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mattyrm wrote:Thanks to the military and mixing and training with Yanks, plus living in the US, I can tell them apart, I can tell NY, from New England, and valley girls.. and even Northern and Southern California to some degree.

But more importantly, I fething love cheese in a can.

You can also get it in a tub.

Ah, but the thing is halo, you and all the other American chaps can point all the distinctions you like.
The simple fact is though, I still can't tell you apart.

And Savior says people in Texas don't actually talk like that. So that gives us three wrong stereotype accents so far. I think that pretty much discounts that video as any kind of real evidence to me....although again, bar the Brooklyn and Texas (one of which is now said to be false), I wouldn't be able to differentiate between any of the other american ones she did anyway.

I'd be interested to see her try a South African accent. It's quite difficult to wrap your tongue around.

I still say that she's using stereotypical accents on purpouse.

Ah well, I can't tell the British accents apart from 'posh', 'cockney', 'Glaswegian', and 'Scottish'. My friend from Swansea insists that there is such a thing as a Welsh accent, but I can't hear it at all, so I guess I can't get too peeved that the Brits can't tell our American accents apart.

ChrisWWII wrote:I still say that she's using stereotypical accents on purpouse.

Ah well, I can't tell the British accents apart from 'posh', 'cockney', 'Glaswegian', and 'Scottish'. My friend from Swansea insists that there is such a thing as a Welsh accent, but I can't hear it at all, so I guess I can't get too peeved that the Brits can't tell our American accents apart.

But.,...but.....a Liverpool accent and a London accent sound COMPLETELY DIFFERENT! *rage*

The welsh are easy to distinguish due to the lack of vowels and that you can't tell where one sentence ends and the other begins due to the speed at which they talk.

Found a video of an english guy getting it mostly right I think.

Link

I mistakenly asked an English woman I shared an elevator ride if her accent was Australian.

Now I know just to ask "What a pretty accent. Where are you from?"

I thought a Scottish guy was from Australia and I also thought an Australian was from Scotland. I was very confused and not just because they were my physics and Calculus 3 teachers.

Ketara wrote:
But.,...but.....a Liverpool accent and a London accent sound COMPLETELY DIFFERENT! *rage*

The welsh are easy to distinguish due to the lack of vowels and that you can't tell where one sentence ends and the other begins due to the speed at which they talk.

Now you know how we feel!

See, that kinda sounds like a Brooklyn/New York accent to me. Talking so fast that you have to go 'wait what?' every few minutes to catch up. I have the same reaction to the Glaswegians up here...I can at least understand most Scottish people, but I can almost never understand the glaswegians.

Having grown up in rural Louisiana and living for 13 years in Houston, Texas, I am aware that I have a thick southern twang in my accent.

However, for work purposes, I have tried to keep my voice more "neutral" so that I'm more easily understood. When I go home for Chirstmas or spend more than 1 day around my family, it takes a few weeks to get that out of my system again.

My third drink of alcohol for the evening also brings back my accent and a goofy grin I can't get rid of...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OHfIAoF8gEc


.. oh, what the hell..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIhFwLjsQug&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4yeqSgNxiE&feature=related

kronk wrote:I mistakenly asked an English woman I shared an elevator ride if her accent was Australian.

Now I know just to ask "What a pretty accent. Where are you from?"

I started doing the same thing after I started meeting Canadians on a regular basis, and asking them if they were Americans. Canadians really hate being called American, y'know that? It's like calling a Gibraltarian Spanish.

ChrisWWII wrote:
Now you know how we feel!

See, that kinda sounds like a Brooklyn/New York accent to me. Talking so fast that you have to go 'wait what?' every few minutes to catch up. I have the same reaction to the Glaswegians up here...I can at least understand most Scottish people, but I can almost never understand the glaswegians.

Trust me, you'd have a better chance understanding someone from Glasgow than someone from Wales. Like I said, they have a severe shortage of vowels over there, despite the best attempts of the English to import them. Only in Wales do you get places like Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch, or Rhosllanerchrugog.

Oh, I know. One of my friends speaks Welsh, and she enjoys tormenting all of us by shouting at us in Welsh, and challenging us to say things in Welsh. It makes my head hurt.

I respond by replying in Chinese and berating them over the finer points of Chinese pronounciation.

I respond to such things with Yiddish. It's a thoroughly satisfying language to curse in. 'Geh kak afen yam' is one of my favorites, roughly translating as , 'go take a gak in the sea'.

Hmm First, Stallone is not from Philly... he was born in NYC.

Second, I get asked all the time to 1) slow down so others can understand what I am saying, and 2) where I am from because they cannot place my (lack of, imo) accent.

For the record I am Pennsylvanian. Philly born and bred to be specific. Speakers from Pittsburgh sound different to my ears as do folk from Scranton.
Like all accents, its mostly in the words we say and how we use them: "hoagie," "crick," "rilly," "chipped ham," "dippy eggs", "sticky buns," "shoo-fly pie," "lemon sponge pie", and "pocketbook" tend to be identifiers of Pennsylvanians.

Of course, I also have witnessed a "conversation" in So Cal that almost solely used the word "Dude".

