Do Americans view Polish and Russian accents as similar?

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Consistent_Damage885@reddit

I don't have a deep preconception about how a Polish accent should differ from any other Slavic accent.

We hear Russian accents on TV fairly regularly because of all the cold war plot lines. But if it was poorly done, a lot of us wouldn't necessarily know.

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ReeMayRe@reddit

No, I know both Russian and Polish people, I detect a difference in accents.

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Polish sounds mumbly to me, usually spoken more softly than Russian would be, and Polish seems to be mostly sh and ch sounds. I'm Polish-American but know very little Polish. There's a Polish-language newscast on public access TV here and you have to turn up the volume because everyone on the show seems to mumble (assuming you'd know what they're saying if you could hear them better).

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bryku@reddit

Movies aren't a great representation of accents. They have limited actors to pick from and they have a limited amount of time to train them.

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MarmosetRevolution@reddit

No. The Russian accent is VERY distinctive.
Two sounds that stand out are the NY in NYET and the hard H, much like the transliterated Hebrew CH as in Challah.

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Pitiful_Hedgehog6343@reddit

Bro I honestly can't say I've ever heard a Polish accent. Lots of respect though.

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Frequent-Froyo-5483@reddit

I am of Polish descent. My grandparents were from Poland, and I find their accent to be very distinct from a Russian accent. I grew up around lots of Polish people and we would go to dinner at a Polish community center!

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BoringPrinciple2542@reddit

No. They are distinct accents.

You may find that Eastern Europeans are often depicted on TV with a generic Easter.European accent because it’s recognizable to the audience but easier to cast (compare to Asian films where the American character will occasionally have an Australian accent).

There is a stereotypical Slavic accent & speech pattern in media but Americans who are exposed to both Russian & Polish accents will likely be able to tell them apart.

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Practical-Ordinary-6@reddit

And most aren't closely exposed to either one.

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BoringPrinciple2542@reddit

Depends on where you live.

Nashville is metropolitan enough to support multiple orthodox churches, a couple of Eastern European Markets, and I’ve known both Polish & Russian people personally. That leaves a considerable number of larger cities with stronger international ties even if we ignore historical connections.

Less so for Russians but Poles have left a noticeable stamp on much of the Appalachian region such that my mother grew up with communal pierogi making in the Catskills area & kielbasa & sauerkraut was a staple for my father growing up in TN.

Americans as a whole are much more culturally savvy than the typical Redditor gives credit for. Especially when you consider the concentrations of population in specific areas; I’m pretty sure a considerable portion of the population if not an actual majority can recognize the difference between a Wojciechowski & a Mikhailov.

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Practical-Ordinary-6@reddit

I don't think I was wrong with what I said. Most people don't have direct exposure to someone speaking Russian or Polish on a regular basis. That's just factual. We have exposure to multiple languages but there are about 500 languages here and so any single one is not going to be that well exposed to most people, with the possible exception of Spanish. Everything else is completely situational.

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_Purple_Lobster_@reddit (OP)

Thank you for the info😇

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cherrycokeicee@reddit

you will always detect more nuance in accents that are geographically close to you than people in a different continent. it's like how people outside North America usually can't tell a Canadian accent from an American accent.

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MajesticBread9147@reddit

I feel like most Americans struggle to differentiate a Canadian and American accent.

Like, how many people would know Drake or Tate McRae are Canadian just by the way they speak?

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PureMitten@reddit

I had a friend in a Michigan college who was born and raised in California but her parents were from the Northwest Territories so she had a very slight Canadian accent. Apparently it had never or rarely been clocked in California but by the time I asked if she was Canadian a week into our freshman year she'd been asked so many times that she exploded with "why can everyone here tell?!"

I really thought I was being obvious by asking immediately after she said "soorry" but she had no idea she had any Canadian accent at all, haha.

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fasterthanfood@reddit

That’s really interesting. Less familiarity with the Canadian accent in California, perhaps, or maybe she lived in a city with lots of different accents and so the “almost mainstream American” accent blended in.

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PureMitten@reddit

Our college town is similarly diverse to the town she was from, my money is between familiarity with Canadian accents and also familiarity with upper Midwestern accents. Her accent was very light and mostly Californian with hints of Canadian, but I could see her accent being read as lightly Midwestern to people not closely familiar with Canadians or Midwesterners

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big_sugi@reddit

And also no context clue that she might be Canadian. If you’re in LA, or even somewhere less cosmopolitan like Tucson, Arizona, you’re not expecting to hear many Canadian accents, which helps them to blend in. Whereas Detroit may have just as many accents, but you know there’re Canadians lurking around.

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killingourbraincells@reddit

Fwiw, most states on the northern border sound Canadian.

But, even still, BC accents are slightly different from Quebec and Toronto.

I can tell a Puerto Rican and a Mexican apart better than I can tell an American and Canadian.

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MajesticBread9147@reddit

Probably because Puerto Ricans and Mexicans are everywhere but Canadians less so.

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killingourbraincells@reddit

They're everywhere in FL, so are people from Minnesota and Wisconsin. Can't tell the three apart. People from BC sound more "west coast" tho, so they're a little easier.

Puerto Ricans v Mexicans probably just easy because I speak spanish.

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_Purple_Lobster_@reddit (OP)

When I did research on the Canadian accent I was like "hey what's the difference between this and the accent that I have? I thought I had an American accent 🤔" I'm still confused about it

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mooshinformation@reddit

Most words are the same in Canadian and non southern American accents. A common example is "about" Canadians say the ou like "boat" and Americans say it like "ouch".

