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Re: Re: question for non-americans

quote:

Originally posted by Lira Yes, and these are the reasons: 1 - Rhotic: You guys pronounce the letter "r" in hard, which doesn't happen in other dialects (like Brit or Aussie English). From this point, we know you're not from these places. 2 - non-labialization of "o": When you say "god" it sounds like "gaaad" for foreign speakers, which doesn't happen in other dialects (like Irish or Scottish english). 3 - entonation: you guys speak in a "circular" way... kinda hard to describe. 4 - Southern US: you guys talk very nasal and the way you release the vowel is quite peculiar. Keep in mind that we ALL have accents. I have accent in Portuguese even though it's my native tongue. Why? Because I speak the way people from my district talk. If I go anywhere else, there'll be some minor differences, which is what accents are. here are the common mistakes americans do when speaking a foreign language: 1 - "r": you guys usually can't say the "tapped r", like in Spanish, Italian and Japanese; nor the "r" with your throught (German, French). As we have both sounds in Portuguese, we can spot an American speaker right away. 2 - "a": Keep in mind that our "a" is, 90% of the times, your "o" (as in "god"). In Portuguese, we listen to "bad" the same way you say "bed", so when you say "samba" we listen "semba". Once again, not hard to distinguish. 3 - vocal glides: this is quite common in english. You guys have some sounds that only appear in dipthongs, reason why often when you listen to these sounds in another languages, you tend to glide between the vowels as well. 4 - "t", "d": You guys usually aspirate too much pronouncing these sounds or pronounce it as a "tapped r" so, when you guys try to say "Italy" we hear "Iraly". And so on... by the way, don't expect people to distinguish North American accents easily when English is not their native tongue. Personally, I can only distinguish 4 accents: - From Vancouver (and only if they say things like "about", "ice" and "ace") - From Southern US - From NYC - From the rest of Canada/US

^New smartest guy evar award

dipthongs and tripthongs pwn me.

No offence, but that has to be one of the stupidest questions ever asked on TA, and that's saying something.

Every country and/or person has some kind of accent. Americans just happen to have a particularly distinctive one.

quote:

Originally posted by arctic No offence, but that has to be one of the stupidest questions ever asked on TA, and that's saying something. Every country and/or person has some kind of accent. Americans just happen to have a particularly distinctive one.

Australians have an accent??? Are you sure about that?

quote:

Originally posted by occrider Australians have an accent??? Are you sure about that?

Too right mate!

I think so.

Northwest US doesnt. We sound like people on the news.

quote:

Originally posted by arctic Too right mate! I think so.

Too right I am! I'm a grouse, corker bloke remember? Hooroo!

quote:

Originally posted by occrider Too right I am!

Passable.

quote:

I'm a grouse

What were you thinking?

quote:

corker bloke remember? Hooroo!

Not bad.

Methinks someone needs a refresher course in how to speak Australian!

on the ta boards you can tell by what they say

Like Americans are always these calm people, and the rest of the world bitches about them being supreme beings of the universe when it isnt their fault for being so awesome?

For sure Americans have an accent, you can tell them from a mile away

I can sometimes tell which part of America people are from if their accents are very strong e.g. Boston, Texas, New York etc

I find that most people around the world can't tell the difference between American and Canadian accents, but i find it quite easy since my dad is Canadian.....

One of my favourite games is to go 'American Spotting' in London or Stratford (Where William Shakespeare was born.) It's actually quite easy, you can usually tell from the huge camera, baseball cap and XXL waistline! If they open their mouths it's blatently obvious that their american (although I couldn't tell where in the US exactly.)

Another random point - I have noticed that some Americans find it difficult to tell the difference between an Australian, South African and Netherlands accent?!