I just wish all you southerners would realize how silly Casserole sounds and start using Hot Dish like civilized folks.

kronk wrote:Having grown up in rural Louisiana and living for 13 years in Houston, Texas, I am aware that I have a thick southern twang in my accent.

However, for work purposes, I have tried to keep my voice more "neutral" so that I'm more easily understood. When I go home for Chirstmas or spend more than 1 day around my family, it takes a few weeks to get that out of my system again.

My third drink of alcohol for the evening also brings back my accent and a goofy grin I can't get rid of...

Ain't that the truth pardner

Lolz, the Texan accent is really only in certain areas, it's from older generations. Being as Texas is so big, it has accents from different cultures and people of distinct descent.

Believe it or not the most South Western part of Texas has a lot of German influenced culture and dialect.

It's actually quite easy to distinguish based on area...

South East - South: Heavy Mexican accent.
South East - East: Mid Mexican to Eastern State accents (Valley accent)
South: Mexican/Spanish becomes the first language of most people. (Mexican accent)
South West - South: Mixture of German, Valley, and Mexican (Multi-Cultural accents)
South West - West: Mixture of German, Valley, and Western State Accents. (Mid-Fair accents i.e. French Louisiana being proof of this.)
North West/East - North: Takes accents from all neighboring states and from whomever the persons' descent is from. (Mixed accents)

I think the British government should buy up some big ol' tracts of land in the Texas, and resettle all the chavs over there. See how long it takes their accent to mingle with and twist your own....

reds8n wrote:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIhFwLjsQug&feature=related

So everyone from Boston (or should I say, Bastan) was a "scousie"?

Ketara wrote:I think the British government should buy up some big ol' tracts of land in the Texas, and resettle all the chavs over there. See how long it takes their accent to mingle with and twist your own....

Never. They would all be dead in an hour from the heat or making the mistake of messing with people who are fully versed in the right to bear arms and a shovel with which to bury the evidence.

You say this as if its a negative thing. Either outcome is perfectly fine by me.

Chavs. You mean these guys:



Bring them to Sweewater Texas for the Rattlesnake Round up. Tell them to pick up them sticks that are moving and making noise. Problem solved.

kronk wrote:Chavs. You mean these guys:



Bring them to Sweewater Texas for the Rattlesnake Round up. Tell them to pick up them sticks that are moving and making noise. Problem solved.

Its like you're my younger brother. As soon as I saw the pic I thought "rattlesnake roundup."

Come to the midwest home of the Neutral accent. Most American newscasters speak with a neutral midwest accent. We pronounce our words almost spot on phonetically. The English while inventing the language really abuse it. They can't even get their A and R correct. Is it" Ask Monica about her hair" or "Ask Moniker about er aia".

The first. Why? How do you pronounce it? The second?

ChrisWWII wrote:I still say that she's using stereotypical accents on purpouse.

Ah well, I can't tell the British accents apart from 'posh', 'cockney', 'Glaswegian', and 'Scottish'. My friend from Swansea insists that there is such a thing as a Welsh accent, but I can't hear it at all, so I guess I can't get too peeved that the Brits can't tell our American accents apart.

Notice how he says 'Rachel Stevens is 'urr'

Albatross wrote:If he means 'regional accents', then he's still wrong....


There are very definite regional accents in the States - to my ears, a Texan sounds totally different to someone from say, Boston. I can obviously still identify both as American, but they are very distinctive accents.

I already stated that Southerners and New Yorkers have different accents form the rest of America several times.

Ketara wrote:I can tell a spaniard apart from a Frenchman. I can tell a German apart from a Russian. And I can tell an Italian apart from a Dutchman. Half the time, I can do it purely on phenotype. The rest of the time I can do it on how they dress, the sound of their language, the food they eat, cultural personality quirks and so on.

I can't tell a Texan apart from someone from Minnesota. Or a Californian apart from someone from New York.

Unfortunately, Americans all look and sound like one big homogenous mass to the rest of the world. You look the same, sound the same, and behave the same.

Haha, that's funny. Americans can definitely tell apart the regions that other Americans are from. Most can also tell where different Europeans come from.

It's too bad you can't tell a Californian apart from a New Yorker. It's a pretty massive difference.

Possibly, possibly. But I wouldn't know that. I've met people from California. I've met people from New York. But the key is, never at the same time. Possibly, if you put the two together, I'd be able to discern some modicum of difference. But as both share the twang, that's what I use as my identification sign for an American. I can't differentiate any further than that.

*shrugs*

I'm sure I'll somehow learn to live with this crippling disability of mine though.

If I heard just a Scottsman speak, or just an Irishman speak, or just an Englishman speak, I wouldn't know where they were from other than part of the UK. If I heard all three talking, I'd know they were different and could possibly pick their origin.

If the Scottsman was wearing his standard issue kilt, the Irishman wearing his standard issue green tights, and the Englishman was ranting about the price of tea, I could definitely pick their origin!


Edit: (Did I get the stereotypes right?)

Ah, but rob Brydon, he is a welshman.

It's the name. To the welsh, 'Y' IS a vowel. It's a consonant that often sounds like one to the rest of us, though.