Americans from the Midwest around Michigan have an accent similar to Canadian and I don't think Canadians on the coasts have as pronounced of an accent (I could be wrong about that)

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t-poke@reddit

I used to be on a team at work that was geographically split 50/50 between Detroit and Toronto. Then there was me, the lone remote guy in STL who occasionally traveled to one of those two places.

I'm pretty sure I stuck out like a sore thumb despite my accent being 99% the same as theirs. There's just a few words where you hear them and you're like "Oh yeah, they're from up there"

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shelwood46@reddit

I visit friends in Detroit every summer, and one friend and I always make a day trip to Windsor Ont. I swear they play up their accents there to make it clear they are Canadian, which is adorable.

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shelwood46@reddit

lol, Newfoundland thanks you for this misconception (they have a really distinctive accent that sounds almost Irish).

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uncloseted_anxiety@reddit

There’s also the tendency ti tack on ‘eh’ to the end of a sentence, especially a question. It’s not something every Canadian does, any more than every American ends their sentences with ‘brah’ or Aussies with ‘mate’, but if someone does do it, they’re almost certainly Canadian, eh?

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Perplexio76@reddit

I don't know that it's a coastal thing, but I grew up on the border in Northern NY state. When I went to college in Michigan, we'd drive through Canada to get there because it was faster (crossing at Massena NY/Cornwall ON and then at Windsor ON/Detroit MI). The one thing I noticed, the further away from the US border we got, the more pronounced and noticeable the Canadian accents became.

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ValosAtredum@reddit

The “a” in words like “that” is also a bit different. Not enough that I can actually describe the difference but I hear it.

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MattieShoes@reddit

Do they soften it, like thet rather than that wide mouthed A in apple?

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ValosAtredum@reddit

I think that’s a good way of describing it, blended a bit with an a like “ahhh”. Softer for sure

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okiedokie450@reddit

Another example are words like "progress" and "process". Most Americans pronounce the "o" sound like in "hot", but Canadians tend to pronounce it like sound in "goat".

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fasterthanfood@reddit

like “boat”

Some Americans hear Canadians pronounce “about” and perceive it as “a-boot,” which is grating to Canadians who insist it doesn’t sound like that at all. Here is a linguist explaining it detail, but basically, it’s that Americans aren’t used to hearing “about” pronounced that way and so one brains rush to categorize it.

That’s related to OP’s question about how we view Polish and Russian accents.

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orcas-@reddit

My cousins are from Nova Scotia (from an island off NS where street signs are bilingual English and Gaelic, and lots of the elders still know Gaelic) and their accents to my NY ears sound like a mix of the stereotypical Canadian accent mixed with Irish (which is weird since we are of Scottish descent). since that is my default Canadian experience (we visit every summer) it surprised me to visit Ottawa and hear how non-Irish (but still very Canadian) people sound!

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SabresBills69@reddit

maritimes, central prairie and rural BC have stronger accents.

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callmeseetea@reddit

The word ‘sorry’ also tends to have a somewhat different emphasis on the ‘o’ vowel, making it sound like “SORE-ree” to an American ear while the US pronunciation is more like “SAH-ree”

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shelwood46@reddit

There are also various Canadian accents, just like there are various American ones. The Toronto accent is fairly similar to many Great Lakes/Upper Midwest/Rust Belt accents, but there is some word usage and pronunciations that make it easy to spot (like washroom rather than rest room/bathroom, pronouncing been as bean not ben). A lot of Canadian actors don't bother altering their accent when they play American characters, which make it even more confusing.

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Perplexio76@reddit

I grew up on the NY/Quebec/Ontario border. Most of the radio I listened to growing up came from Ottawa and Montreal. I also watched a bit of Canadian television and have even been mistaken for a Canadian a few times over the years (truth be told, I was flattered by this). There's also a different inflection in how they speak vs. Americans.

A few differences I've noticed.

Americans say A-dult

Canadians say Ad-ult

Americans pronounce "schedule" - sked-yule

Canadians pronounce "schedule" - shed-yule

Americans go "owt and abowt"

Canadians go "oot and aboot"

I've been living in the Midwest long enough that I've dropped the Canuck accent for the most part, but for the first few years after I moved I'd slide back into it when I called my parents and it would stick for about a half hour after I got off the phone with them.

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Meowmeowmeow31@reddit

A Canadian accent and a Midwestern American accent are very similar, but there are some words that are giveaways (sorry, about).

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Eat_Locals@reddit

Dollar is the sleeper tell.

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CupBeEmpty@reddit

Yeah it’s a really subtle difference most of the time. The classic difference is in the vowel sounds of words like about but a lot of Canadians sound very American to the point where most people wouldn’t pick up on it.

Some Canadians have a thicker accent that’s easier to pick out but many sound American enough that no one would detect it unless they were listening really closely or spent a lot of time with the person.

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Sweaty-Move-5396@reddit

And people in the US have trouble distinguishing Australian, New Zealish, and South African accents

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uncloseted_anxiety@reddit

I’ve gotten better at differentiating the first two after heard someone describe the NZ as the Aussie accent with all the vowels shifted one to the left. Never had a problem with identifying South African, though I think I would struggle to distinguish it from Dutch.

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tegeus-Cromis_2000@reddit

I'm Canadian-American, and most of the time I can't tell a Canadian accent from an American one.

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gentlemisty@reddit

For sure accents are kinda wild like everyone hears stuff different

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BookLuvr7@reddit

They also can't tell the difference between different US accents. I love audiobooks, but I've heard some that were painful with the US accents. Boston at the start of a sentence, then Jersey, and Texas by the end of it. It was ear blood. So painful.

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wordsznerd@reddit

The one that murdered my brain was a show where a character had a deep Southern accent but also the 1920s NY r > i thing (worm > woim).

