do people with foreign accents recognize their own accent in others?

[Skittles]

at work I very often deal with overseas folk (offshore groups). For example, I received a call from Brazil in very bad English - turned out I had to forward him to another group - in Brazil. I listen in (I announce I will do this) for a minute or so to make sure I connected my original call with the correct help. They spoke tortured English for a couple minutes before I cut in and said, "Speak Portuguese please" - then they spoke fluently to each other and were laughing and it seemed to me they had no idea they had a common language until I told them. I'm just curious if in general people can recognize their own accents in others.

[Perseid]

1. nawp

never seen it happen. Accents are like noses. One looks and hears and thinks about it, and never forgets.

[AnneD]

2. This one cracks me up every time....

Hubby has an Indian accent (his first language is Telegu). He also speaks many languages-he says 17 (including Indian dialects). He has the same Indian accent in every language he speaks...German, Russian, English, Arabic, Japanese,.....He wonders why I love to listen to him talk. Sometimes, when he is talking to a friend in one language, he'll turn to me and start talking to me in the same language, forgetting that I only muddle through in 4 languages. And it takes him a while to figure out why I'm not answering his questions.:spray: Communication is always interesting in our house.

[Perseid]

3. Novel: The Years of Rice and Salt

interesting