I Grew up Sounding like Arnold Schwarzenegger

Or what’s it like to grow up speaking with a jarring foreign accent

All images by the author.

I’m 12 years old. It’s 1994. Two girls and I are sitting at a kitchen table. The tape recorder is in the middle of that table and one of the girls presses play. I hear the first girl’s voice. Then I hear the second girl’s voice. Then I hear my voice.

Wait. What?! Why does my voice sound like a miniature Schwarzenegger auditioning for the role of Speedy Gonzales?

“Is that how I sound?!” I ask.

“Yes.”

I’m stunned.

I didn’t know I had an accent

For a school project, we had been reciting a poem and recording it on tape. And while the two girls’ voices sounded normal, with beautiful rolling r’s and lisping c’s, mine clearly sounded wrong.

What jarred me wasn’t just the usual “I don’t like the sound of my voice.” It was the fact that until then I had never realized I had an accent when speaking Spanish — a language I spoke fluently but, quite obviously, not inconspicuously.

You see, although I emigrated to Spain while still wearing diapers, grew up in that sun-infused country, went through school there, and am still living there, I never managed to rid myself of my foreign accent. And it’s weird because I know plenty of foreigners living in Spain who speak accent-free.

For one, there’s my younger brother who arrived in Spain at the same time I did. Then there are all the kids from various fellow immigrants who grew up with me. None of them have foreign accents when speaking Spanish.

But I do.

For a long time, I suspected it was due to a birth deformity. You see, I was born with a tongue-tie (ankyloglossia) and it wasn’t corrected until I reached the raging hormone age when I wanted to eat meals out of girls’ mouths and tickle their uvula. So I told my parents I wanted it fixed, while also hoping that it would finally stop me from channeling Schwarzenegger. After all, how was I supposed to learn how to roll my r’s — make the tip of my tongue flap wildly against the top of my mouth like a wacky waving inflatable arm-flailing tubeman — if that tip…