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Where is my accent from?

Where is my accent from?. As a kid, I lived with my parents in Washington, DC. In front of our house at Reservoir Rd. Motor cars very early became the objects of my strong fascination.

mairwen-aderyn
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Where is my accent from?

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  1. Where is my accent from? As a kid, I lived with my parents in Washington, DC

  2. In front of our house at Reservoir Rd.

  3. Motor cars very early became the objects of my strong fascination...

  4. ...but I was too young for getting a driver’s license (even at Washington, D.C.!), so I had to satisfy my passions using smaller vehicles

  5. I liked daring escapades....

  6. As a typical American kid, I was earning money by mowing neighbors’ lawns...

  7. ...and by babysitting. Oh, sorry!! I did not babysit her, it was she who babysat me!

  8. Sixty years ago, many things in the US were just like they are today. But in certain respects it was a very different America…

  9. In 1948 my Dad got an appointment in Oslo, Norway:

  10. We boarded a ship. The “passage to Norway” took almost two weeks...

  11. Norway was a real fun! There is only winter over there, one can ski most of the time!

  12. I had a chance to watch the ski-jump contest at the Winter Olympic Games (Oslo, 1952)

  13. Note that the jumper’s position was completely different than it uses to be today…

  14. I was kidding with the long Norwegian winter… Actually, summers in Norway are mild and pleasant

  15. Norway was fun, and after a while I be-came a fluent Norwegian speaker☺, but my English completely evaporated from my head!☹ After 5 years in Norway, we moved to Poland. After a short time, my Norwegian was gone! ☹ In Poland I lived for almost 30 years, and I got all my education. At high school I started re-learning English. But for an adult it is almost impossible to get rid of a foreign accent! At such age, it is already “firmly embedded” in one’s head. Only children can easily pick up an accent that other people speak with.

  16. All my major journeys:

  17. In Washington area, I lived only some 3 miles from the last home my parents were renting before we left the US – funny, isn’t it?

  18. Here is where I worked for 12 years before I came to OSU: National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), Center for Neutron Research

  19. I still do my research at NIST as an “external collaborator”, and this is one of the instruments I use:

  20. It’s difficult to take a good picture of the NIST reactor because the space around is very tight!

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