I WAS RIGHT ALL ALONG

now what's your accent?

I have no idea? It's very random. One thing I realized is that I went well into adulthood without really knowing how to pronounce a lot of words despite being 'fluent' in them in a comprehension sense--which is bad considering english is my main language.

The main culture shock that hit me when I came to the US (the main one in fact) is that so much of the cuisine there is dominated by outside influences (French, then Italian, then Spanish, etc.) that the way to pronounce prepared or raw food items is totally scattershot. As someone who'd never paid attention to food components anyway, people asking what toppings I want on a sandwich from those laid out was a "oh god" moment, I don't know, just .. put it together.. please.

(I'm still not sure about some words like nonchalant, homage, etc. Always hear people pronouncing them in freakily different ways.)

I WAS TOTALLY WRONG ALL ALONG! That was really cool. Now I know!

I WAS TOTALLY WRONG ALL ALONG! That was really cool. Now I know!

I WAS TOTALLY WRONG ALL ALONG! That was really cool. Now I know!

Umm. It wasn't three times that cool. Stoopid laptop. Funny.

You have a beautiful voice, Firas.

I still have no idea where you're from.

Thx JanetLand!

desjardins, wow I totally missed that part of your question. I'm from India; I think most of my accent's picked up from British/American schools in the middle east after which I went to Boston a while and now I'm in New Delhi.

Indian accents ARE sexy.

Also, I was totally right all along.

Thanks Firas, you sound very sweet.
I couldn't imagine more than one way to pronounce your name and I had to listen a few times to work out what you were using as the second example, but now I think it's terribly cute that fear & fair are the same to you!
I love your comments about food, and I propose that people should all eat more Indian food to get more used the how Indian syllables are pronounced.
Everyone call your local Indian restaurant & repeat after me:
samosa
pakora
palaak paneer
dahl makhani
aloo gobi
naan
raita
jalebi
gulab jamun


*wanders off to find something to eat*

The only way I can see anyone trying to pronounce your name is ˈfi ˌɹɑs if they have any foreign language or ˌfɪ ˈɹæs if they don't; if they are really clueless maybe ˈfaɪ ˌɹəs.

(That's FEE-rahss, fuh-RASS, and FIE-russ for the IPA-impaired.)

Frankly, I'm not sure where this overlap of 'fear' and 'fair' would be standard English. Do you really hear those as identical? It would be like overlapping 'see' and 'say'.

thx gosh

dharthung, hmm. Maybe I don't see them as EXACTLY identical (I don't say beer and bare the same way) but my point was more that trying to extract parts of words as a pronunciation guide can be problematic.