What does an American accent sound like?
I'd really like to know what impressions an American accent gives, or what it "feels like" to other nationalities/different native language speakers. To me Chinese sounds sharp and quick, British english sounds old world and slightly over-proper, Irish english is pleasant, "rolling" and soft, Australian english is similar to British except somehow rougher and lazier (not that I don't like it!) and Spanish is also sharp but musical.
If you were brought up with anything other than an American English accent, what does it 'sound' like and what does it 'feel' like? (ie, the pure physical sound may be different from your associations with that sound).
And if you are American, you can give your imput on any other languages/accents you are generally UNfamiliar with but have heard in person from multiple people.
ps. Post where you're FROM! I'm PA suburbs, USA.
nah, you can make a generalization because foreigners may be familiar with one type of accent over another, and I'd want to know. =)
And I DID just make a generalization about British accents and it's correct from my experience. Because subjective opinions can never be wrong. Lighten up will ya.
I just spoke to a British man on the phone yesterday when he called with a question. He told me he was from central England. He was a little hard for me to understand completely, but his accent was absolutely charming.
I love French accents. I think they are the sexiest. It's soft and sensual.
I'm an American. I teach Japanese at the high school level. I know that before I understood Japanese, it seemed rapid and pitter-patter.
But actually now, that the sounds carry meaning to me, I sense the sound differently. When I speak Japanese, it doesn't seem "fast" (even though linquists ahve found that # of syllables/min for Japanese is higher than English). To me, it is just that Japanese is spoken at that pace, and one gets used to it.
I try studying Dutch for a while sheerly because it contains vowel sounds that are not present in English (where as Japanese vowel sounds are all present in English -- in fact, they are the same 5 as in Spanish). I didn't stick with it long, but I couldn't even distinguish or form the vowels not present in English.
English has about 12-14 vowel sounds in it, depending on where the Engish is spoken. For example, vowels formed in the front of the mouth, from high to low: try saying these words: EAT IT LATER WET CAT. the A in CAT is front and pretty low (you jaw even probably drops a bit.)
In the back of the mouth, top to bottom: COOED, COULD, CODE, CAUGHT, COT .
In the middle of the mouth, low, is like: CUT.
In Japanese, the vowels are basically: CAUGHT, EAT, COOED (but flatter sounding), WET, CODE. If I use IT instead of WET, a Japanese person "hears" the same thing, because their brain has not been trained to distinguish a meaningful difference between them.
Another fun one is that M and N, both nasals, "sound" the same in Japanese. I asked a friend, what's the difference between M and N, and the said, they are the same. The nasal sound sounds like M in words like KOMBAN WA (good evening) (M and B are both made with the lips closed/starting closed) but N in words like KON-NICHI WA (hello during the day.)
Soooo, I guess what I'm saying is that the language you hear sounds different depending on how same/different it is from your native tongue and depending on how much you know it or have been exposed to it even though it's not your native tongue.
Wow, what a mouthful~
Well the majority sound the same as people here. Southern accents are annoying. NY is ok. Love Boston accents.
Some of their pronunciations are annoying, matour (mature), ruff (roof), etc.
my point is, you might as well ask someone from oregon to describe a boston accent, or someone from oxford to describe a manchester accent, or someone from vancouver to describe a newfoundland accent. they're just as different.
When I was a young adult, I spent a summer in Scotland with some relatives there and toward the end of my stay, we were watching TV and the man talking on it sounded like he was chewing ice or something and I listened harder and realized he was American! Heck, it took me a few seconds to realize he was even speaking English. The whole time I was there, I never heard my own voice any differently and I didn't pick up a Scottish accent, but for a couple days after I got back home, when people talked, it sounded harsh and choppy and the words sounded like they were being pronounced at the front of the mouth rather than the back.
This was about 20 years ago, and I have never forgotten how shocked I was to hear how I probably sounded to my relatives. So that's how an American accent sounded to me after a few months of not hearing it. Choppy, harsh, clumsy.
Not intended as an insult to us Americans, after all, I am one, too.
It's funny how our ears can adapt so quickly when we go to another english-speaking country.
I later moved to Texas and years later came to realize that there were many Southern accents although previously southerners always sounded the same to me.