Yet another random point - In my natural language and linguistics course my lecturer pointed out that americans can't make the 'oh' sound that us brits use in words like 'god'. An american will pronounce it 'gawd' and not 'gohd'

quote:

Originally posted by smallSHEEP Yet another random point - In my natural language and linguistics course my lecturer pointed out that americans can's make the 'oh' sound that us brits use in words like 'god'. An american will pronounce it 'gawd' and not 'gohd'

True: most of them don't distinguish "caught" and "cot"... there are some other vocalic merges (specially in the south) but I'm in a hurry right now so I'll look it up later

Re: Re: question for non-americans

quote:

Originally posted by Lira Yes, and these are the reasons: 1 - Rhotic: You guys pronounce the letter "r" in hard, which doesn't happen in other dialects (like Brit or Aussie English). From this point, we know you're not from these places. 2 - non-labialization of "o": When you say "god" it sounds like "gaaad" for foreign speakers, which doesn't happen in other dialects (like Irish or Scottish english). 3 - entonation: you guys speak in a "circular" way... kinda hard to describe. 4 - Southern US: you guys talk very nasal and the way you release the vowel is quite peculiar. Keep in mind that we ALL have accents. I have accent in Portuguese even though it's my native tongue. Why? Because I speak the way people from my district talk. If I go anywhere else, there'll be some minor differences, which is what accents are. here are the common mistakes americans do when speaking a foreign language: 1 - "r": you guys usually can't say the "tapped r", like in Spanish, Italian and Japanese; nor the "r" with your throught (German, French). As we have both sounds in Portuguese, we can spot an American speaker right away. 2 - "a": Keep in mind that our "a" is, 90% of the times, your "o" (as in "god"). In Portuguese, we listen to "bad" the same way you say "bed", so when you say "samba" we listen "semba". Once again, not hard to distinguish. 3 - vocal glides: this is quite common in english. You guys have some sounds that only appear in dipthongs, reason why often when you listen to these sounds in another languages, you tend to glide between the vowels as well. 4 - "t", "d": You guys usually aspirate too much pronouncing these sounds or pronounce it as a "tapped r" so, when you guys try to say "Italy" we hear "Iraly". And so on... by the way, don't expect people to distinguish North American accents easily when English is not their native tongue. Personally, I can only distinguish 4 accents: - From Vancouver (and only if they say things like "about", "ice" and "ace") - From Southern US - From NYC - From the rest of Canada/US

wow that pretty much answered what i was curious about, mainly how we sound to non-americans, i've been all over the u.s. but still havent been outside it yet. me and my fiance were going to go to either europe or australia for our honeymoon within the next year or 2. my fiance's from vietnam but she's been in the u.s. since she was 6 so she doesnt have any accent cuz she's spent most of her life out in cali.

i'm getting way off topic though, thanks for that!

quote:

Originally posted by arctic No offence, but that has to be one of the stupidest questions ever asked on TA, and that's saying something. Every country and/or person has some kind of accent. Americans just happen to have a particularly distinctive one.

i know we sound different but i had no clue in what way, cuz i've never been out of america there's no way for me to identify what's different about how we sound. it'd be like trying to figure out what you look like without a mirror to look at, all you know is what other people look like.

is there a new england accent(NOT boston, maine, new york etc. but like us who live in other parts of MA. or connecticut or something)? i can't tell, cause i live here, of course.

I don't have an accent I guess it's from living in this place and when I try to speak my spanish to my cousins and stuff over in Mexico they also tell me they can hear my American accent
-sarah

yeah sure american have accent i would say it sounds a lil bit like a duck ....
well texan accent but no offense guys !i really think american accent is damn sexy !
not like us when we speak english .....french accent is sooo ugly !!!

as an english guy living in sc you all sound different - especially the older southern men - they speak so slowly with such an accent I can never undersand any of them!

quote:

Originally posted by ThomB as an english guy living in sc you all sound different - especially the older southern men - they speak so slowly with such an accent I can never undersand any of them!

ya know! like i said i live in atlanta but i'm not from here, so i know exactly what you're saying. i seriously cant even understand some of them, then they look at you like you're the stupid one!

Re: question for non-americans

quote:

Originally posted by Dj Dizzy this is something i've always wondered, you can tell when someone is american or not by the way they talk, but do we have an accent to you? i live in atlanta so i hear alot of southern accents but i'm from cleveland so i sound completely different, those kinds of differences anyone can tell, but does the average typical american have an accent?