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JesusStarbox@reddit

There's a type of southern accent that does drop the r. Worm is woim. Boy becomes bwah.

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OK_Stop_Already@reddit

Maybe like heavy heavy New Orleans accent.

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shadowmib@reddit

Heh its like when you have anstrong regional american accent and acting in a movie where you are supposed to be British and say something like "yondah is da castle of me faddah"

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BookLuvr7@reddit

Yup, I've heard one like that. Horrifying. There was an old PG Wodehouse story that had a narration like that. I could barely get through it, it was so bad.

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wairua_907@reddit

Someone trying to do a Boston accent who isn’t from Boston always sounds so bad same with the baltimore accent

Tho British actors do a pretty descent Baltimore / Philadelphia accent .

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qu33nof5pad35@reddit

Yes

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juliefromva@reddit

I have neighbors who work as translators. One is polish one is Russian. I ca definitely tell the difference between their accents but couldn’t tell you which was which.

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Robotpoop@reddit

Most Americans can't tell the difference between any slavic accents. We don't have the context to know what's different between them.

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StormFallen9@reddit

Most Americans (myself included) wouldn't even know what a Polish accent sounds like

And I know a polish guy on Discord and have heard him talk both in English and Polish and I still don't know what would make a polish accent

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Semi-Pros-and-Cons@reddit

I'm from an area of the US that had a lot of immigration from Poland a hundred years ago. You can still hear Polish accents here occasionally, mostly from older people. I think it's very different from a Russian accent.

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_Purple_Lobster_@reddit (OP)

Thank you for your answer ^⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠_⁠^ I am very happy when Polish Americans still share Polish culture/still have an accent

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coci222@reddit

You'll find a ton of Polish immigrants in Chicago who have an accent and still speak Polish. Polish delis are very common. The one by me, the workers don't speak English at all and are kind of rude to Americans, lol. We also have a large Russian population and the languages sound very distinct to me

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_Purple_Lobster_@reddit (OP)

Thank you for the info😇 also, from curiosity: Does Chicago still have the most Polish immigrants or has it changed since some time?

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auricargent@reddit

A bunch of schools still get Roman Pulaski Day off, so there must be some Polish pride going on.

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_SmashLampjaw_@reddit

Kids in Chicago get a day off of school to celebrate Casimir Pulaski...

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smedema@reddit

Im not sure on specifics but to put it into perspective when I was in high-school in the suburbs of Chicago, over half of my class of 700 had Polish descent. In many places Poles are almost the majority.

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SabresBills69@reddit

buffalo and Chicago have large polish populations. these are slowly firing as next generations moved out of the neighborhoods and lost the older relatives. traditions are still alive

buffalo on Monday has a big Dyngus day celebration as I’m sure Chicago has too.

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coci222@reddit

I'm not up to date on the specific numbers, but from what I see, it looks to be going strong

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MrDerpGently@reddit

If I remember correctly, Chicago has the second most Polish residents after Krakow (or did when I was younger).

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Fickle-Aardvark6907@reddit

Buffalo has a lot too. Not so many who actually speak Polish (at least not in public) but you can definitely still hear the accent, though these days its more of a second generation style or very young first generation.

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Semi-Pros-and-Cons@reddit

There are still some churches on the East Side of Buffalo that hold a Catholic mass in Polish.

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SabresBills69@reddit

it was back in the 70s/89s you went to the market and parts of east Buffalo.

the delegation from Poland usually visited Buffalo and Chicago on their visits to USA or UN. Thry had more poles than any other city other than Warsaw.

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sadthrow104@reddit

Right or wrong aside, it’s actually insane how long these almost walled off cultural enclaves last. I have seen the surface of such enclaves in places like San Francisco’s Chinatown and parts of El Paso, Texas near the border

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Eat_Locals@reddit

There was a British show in the late 00’s or early 10’s where the host met a Chinese guy in SF who sounded fresh OTB. He had arrived in the late 60’s.

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Semi-Pros-and-Cons@reddit

Well, on that note, I make my own pierogi with my mother for Easter every year. It's a nice tradition. We made 240 of them this year. Most of them are frozen for later, and I give a lot away to friends.

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Doortofreeside@reddit

I'll be that ignorant polish American who can't really tell the difference.

At least not until I hear kurwa

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SabresBills69@reddit

im from Buffalo, ny area. Buffalo was settled where north parts were Italian ( my roots), east was Polish, south was Irish ( my roots). when a Polish person visited the country or UN they woukd make stops in Chicago and Buffalo which had the highest numbers of Polish decendendants that were greater than all cities except Warsaw back in the 1980s.

im familiar hearing polish accents. I can tell a distinction between theirs and other Slavic based languages from Eastern Europe and Russia. one of the doctors I see is from former Yugoslavia ( I think Croatia) so she speaks with a Slavic accent.

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m_leo89@reddit

New Britain, CT has a large Polish population. It’s been a while since I’ve been on Broad St. but the shop names and a lot of the people in the neighborhood spoke/speak Polish.

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Quirky-Invite7664@reddit

Pittsburgh has/had a lot of Polish immigrants. (In fact, there’s an area called Polish Hill.) I grew up eating pierogis. Lots of cultural festivals.

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Meowmeowmeow31@reddit

I love the fusion cuisine pierogis in Pittsburgh, and of course the pierogi races at Pirates games.

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uncloseted_anxiety@reddit

Short answer, no, because most of us have never heard enough Polish (or Czech, or Ukrainian, or Estonian, etc) accents to recognize them at all. The exceptions are those who live in cities like Chicago and NYC with significant immigrant populations from those countries. For most of us, our only exposure to accents from any former-Soviet country is through movies that just paint everyone east of the Iron Curtain as ‘vaguely Russian’, so we tend to assume everyone in Eastern Europe sounds like that.

