According to the Linguistic Society of America, an accent is how someone sounds when speaking. It’s how you pronounce a word, read each syllable, use intonations, and pace the rhythm when communicating verbally with another person. There are two kinds of accents a speaker can develop over time: Native accent - acquired by a person when learning his or her first language (usually during childhood) Foreign accent - acquired when learning a secondary or tertiary language. This is what people usually meant when referring to the world “accent” colloquially.