What do American accents sound like to foreigners?

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GoonSquad
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10 Feb 2013, 4:08 pm

Aprilviolets wrote:

I think the southern American accent sounds very similar to outback Australia when I went to broken hill I noticed how different they talked to us in Melbourne.
My guess is the American Accents are different in the cities to the rural areas.

Yeah, there are some similarities, at least in word usage, between some southern dialects and Australian English.

For instance, I naturally speak the Ozark/Appalachian dialect... I tend to use "archaic" phrases like "wha' ya' reckon?" for " what do you think?" and such... and I sound like Slim Pickens, if you know who that is....

The thing is, there are many, many, many different southern accents. When I moved to south Georgia, I could not understand anybody for about 3 months! :lol:

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18 Feb 2013, 5:41 pm

I think that people might sometimes attach accents to stereotypes of the places people are from. So when they hear an accent they think of the stereotype and then impart that to their feelings about an accent. i.e. they think it makes the speaker sound like the stereotype.

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19 Feb 2013, 10:32 am

BlackSabre7 wrote:

I could never tell them apart until a decade ago (I'm 45). You hear the rolling 'r' and the sort of flat vowels. (and often the attitude). I had a Canadian friend in 1990-1991, and that's the only reason I can spot the canadian accent as different.
Now I can tell the southern accent because the civil war movies, and if it sounds like Dr Phil, it's probably texan. New York I can equate to Dustin Hoffman saying "I'm walking here!", or similar.
I've never been there, it's all from TV, so if that's wrong, then I'm wrong.
My sister went to the US, I'm not sure where, and she asked for water, and they couldn't understand her (Australian accent). She imitated an american accent, and they got it. I guess they don't have a lot of Australian TV there.

Pretty accurate.

Im an american with midwestern parents who lives on the cusp of the northern and the southern parts of the eastern seaboard near the nations capital.

There is supposed to be something called a "Canadian accent" but I myself can not tell a Canadian from an american from any place north of Richmond Virginia. But Yankees and southerners within the USA are very easy to tell apart by how they speak. And within the south there are subtle differences.
Texans are a recognizable variant of the southern dialect.

Im not familiar with Dustin Hoffman as an exemplier of a New York dialect. Maybe he and woody allen have a middle class new york dialect. The blue collar New Yorkers speak more like characters played by Sylvester Stallone, and Tony Danza ( "YO! Tony! Friggin' A"!).

People say that I have a "midwestern dialect" (presumably from my parents).

I think thats just because when Im speaking to you -you can tell whether Im going "the party", or to "the potty", because I actually pronounce the letter 'r' when I speak- unlike many north easterners!

Lol!

auntblabby
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19 Feb 2013, 2:54 pm

naturalplastic wrote:

There is supposed to be something called a "Canadian accent" but I myself can not tell a Canadian from an american

for starters, they say "ah-boat" instead of about.

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19 Feb 2013, 4:45 pm

It's only slight, but Canadians pronounce their Os differently.

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franknfurter
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19 Feb 2013, 4:54 pm

well i am from the UK and i would have to say that i cannot tell the difference between the american accents, generally i thought they were not as diverse as accents in the UK, after all you have anything from a london accent to a scottish accent which is very different.

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19 Feb 2013, 5:08 pm

MakaylaTheAspie wrote:

It's only slight, but Canadians pronounce their Os differently.

they also say "heh-ay!" instead of hey!

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19 Feb 2013, 9:54 pm

franknfurter wrote:

Yes - linguists say that we Americans dont really have true dialects like they have in the Old World. An e-pal I had from the netherlands would talk about how her local dialect differed from standard dutch ( the netherlands is only half of the size of Pennsylvania). This goes for English as well. Folks a 100 miles apart in England probably differ in speech more than do Americans living 2000 miles apart differ.

But people I work with at my little public access radio station here talk about "putting on a british accent" as if there were only one kind. I have to sternly lecture them that "you dont have to know all 30 regional dialects of Britain, but atleast learn the difference between the two basic american showbiz 101 types of british accents- upper class,and cockney (The BBC English of David Attenborough, and the blue collar London speech of Micheal Caine)! Dont say 'british accent'. Specify 'upperclass', or 'cockney' please."

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19 Feb 2013, 9:57 pm

there is an english musical group called "the wurzels" that hail from cornwall- i long have enjoyed the sound of their accent.

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20 Feb 2013, 5:27 am

naturalplastic wrote:

franknfurter wrote:

yeah a lot of people would be suprised by the diverse accents here, i think in reality most people only hear london or south east accents. i find it strange that people have different accents in the first place, its interesting how it evolves.

CobaltBlew
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20 Feb 2013, 7:24 am

gailryder17 wrote:

I heard that to most, the American accent sounds like the Midwestern/Southern accent (in the States). However, to me (being an Angeleno), the Midwestern/Southern accent sounds distinctly different from my own.

Strangely enough, I heard people in Southern California say that I have an accent despite growing up here (my mother has a Southern California accent while my dad has a mix of an American and a South African one).

I don't get ya, Americans have very different accents.

I can pull off a Southern accent, Boston accent and New York accent. People from Texas also have a different accent which I believe sounds like the same way Hank Hill talks, which I can also do lol.

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20 Feb 2013, 2:09 pm

I have always preferred UK accents to US accents. I once spent hours online trying to find out which US states' accents are guilty of turning me off. The culprits are California and New Jersey. To be honest, all other states' accents sound pleasant to my ears.

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20 Feb 2013, 5:58 pm

icyfire4w5 wrote:

I wasnt aware that either orf those two states HAD a distinctive accent.

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20 Feb 2013, 7:02 pm

We sound kind of redneck to Brits.

gailryder17
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20 Feb 2013, 7:22 pm

icyfire4w5 wrote:

I guess you wouldn't be able to stand my voice then...

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auntblabby
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20 Feb 2013, 9:40 pm

naturalplastic wrote:

icyfire4w5 wrote:

I wasnt aware that either orf those two states HAD a distinctive accent.

californians tend to elongate their vowels and exaggerate their Rs [especially in the san fernando valley]. folk from jersey tend to sound a lot like their governor.

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