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Alert-Algae-6674@reddit

I’ve heard both Polish and Russian accents from instructors in my university and found them to be pretty different from each other.

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Turdle_Vic@reddit

Not too sure, but to me they sound quite different. Different vowel sounds and unnatural consonant cluster. Also all the Polish people I know are either from Poland or first generation Americans and they all speak with a very subtle “sh” added in places they don’t normally appear. The few Russians I have met seemed to speak a bit higher in their mouths, if that makes sense?

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SkyPuppy561@reddit

I’m Russian-American and I certainly find them similar. Russian was my first language.

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BlatantDisregard42@reddit

In our movies and tv they often sound identical, but I’ve known people from Poland and Russia, and I don’t consider them to be that similar, in accent or personality. They both sound distinctly Slavic, but definitely don’t sound like the same accent to my ear. Now, I dated a Lithuanian immigrant for a while, and she sounded Russian. She mostly hid her accent pretty well, but when she let it slip, it was a beautiful, textbook, Bond movie Russian accent. Almost cartoonish because of how bubbly and outgoing her personality was. Though I know some of her grandparents were Russian, so that probably had some influence on her.

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RikkiLostMyNumber@reddit

I have friends who are Polish, I have friends who are Russian, and friends who are Ukranian, and I can't tellwhich is which by their accent when hearing them speak English.
I can definitely tell spoken Russian and Polish apart, though, even though I can't understand it.

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Traditional_Way1052@reddit

Growing up in NYC i went to school with a lot of kids who were Russian or Polish immigrants. I could/can absolutely tell the difference. My mom could not. She thought it was wild that I could tell the difference. On the train, she'd hear someone and go - Russian or Polish. All that to say, I think it is an exposure thing.

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Impressive-Cod-7103@reddit

I don’t, however I’m from the part of the US with the largest population of Polish immigrants in the country, and very few Russian immigrants comparatively. I would imagine it’s more difficult to distinguish for folks who didn’t grow up around either of those groups.

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SomethingClever70@reddit

Most Americans aren’t that familiar with the various European accents. Someone who speaks a Germanic language vs Romance or Slavic will sound different. But breaking it down further is a challenge.

In high school, Most Americans are offered a limited number of languages, like Spanish, French, maybe German. A smaller number of schools will offer Mandarin or Russian, depending on where those schools are located. But most people have never met a native of Poland and couldn’t distinguish between Polish vs Russian if they heard it, let alone tell what their accents are like in English.

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HeyPurityItsMeAgain@reddit

Sorry it sounds similar to me. Maybe if you have a distinct Polish name, I would notice the difference.

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claudiatiedemann@reddit

To me they are not similar. Probably many actors aren’t as familiar with Polish accents and maybe never met a Polish person so they do what they think is a some kind of generic Slavic accent.

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Perplexio76@reddit

The US city I live in has the largest Polish population outside of Warsaw. I definitely can hear a difference between Russian and Polish but I'll concede that a lot of it has to do with exposure. Growing up I didn't have near this level of exposure to the 2 different accents and thus, I doubt I'd have been able to distinguish the two before I moved to this area and had been living here awhile.

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nippleflick1@reddit

Most Slavic languages sound similar to the American ear.

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princesspooball@reddit

I hear both accents so infrequently so I couldn’t tell you

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Hairy_Debate6448@reddit

Yeah, we would say that a lot of the “Eastern European” accents sound similar. Just like you would likely say that all of the “southern” accents sound similar in the states. I think it’s sort of common sense that people would more easily detect differences in accents that they hear more often or are more familiar with. I mean I can definitely hear a difference between a polish accent and a Russian accent but I’d still say that they’re fairly similar.

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ghost-church@reddit

Anything east of Germany blends together for me, sorry.

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dystopiadattopia@reddit

Hell, Hollywood will put a New York accent on a character from Philadelphia, so I doubt they really care about the nuances between Russian and Polish accents

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1Negative_Person@reddit

To me, Russian generally sounds harsher than most other Slavic languages because of the lack of the “H” sound.

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goblin_hipster@reddit

I barely know what a Polish accent sounds like, and my idea of a Russian accent is cartoonish. I'm just not familiar with them enough. We probably lump it all together into a "vague Eastern European" accent.

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ericbythebay@reddit

Yes, all Slavic languages sound similar to an average American ear.

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ElefanteAmor@reddit

I hear them definitely only because I had experience with Polish family as a kid. And where I live now there is a large eastern European population. I can hear the difference but only because I knew the difference.

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Ok-Walk-8040@reddit

I can tell the difference because I had some online friends who are Polish and Russian. The average American probably can’t because they don’t get much direct exposure to Polish and Russian accents.

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overcatastrophe@reddit

I don't think most Americans know what a Polish accent sounds like. I might need to make pierogies for dinner tonight

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linkxrust@reddit

No, you guys sound the exact same to many of us.

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JuryOk2662@reddit

Nah, but I live in a region with a substantial Russian immigrant population and had a Polish coworker whose accent was decidedly different.

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JuryOk2662@reddit

Also that guy hated Russians.

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Minute-Frame-8060@reddit

I'm not sure I've ever met anyone from Poland.

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ElectricMayhem06@reddit

I think a part of this conversation is that in everyday interactions, many Americans don't have much to go on when figuring out what someone's accent is. Unless you know that your coworker is Russian (or you live an heavily Polish area), you might recognize that they have a Slavic accent and that's about it.

