Accents

The other day I was talking with some Canadian friends and I caught myself using their Canadian accent. Aside from thinking I need to stop hanging around them before I come back to the US, I didn't think too much of it.

Then I was in a Sichuan restaurant in Harbin. I was talking to the waitstaff as I was waiting for food. I never told them I lived in Sichuan. Later in our conversation, one of the ladies heard me talking and said 'she can speak the sichuan dialect!' I just about laughed out loud because 1) I never really could speak sichuanese, 2) I wasn't saying anything distinctly sichuanese, and 3) it was kind of ironic given that they did not know I had lived there.

I told them I had lived there and to them, that explained it. But to me I was left wondering what it was that I said that made them say that. They told me it was just the way I was talking, nothing specific that I said.

Hmmmm. I wonder if in my daily use of Chinese (including conscious and subconscious attempts to improve my Chinese), I have started to try to talk like the people I am having conversations with, no matter what language I speak. Or is it just a coincidence that one day I find myself speaking Canadian English and the next day some Sichuan ladies find me speaking Sichuanese? Probably a little of both...