As different as aceents are in the state, without much familiarity to it I could see how US citizens could seem to have an 'accent'.
And its not pronounced vadka?
msheeran is right on about how the sounds in our language affect how we hear the sounds in other people's languages. One sound that varies a lot all over the world is r. The english r is especially weird. If you try to feel what your tongue is doing when you make an American r, especially at the beginning of a word, you'll notice that it's in a pretty funky position. Our r tends to sound really weird to a lot of people. The British r sounds pretty similar, but is actually formed a little differently.
Most of the people I work with speak Slavic languages, and they all think the American r is funny. They also joke about the American ae sound, like in bat. You've got to admit, its not a pretty sound.
In terms of overall impressions about the sound of American English, that does vary quite a bit with regional accents. Sociolinguists have actually done some really interesting studies about perceptions of different accents, and the perceptions vary according to what accent the person taking the survey has.
Original Post by pgeorgian:
subjective opinions can absolutely be wrong.
my point is, you might as well ask someone from oregon to describe a boston accent, or someone from oxford to describe a manchester accent, or someone from vancouver to describe a newfoundland accent. they're just as different.
They're not wrong because my question was what do various people THINK. So far I find their input very interesting.
You feeling cranky today, pg? =/
..there isn't an american accent or there's lots of them? Make up your mind. o.O;
There may not be "one" american accent but it's still different enough from a british or japanese accent to be distinguished. Thus, american.
Most people I've met in other countries know I'm "American" as soon as I speak. If that's not a unified accent, I don't know what is.
Just as some other people are saying.. a British person would probably be able to distinguish other British speakers as precisely as small regions. However, someone unfamiliar with those regions would never be able to do that.
I can distinguish a new yorker from a new jersey resident from a philly resident... but why would someone who's never been to the US be able to do that. All they hear is American, with MAYBE only a couple different variations depending on the GENERAL area.
see post #7. accents from different regions in america are as different as any one american region from any one region of the UK or another english speaking country.
japanese isn't a different accent, it's a different language.
people from other countries may identify you as american (they sometimes identify me that way, too, and they are wrong). but people from other states and regions of the US will identify you differently, based on your speech.
i'm from western canada. i sound more like someone from washington or oregon than i do like someone from ontario or nova scotia. my cousins from chicago sound nothing like the ones from california.
Original Post by pgeorgian:
not cranky - just rational. there is no "american accent."
*Peter Ladefoged rolls in his grave*
Are you actually, rationally, saying that there is no commonality between the New England accent and the Southern accent and the Texan accent, etc. to constitute a generalized "American" accent?
Apparently there also is no "English" accent. When we hear people from England speak, we are obviously being foolish enough to think we hear some sort of commonality between someone from Norfolk and someone from Dorset in order to identify them as English.
*Goes back to reading his linguistics books*
Original Post by pgeorgian:
"an" - singular. there isn't an american accent.
see post #7. accents from different regions in america are as different as any one american region from any one region of the UK or another english speaking country.
japanese isn't a different accent, it's a different language.
people from other countries may identify you as american (they sometimes identify me that way, too, and they are wrong). but people from other states and regions of the US will identify you differently, based on your speech.
i'm from western canada. i sound more like someone from washington or oregon than i do like someone from ontario or nova scotia. my cousins from chicago sound nothing like the ones from california.
This is stupid. Please leave the thread, because you're obviously missing the point. By allowing people of different languages to add input I wasn't saying they are THE SAME as comparing different accents of the same language. To people who are NOT native to said region or said language, nativity to either is just another auditory variation of speech.
And I doubt that any American will hear me speak and think that I am not American. Will they be able to guess my region? Maybe. Is that region IN AMERICA? Yes, so obviously they've recognized me as having an American accent. Being American themselves their recognitions are simply more refined.
There is more commonality between West Coast US accents and Canadian than any of their brethren in the south. A French Canadian, a Torontonian and a Newfie all have very different accents and yet you would, by virtue of country name, lump them all as a "Canadian accent"?
Also, it isn't so much the difference between English dialects, as it is the difference between Scottish/Irish/Welsh/English. They're all British accents, but it would be silly to say they all sounded the same.
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