We could probably hear the difference between accents if a Polish speaker and Russian speaker were in the same room, but we'd be less likely to remember which is which the next time it comes up.

It's similar to hearing the differences between the various New York City accents and speech patterns. Someone who lives in Northern New Jersey could probably guess whether you live in Brooklyn or on Long Island, but a person from Phoenix, Arizona is more likely to hear a more general "NYC" accent.

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Doortofreeside@reddit

Anything Slavic is basically Russian to Americans.

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Weekly_Barnacle_485@reddit

I can tell the difference in accents easily. I am of Polish ancestry, but I don’t speak the language. I can’t tell the difference between Ukrainian and Russian accents though.

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mr_jugz@reddit

yes

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Decent_Cow@reddit

Yes, I can't easily tell the difference between any Slavic accents.

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Several_Celebration@reddit

I can tell the difference because my dad is Polish, my wife is Polish and all my friends growing up were Polish. However, I'd bet the average American probably can't tell much of a difference at all.

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curlyhairweirdo@reddit

I cant tell them apart. Just like I can't tell which asian country someone is from based on their accent when speaking English. I can definitely hear a difference between Southern Asian and Northern Asian when they are speaking they native languages but I can't tell the difference between Japanese vs Chinese or Thai vs Vietnamese.

So do I can tell the difference between Eastern and Western European languages but I can't tell the difference between Austrian German vs German or Polish vs Russian.

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blootereddragon@reddit

Most Americans wouldn't know a Polish accent if it smacked them upside the head.

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OkPerformance2221@reddit

"Kinda Slavic" is my entire category for such accents, as I hear them to rarely to detect nuance.

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Dear_House5774@reddit

If its a language from east of Germany it sounds to similar to Russian to be distinguishable

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JohnMarstonSucks@reddit

I've never had trouble distinguishing Russian from Polish. They're both in the category of Eastern European accents though.

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Collypso@reddit

As an American fluent in Russian I can only tell the difference when I don't know wtf is being said. It sounds so similar.

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bdrwr@reddit

Pretty much, yeah. You need proximity and familiarity to distinguish groups of people. I live in Southern California, I very rarely interact with immigrants from eastern Europe. I don't have enough time spent hearing the different accents to pick them apart, it's all just "slavic accent" to me.

Spanish though? I'm reasonably capable of telling apart Mexican from Castilian from Caribbean from South American. I spend WAY more time around Spanish speakers.

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martlet1@reddit

I can. But I have a lot of polish friends.

Hollywood is the worst for accents though. Meg Ryan did a movie once and her fake southern accent makes me turn it off every time it’s on.

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-Boston-Terrier-@reddit

In general, most Americans would consider any Eastern European accent as Russian.

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Great_Chipmunk4357@reddit

I don’t think so. A Russian accent is very distinctive. To me Polish is “Eastern European,” like Czech, Slovak, Serbo-Croatian. The languages themselves sound very different. Polish has that staccato rhythm: ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta. Russian is like English: ta-TA-ta-ta-TA-ta-ta-ta-TA. (In linguistic terminology, Polish has a syllable-timed rhythm. Russian and English are stress-timed.)

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MattieShoes@reddit

We are, as a group, lousy at identifying where accents are from. I imagine if I heard it all the time, I would be able to differentiate easily enough, but I don't.

There's some similarities between German, Polish, and Russian accents like saying gut instead of good, or swapping V sounds and W sounds, or trouble with "th". I don't think German and Russian accents sound the same, but it does kind of feel like Polish lies somewhere in between them.

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kritter4life@reddit

Typically yes.

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Ok_Organization_7350@reddit

Most Americans view them as similar. But I live in a Slavic American town. So I can tell the difference by now.

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Skete_5959@reddit

I believe for the majority, yes, more or less. In fact most of the Slavic languages sound very similar to the English ear. Before I learned Ukrainian I couldn’t tell any of them apart.

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No_Seaworthiness8176@reddit

Pseudo Russian accents have kind of become a default for most of central and Eastern Europe in American films. Either that or German.

Villians and geniuses get posh British accents.

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Human_Management8541@reddit

It depends. We have large Polish, Ukrainian, and Latvian populations in our area, so I can tell those accents apart.( Not sure about Russian accent) But I imagine someone who has never heard them before, can't.

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The_sad_zebra@reddit

I don't know a lot of Poles, and I am not familiar enough with the accent to identify it as Polish when I hear it, but I have never mistaken it for Russian.

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Ana_Na_Moose@reddit

I don’t think I have any specific idea of what a Polish accent sounds like. I wasn’t hardly ever exposed to any Polish learners of the English language.

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InvestigatorJaded261@reddit

Because I don’t have a lot of experience, I would struggle to distinguish between the accents of nearly anyone whose native language is Slavic. I would say the same about Scandinavian languages. Too small a sample for me to have learned the difference.

Whereas I have met enough English people/seen enough media to distinguish between the accents of several different regions there.

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hotlettucediahrrea@reddit

I don’t know enough Polish people to even recognize a Polish accent.

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zing164@reddit

I think the answers you get here are going to be disproportionate from more worldly and culturally aware people who can tell the difference. If you live in a city with a large population of first generation Polish or Russian immigrants, or otherwise interact with either group, you probably can hear/know the difference. But I think for a vast majority of Americans lump all Slavic language accents together as being a kind of general “Eastern European accent”.

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Danibear285@reddit

We don’t care really so long as I can understand you

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Ok_Sentence_5767@reddit

I mistook a Ukranian accent for a russian accent

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jessek@reddit

It’s very rare that I’ll hear a Polish accent and I’m of Polish descent.

