Why do we sound different in a foreign language?

If you speak more than one language, you've probably already noticed that your voice doesn't sound the same in each one.

In my case, I hear it clearly - my tone is higher in English, softer and more measured in French, and livelier and faster in Spanish.

It's as if each language brings out a different side of my personality.

Linguists say we don't imagine.

Our body, brain, and even identity adapt to the "role" that each language asks us to play.

"It's like acting: we take on the characteristics of a speech community and build another version of ourselves in that language."

“It’s still us, but we’re not completely the same,” says Ana Paula Petriu Ferreira Engelbert, a professor at the Federal Technological University of Paraná, Brazil.

Ana Paula researched as part of her PhD why our voices change from language to language, and whether the change is real or just experienced.

Different languages ​​come with different cultural sounds, he explains.

"German, for example, uses sounds produced at the back of the vocal tract, which makes it sound rougher."

"French is more frontal, with rounded vowels, which is why speakers make that well-known slur," the professor illustrates.

How do voices change?

How we sound and how others hear us is the result of a mix of biology, culture, and context.

The voice begins with the vocal cords, then is amplified in the vocal tract, shaped by the tongue, lips, and mouth, and finally emerges as speech.

"Everything is controlled in the central nervous system and is influenced by emotion."

“If we are excited, anxious or sad, the voice changes,” says Renata Azevedo, a speech therapist and professor at the Federal University of São Paulo.

Education, region and culture also leave their mark.

"Every language has unique sounds. English, for example, has phonemes that don't exist in Portuguese, and vice versa," he adds,

Prosody, rhythm patterns, pitch, and melody also differ.

"Conversation at an Italian dinner table can be much louder than at a Japanese one."

"Even within a culture, personality makes a difference - how fast we speak, how much we project, whether we gesture," says Azevedo.

Our voices are further shaped by context and cultural identification, Engelbert adds.

"When we speak a foreign language, the context is usually specific, which is reflected in how we sound," she says.

"In my case, I usually speak English for work purposes, so I adopt vocal characteristics that I wouldn't use with my family."

"Purpose, environment, and social role also shape how we sound," we add.

To test this, she recorded Brazilians speaking Portuguese and English in the US, while they read the text and spoke fluently.

The differences were obvious.

In Portuguese, participants, especially women, usually softened their voices, speaking softly and fluently.

In English, their voices would drop lower and become harder.

Some women have even adopted a drawn-out, almost whispering effect at the end of sentences, a vocal ornamentation similar to what can often be heard in American English.

She then played the recording to bilingual listeners, who consistently noticed the changes.

They described the voices as higher, deeper, softer, and harder, but they also assigned them personality traits: excited, reserved, confident, insecure.

For Engelbert, this proves that change is more than just subjectivity.

It is measurable, noticeable, and culturally marked: its Brazilian bilingual cohort might adapt their own English voices to match the characteristics associated with American speakers, deeper, stronger, more assertive.

But this is a relatively under-researched field, and many questions about how people absorb rhythm, intonation, and expressiveness in a second language remain unanswered, she points out.

Growing up bilingual

Even people who grew up speaking multiple languages ​​exhibit similar subtle vocal differences between them.

But Engelbert argues that the definition of bilingualism varies.

"Studies from the 1990s, for example, showed that Catalan-Spanish bilinguals show fewer vocal changes between languages, but the dominant language is the one in which they feel most confident."

Those who learn a second language later, as teenagers or adults, usually show greater shifts between their native and new languages, especially at first.

"When you're just starting out, your voice makes more obvious adjustments, changing rhythm, pitch, and intonation."

“As fluency increases and you start to relax, these differences decrease,” says Azevedo.

Context is also important.

“The more you are exposed to the language, the more natural the adaptation becomes, and the easier it is for your ‘other version’ to express themselves more confidently and fluently in the new language,” she says.

Look at the man who speaks more than 30 languages

More than grammar and vocabulary

Learning a language is never just about words and rules.

Practice, exposure to real conversations, listening to speakers in their native language, and participating in culture through music, films, and literature accelerate fluency and smooth out these vocal changes.

"The more we immerse ourselves in culture, the more naturally we adopt the rhythm and sound of language, whether through speech, literature, food or music," says Azevedo.

She also emphasizes the importance of noticing fine details in speech.

"Many prosodic and expressive nuances are not taught in formal classes, but they make a big difference in how fluent and intelligible we sound."

And as for accents, they never completely disappear, which is fine.

"You can tone it down, but your accent is also a part of who you are and a reflection of your background and identity," Azevedo concludes.

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