating each other with a sack full of asthmatic cats. I find the language and word constructions fascinating, but I find it very difficult to listen to. Oddly enough, german-accented english can be quite pleasant. It's just when they actually speak German that it's very harsh and arythymic to my ear. Maybe it's just the unfamiliar patterns of sounds.

UK speech has really interesting music and rythyms though. One of the earlier posts mentioned Cockney and I have to say that musically this is a really pleasant accent to listen to. Where the BBC London broadcasters have this smooth symphonic quality to them, cockney is like a jazz riff on the theme. The same musical patterns are there but it slides from word to word with the occassional syncopation to mix things up. I'm not sure that I'd use "cute" as the descriptor, but it's certainly a captivating accent. Scouse has a similar quality, but I have a really hard time processing the slang, so it tends to be more jarring to me. The out-of-place words are like a cymbal-crash in the middle of the sentence.

For the most part I have a mostly monotone voice. But when I am in an uncomfortable situation or unfamiliar with my surroundings I have an accent. What's odd is the accent isn't American even though I've grown up in the states. I've had many people comment on my unique accent that I wasn't even aware I had.

I have to be careful because, while I don't conciously notice accents, I do tend to pick them up quite easily. I've had many people comment on accents that I didn't realize that I'd picked up. Most notably, Irish pubs can be a very dangerous place for me. On more than one occasion, I've been called to task because some oversensitive bruiser thought that I was mocking them.

Oddly enough, when I was travelling in Russia and I'd inadvertently pick up their accents, they thought that it was wonderful. I guess that I do a better Russian accent than an Irish one.