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kit0000033@reddit

I'm sure there's a difference if two people were standing in front of me from each country... But I can't tell the difference, between any eastern European accent.

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TokyoDrifblim@reddit

I would say yes, but with the caveat that most Americans have no frame of reference for a Polish accent. They may never have heard a real one. Because it is geographically close to Russia, if asked what a Polish accent is like on the spot they'd probably say it's similar to Russian, an accent we are all very familiar with

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Fluid_Anywhere_7015@reddit

It depends. Say "Moose and squirrel must die" out loud. Then we can tell.

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unknowingbiped@reddit

Im from a pretty rural part of Michigan and pronouncing the last names isnt scary and pąctzki, pierogies, and polish kielbasa are not foreign to find in grocery stores. Small local restaurants may have a Saturday or Sunday night Polish dinner as a special.

I could probably pick out the difference in accents.

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rinky79@reddit

I could maybe hear a difference between Polish and Russian accents if I had one of each right in front of me to compare. But not if I just heard one or the other.

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The12th_secret_spice@reddit

Can you tell the difference between North Carolina and Georgia southern accents?

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Low-Restaurant8484@reddit

The only polish accents I've heard are tennis olayers, bjt it seems like a similar distinction vs Russian accents as the main American accent is vs the main Canadian accent.

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Pinwurm@reddit

Russian is my first language. I confuse Polish and Russian accents when they’re speaking English.

When I hear Polish, it sounds like Russians are speaking gibberish. It’s like this weird uncanny valley effect where my brain thinks I should be understanding it, but I don’t. Maybe like 30% makes sense to me.

Maybe you hear the nuances differently because you’re Polish.

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TopHatDanceParty@reddit

No. Polish and Russian are not the same nor similar

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Adorable_Dust3799@reddit

The only accent i find noticeably Russian is the thicker Moscow accent. Other than that i can't tell the difference between most Slavic accents.

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Dramatic_Stranger661@reddit

Yeah, if I heard either I'd recognize it as slavic but nothing more.

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rawbface@reddit

There was a character on the TV show "Pluribus" that was supposed to be Polish.

I would have guessed she was South American or something. I had no idea.

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DjAlphaRED5@reddit

I used to think that all slavs were the same shit, but I lived in Poland for the last 2 years and there is a noticeable difference in Polish and Eastern slavic languages. Poles still have shit english compared to most Western Europeans.

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SnowblindAlbino@reddit

If I pass someone in a crowd or a grocery store and hear an accent from anywhere in Eastern Europe or Russia they will all sound quite similar. My wife speaks Russian and sometimes I'll ask her "Was that Russian?" and she might say "No, that was Polish." I'm well-traveled and have had friends from both countries, but my ear can't tell them apart in casual settings-- either the accent or the actual language --unless I'm carefully listening.

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wwhsd@reddit

Eastern European accents pretty much all sound the same to me.

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_WillCAD_@reddit

Most Americans are not well-traveled outside the US (most don't even have passports), so most have a difficult time differentiating any eastern European accent from another. They all sound like Russian to us to an extent.

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_Purple_Lobster_@reddit (OP)

I don't really mind that Americans don't travel much to different countries, America is a big place and I heard that for some Americans traveling to different states is kind of like for Europeans traveling to different countries. I can't relate because I've never been to any other country than my own.

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DrMindbendersMonocle@reddit

The US is basically the same size as Europe if you take off Russia

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wounds-of-light@reddit

Hell, I'm fairly well travelled outside the US and I probably couldn't differentiate between a Polish and a Russian accent. I'd just know it's Eastern European

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DrMindbendersMonocle@reddit

We aren't that familiar with polish accents in most of the country.

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Brilliant_Bottle1986@reddit

Hollywood is the biggest culprit. For decades, the Russian accent was the default for every movie villain or generic Eastern European character.

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_Purple_Lobster_@reddit (OP)

I noticed that too, I also noticed that one of the many reasons why people view voodoo and hoodoo as evil (which it isn't, it's a part of Afro-Haitian culture I'm pretty sure) is Hollywood. Polish characters in older movies are portrayed as maids or it's the overused "omg their surnames so hard to pronounce" joke (I find the surname joke funny, if it's done in a funny way). And the Russian characters are spies and the Asian ones are smart and good at math. I find it strange.

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MortynMurphy@reddit

American South History buff here! Fun fact since I'm bored at work; Hoodoo and voodoo are related but not necessarily the same thing. Think of them as overlapping circles on a Venn Diagram. Voodoo is more related to the Afro-Carribbean tradition that arose from the enslaved Africans and Caribbean Indigenous people combining their beliefs over time. It's more prevalent in the states near the Gulf of Mexico. Hoodoo has a bit more direct West African, North American Indigenous, and Protestant Christian elements to it, and is based a bit more on the Atlantic side. But many of the enslaved people in the Caribbean were from West Africa, so there is a strong resemblance between hoodoo and voodoo. Louisiana and other places famous for voodoo have more Catholic Christian seasoning since they had/have a larger Catholic population. Hoodoo in my area, the Carolinas, is a closed practice. Meaning that you can learn about it via reliable sources but unless you're invited, you won't be learning how to do it. But elements of it still exist in our culture overall. Bottle trees to catch spirits, the blue ceilings of porches in Charleston, SC to confuse the spirits, things like that.

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ash-mcgonigal@reddit

All European accents from non-English speakers sound Russian to me except for Italian, Parisian, Swiss, and the parts of Germany that Switzerland sounds like.

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Affectionate_Big8239@reddit

I do not, but my in-laws all have Russian accents.

