strange accent

Dwayen   Mon Nov 19, 2007 10:38 pm GMT
Usually I have no problem to tell one's country when a person speaks with a noticeable accent... Once, I happened to listen to a presentation made by one guy, and I missed the beginning of it, so I had idea where he came from. He spoke rather very fluently. In fact, so fluently that I would be absolutely convinced that he is a native speaker of English if not his accent. No matter how hard I tried to remember, his accent did not match any familiar accent, and there were some other small things that hinted to me that he is probably not a native speaker of English... But I was flabbergasted when I learned where he is from... Here is about 30 seconds fragment in MP3 (211Kb), and I wonder if anyone can guess correctly where he is from; and what do you think about his accent in general.

http://rapidshare.com/files/70900718/strange-accent.mp3.html
Irritated   Mon Nov 19, 2007 11:57 pm GMT
Do you expect an answer when people have to jump through hoops just to get to the audio file? Why can't you just provide a direct link to the source?
Marc   Tue Nov 20, 2007 5:48 am GMT
Well, it sounds very Slavonic to me. Rusian or Polish or Czech perhaps?
Guest   Tue Nov 20, 2007 10:59 am GMT
Either Chinese, Bangaladeshi or French?? He is not a native speaker for sure.
Zador   Tue Nov 20, 2007 12:59 pm GMT
Austrian
Dwayen   Tue Nov 20, 2007 1:21 pm GMT
Irritated,

Sorry for inconvenience. Perhaps, I should find a better place for upload. Any advice?


Marc,

I don't know how but you got it right. He is Russian. Well, in retrospect, I can say that there are some Slavic features in his speech, but the lack of some other features that are much more typical for Russians made me to exclude Russia... So, I was really surprised...


Guest,

If I am not mistaken, you know Russian; and I suppose you have heard Russian speakers of English more than once. Would you agree with me that is not a typical Russian accent?
jacky   Tue Nov 20, 2007 2:10 pm GMT
@ Dwayen

Yeah, he sounds not too bad, his English is rather fluent, but he does have that Slavic features in his voice that give him away, and he pronounces alot of words in a wrong way. He sounds Russian to my ear. But, yes, it is not a typical Russian accent. He tries to sound English or American (it is hard to tell what patterns he follows, I guess his speech patterns are more British in a way), tries to copy the intonation and stuff, but, yeah, pronounciation gives him away.

I am from Russia, spent my childhood there, so I know what a Russian accents is. This one is not a typical one.
jacky   Tue Nov 20, 2007 2:12 pm GMT
*a Russian accent is