Yes, Americans got American accent

uhm

quote:

Originally posted by h0tsweetbabyd0l yeah sure american have accent i would say it sounds a lil bit like a duck .... well texan accent but no offense guys !i really think american accent is damn sexy ! not like us when we speak english .....french accent is sooo ugly !!!

For me chick who has English or Australian accent is hot!!

Just listen to Liz Hurley

quote:

Originally posted by ToAd@* I don't have an accent I guess

Of course you do... people just tend to think they're the ones without accent, just because that's the most natural accent for themselves

(which is natural, because if you find weird your own accent in your native language... then you'd gotta have a good excuse, like living abroad for a long time or impaired speeching ).

Well, everyone in my house speaks slightly differently, as in accent & pronunciation-wise. My father speaks less rhotic than my mother. With the word 'golf', he says something that sounds like 'gof' (completely leaves out the 'l' sound and that 'o' sounds like a US 'o', not a UK 'o'). With the word 'calm' the 'al' in it is pronounced, again, like there is an 'o' in there, in the same form. He pronounces 'water' closer to me but the 'r' is rhotic and the 't' isn't completely clear. The 'a' in 'water' isn't pronounced like the 'aaah' sound either. It's closer to a UK sound (isn't said more like 'woter' there?). This practice goes with a lot of his pronunciation and I believe it's called a Middle Atlantic US dialect.

My mother, with Hispanic roots, either pronounces a lot of words in the closest way you can 'pin down' an American accent, as all of the pronunciations definitely sound American, with 'process' sounding like 'prAHcess' and all r's pronounced in full. Most words that she doesn't or can't pronounce clearly are pronounced with some sounds pronounced as if they were Spanish words until she gets used to saying the word. Oh, and she does say words like 'golf' and 'calm' with the 'l' pronounced, unlike my father, explained above. EDIT: Oh yeah, I forgot to add that my mother's soft 'th' sound, like the word 'three' sounds a bit like 'dree' but can be distinguished from a D-sound at the beginning.

Now, on to me: I tend to between British RP and Middle Atlantic US accents, slowly leaning towards the former, mostly due to media influence (read: live sets) and some other things. At home, I lean towards Middle Atlantic because my father and his whole side of the family speaks that way so, it's hard not to speak that way for me. At a job interview or in any business situation, I usually am speaking with a big lean towards British RP, however if yout old me to speed up my speech, I can't go too fast in it, as 'other sounds' may inadvertantly 'slip out'.

To sum this up:

"1 - Rhotic: You guys pronounce the letter "r" in hard, which doesn't happen in other dialects (like Brit or Aussie English). From this point, we know you're not from these places." - This mostly applies to my father and completely applies to my mother. When I'm outside of my home, this doesn't not apply to me at least 99% of the time.

"2 - non-labialization of "o": When you say "god" it sounds like "gaaad" for foreign speakers, which doesn't happen in other dialects (like Irish or Scottish english)." - This definitely applies to both of my parents and I some of the time at home. It doesn't apply to me when out, like 1.

"1 - "r": you guys usually can't say the "tapped r", like in Spanish, Italian and Japanese; nor the "r" with your throught (German, French). As we have both sounds in Portuguese, we can spot an American speaker right away." - Well, my mother can do this perfectly, as she's a native Spanish speaker and I can do it (tapped 'r'; it's VERY HARD for me do do that throat r (in Portuguese; it's the 'que' sound in French)) nowadays without hardly any problem at all. My father can't do it AT ALL.

"4 - "t", "d": You guys usually aspirate too much pronouncing these sounds or pronounce it as a "tapped r" so, when you guys try to say "Italy" we hear "Iraly"." - This happens a lot with both of my parents and used to happen with me but, with me, it's slowly phasing out. This is a common habit with most American English speakers and probably some English speakers from other countries, like Japan, Taiwan, Philippines, and other nations that had a lot of part American influence so, it's nothing restricted to a particular region.

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