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ArkansasTravelier@reddit

Yeah but not in a way that I think they’re the same, just the same family of accents. To my ears a Polish accent is as similar to a Russian accent as an Irish accent is to an English accent. Different and recognizably different, but close enough that I can recognize that they are both “Slavic”

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CupBeEmpty@reddit

I worked in a place with both Russian and Polish PhDs. I could tell side by side the difference in accent but that was years ago. There isn’t a large Polish or Russian population where I live now.

I don’t think I could necessarily identify a Polish accent vs. a Russian accent if I didn’t hear them side by side. I could make a good guess but I wouldn’t be confident I was right.

That’s probably true of a lot of Eastern European accents. I could guess that it was generally Eastern European but I wouldn’t have a lot of confidence getting it right.

I recently went to the hospital and my doc was Russian. I guessed her accent correctly which surprised her. She said a lot of people guess wrong. So I wouldn’t be confident most Americans would confidently get Russian vs. Polish correct.

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No-Contact6664@reddit

Nope. America has big Polish populations. Especially Chicago. We know the difference.

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holiestcannoly@reddit

No. However, I come from Eastern European ancestry so that might be why

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Canard-Rouge@reddit

Yes.

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Numerous_Delay_6306@reddit

nah very different tbh

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Scrappy_The_Crow@reddit

Do Americans view Polish and Russian accents as similar?

I'm sure this is just a language issue, but a far better word would be "perceive."

Yes, many Americans perceive Slavic speakers to have similar accents when speaking English.

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Upstairs_Highlight25@reddit

They don't sound the same to me but you have to understand that when they were casting actors for old movies they didn't traval cross country looking for extras and minor characters actors. Most of the time they used who was locally avaliable so if no polish actors were locally avaliable and a Russian dude says he can do a good Polish accent they cast the Russian dude.

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ketonat@reddit

I know many Russians and a few people who speak Polish. I do not think they sound the same at all, both when speaking the languages or speaking English with whatever accent they have.

What I have found extremely noticeable is how non-native English speakers pronounce things and their cadence is dependent upon whom their main English teacher was. Those with teachers who are American or Canadian will have a different accent than those whose teacher was British (or some other non-North American speaker).

Source: My oldest daughter is adopted from Russia, have traveled to Russia many times, and Poland once. For many years I hosted exchange students from former USSR countries, as well as worked as an exchange student coordinator, placing and supervising students from all over Europe and Asia while they were in the US. I also have taught a couple students whose parents were Polish immigrants, so they spoke Polish at home, but English in school.

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datsyukianleeks@reddit

In Brooklyn we have a fairly prominent Polish community in Greenpoint and a very prominent Russian, Ukrainian, and Belarusian (and other former Soviet countries) in South Brooklyn neighborhood like Brighton Beach sheepshead Bay and Coney Island. I think most brooklynites as a result can tell a Polish accent from the others. But get could tell you the difference between a Russian and Belarusian for example.

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Puzzleheaded_Age6550@reddit

I have been able to tell where people grew up, and even by neighborhood. For example, even though many people in California would think all New England accents sound similar, I can tell if you grew up in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine, and within those states, what town, because they sound different. And a couole of years ago, when I met someone from Ukraine, I knew he sort of sounded Russian, but not exactly. I do not think I have met anyone from Poland, so I cannot answer your question definitively.

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Traditional_Entry183@reddit

I can tell them apart, not that i understand what's being said, but they do sound similar. The same way that Spanish, Portuguese and Italian do.

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urquhartloch@reddit

Yes. Its also something dealt with closer to your home. I have a friend in Finland who has experienced racism because she can speak polish and people thought she was speaking Russian.

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machagogo@reddit

I have a fair number of immigrants from various Soviet influenced nations in my area, and being in the hockey world I imteract with them often.

While they don't sound the same, they are very similar. People with these accents will struggle with the same sounds, mess up the same verbs, tense, prepositions, etc.
So if you aren't familiar with each, it is easy to hear them as the same.

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U-S-Grant@reddit

Spent a month in Poland with the US Army. The Polish soldiers would tease one of their buddies for having a Russian accent, we couldn’t tell the difference.

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peabody_soul109@reddit

Depends where in the US. A city like Cleveland has a large polish and Russian population, so many locals would be able to tell.

A city like Memphis has zero polish or Russian population. They probably just think your a Yankee lol

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Jumpy-Cranberry-1633@reddit

No, I can definitely tell a difference. But we have several friends who still speak Polish at home so it may a bit screwed.

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MortynMurphy@reddit

This is the key, everyone who is from states with large Polish communities or presence has no problem telling the difference.

But my parents who are from a tiny Southern town that just got to 1,000 people? Yeah I love my mom but she can't tell the difference at all. Eastern European accents are all the same to her, the same way a lot of Southern accents sound the same to people that aren't familiar.

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celestialhouse@reddit

I have a fun game with myself where when I hear an accent I must try to guess what it is and Id say I have about a 75% success rate. I am not fluent in any language but English but deciphering other languages has always been fun. Russian is one I can spot very easily, even the different regions of the accent. I have a lot of Polish in me, it'd be cool to actually speak/understand the language. I saw a man once who was Polish and he would speak to family on the phone in Polish so I got to hear a little bit of that. But I am not quite certain my accuracy between deciphering the two! I need to hear more Polish I guess!

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No_Entertainment1931@reddit

No, they don’t sound the same

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MortynMurphy@reddit

I think it's the same as how a lot of people here can't tell the differences within our regional accents. I think I sound totally different compared to someone from Alabama, but people from outside the South tend to think all Southern accents sound the same, and actors frequently use one single weird accent when they try to sound Southern. (Shout out to Parker Posey for nailing the NC Piedmont accent in White Lotus, though)

Similarly, for a lot of us, the Eastern European accents sound very, very similar. With familiarity (like the commenter who mentioned being from an area with a lot of Polish immigrants), it's easier to tell them apart.

