Reply To: How we perceive accents

[Chiara]

Actually, I don’t know really if there’s any snobbery about accent in Italy. Being Italy made by many different regions using different dialects you don’t care about people having different accents, it’s just normal.
You can like an accent or not, maybe in my opinion people with “milanese” accent can be seen as a little bit posh, but that’s all.

Getting more and more into British culture I’ve realised how this accent stuff can be “discriminating” between upper class people and working class.

I must admit that I was only discriminated in my own region Tuscany. Moving from my hometown near Pisa to Florence to attend university When I was young, many here in Florence taked the piss about my “pisano” accent, almost bullied me.
Now, after living for many years in Florence I’ve gained a Florentine accent, you have to survive in some way!

In learning foreign languages I’m very picky about pronunciation, I really would like to speak other languages with no accent at all, aboveall I’m sick of hearing me speaking English with an Italian accent. I do love British accent, I mean not only the RP one, but also others such as the Scottisch or the Northerner or the Londoner. So I still struggle a lot with pronunciation, but try not to give up!