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dangleicious13@reddit

I don't know what a Polish accent sounds like.

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punkass_book_jockey8@reddit

I’m an American. I think they are very different accents, but I’m from NY.

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PeterNippelstein@reddit

Not at all I can tell them apart instantly

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_Purple_Lobster_@reddit (OP)

Yayyy

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BounceOnItCrazyStyle@reddit

It's similar enough that the majority of Americans probably lump them together. Differentiating the nuances of accents requires exposure and that can be hard halfway across the world.

Flipping the view point around. Texas, Georgia, and Kentucky have distinctly different accents but the majority of people from outside the US or even just the south won't be able to tell the difference and just call it the the "Southern accent"

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Visions_of_Gideon@reddit

I think most Americans would struggle with noticing a difference, unless they’re accents they’re personally familiar with.

If I had a side-by-side comparison of someone speaking to me with one accent followed by the other, I could probably note that they were different but likely couldn’t tell you which was which.

Conversely, I’ve had foreign exchange students living with my family tell me that they didn’t hear much difference between my family’s Midwestern accent/dialect and heavier Southern drawls. They both just sounded like American English to them.

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throwawayCTserving@reddit

Odd, I've never thought of Polish and Russian accents as similar. Maybe because I lived for years in an NYC neighborhood with a large Polish, Ukrainian and Russian population, always easy to hear the Polish accents stand out. BTW, I'm overdue to visit New Britain CT which has a lovely selection of Polish shops and restaurants.

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_Purple_Lobster_@reddit (OP)

Does the Ukrainian language sound more similar to Polish than Russian for you(⁠◍⁠•⁠ᴗ⁠•⁠◍⁠)? To me it does, I just hear more similar sounding words.

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throwawayCTserving@reddit

Interesting- yes, in fact hearing Ukrainian and Polish kids speaking in my old neighborhood, I couldn't easily tell the difference.

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CollinM549@reddit

I'd say yes, if they come across a fair amount of Polish and/or Russian people in everyday life.

But if they're just going off of accents they hear in movies/TV probably not, in that case they're likely to assume that any Eastern European accent is Russian.

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AerieWorth4747@reddit

Personally I work with people who speak Spanish, Russian and some Eastern European language which I don’t know what it is (they’re in the building, I don’t know them very well.)

Whatever this accent is, is very different than the Russian accent. It’s clearly different.

So, when you’re asking an American, I guess the difference is really, are you asking someone who has actually heard the accents, or someone who has never met a real person and just has randomly seen tv shows.

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ashsolomon1@reddit

No there’s a very big difference

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sneezhousing@reddit

I've heard lots and lots of Russian accents. Lots of Russians in my area. I don't think I've ever heard a polish one. Lots of polish descendents in my area. However they are all American accents now. Their polish family immigrated long time ago

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Smart_Engine_3331@reddit

I dont really have enough exposure to either of them to know the difference, to be honest. I admit that's a lack of knowledge on my part.

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Ill-Butterscotch1337@reddit

Both tend to sharpen final consonants, dog becomes "dok". But to my ear that is where similarities end. The rhythm is much different. Russian accent is flat, unpredictable and heavy or strong. Polish accent is much more sing songy and predictable. Polish speakers have a very predictable rhythm to how they speak which can lead to them stressing the wrong consonants when they speak English. Also, unlike Russian speakers, Polish speakers sometimes mix up their w and vs while Russian speakers have a very distinct B pronunciation.

My neighbor and very good childhood friend is Polish-American. He moved to the states at 5 years old. I never considered his family's accents close to that of a Russian speaker.

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_Purple_Lobster_@reddit (OP)

Thank you for the info (⁠◔⁠‿⁠◔⁠)

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Onahsakenra@reddit

I can generally tell that an accent is Eastern European but I don’t think I’d be able to parse out a Russian accent vs Polish when they are speaking English. However, when they are speaking their own language I can usually tell which is Polish and which is Russian.

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MrDerpGently@reddit

The Polish accent definitely sounds different, but most Americans don't have enough exposure to Polish speakers to recognize or imitate it.

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lil_ninja78@reddit

Honestly, it would probably depend on where in the US. I'm originally from Massachusetts, where both were common in the community. I don't think I've ever confused the two. I currently live in Ohio, where there are definitely more "fresh off the boat" immigrants from Russia here than there are Polish, so I'm not sure if people from Ohio are even familiar with Polish accents.

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dingodile_user@reddit

Most Americans probably cannot distinguish Eastern European accents from each other. They probably hear one and think Russian because that’s what is heard the most in media

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_Purple_Lobster_@reddit (OP)

Idk I once spoke in a "Polish accent" while speaking English (I don't have a Polish accent, I learned English at a very young age so I picked up on the American accent, but I don't know which American accent I have specifically). I did it just to find out If the accents sound similar to Americans, tbh to me it doesn't but I'm Polish so my perspective is different.

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Unfair_Respond_175@reddit

Everyone would assume it’s Russian. Poland is pretty obscure here

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DadooDragoon@reddit

We don't even know those are different places lmao

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_Purple_Lobster_@reddit (OP)

It's okay brochacho ❤️

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SapienWoman_@reddit

I doubt most Americans would be able to tell the difference

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Unfair_Respond_175@reddit

Everyone would just assume it’s Russian. Poland is one of those countries that is not ever talked about, not because they’re disliked they just have nothing for us to talk about