# Choosing an accent



## Hotu Matua

Can a learner of English living in a non-English-speaking country *choose *whether to speak with a specific accent?

I am a native Spanish speaker and I have chosen to speak English with a phonetics closer to the Southern England's than to the American accent.
When I was a child, I started learning English with an American accent, as most children do in Mexico.

However, one day I listened to the speech of a woman, who spoke in the most beatiful South England accent you could ever imagine, and I told myself: "Since English is not my mother tongue anyway, why should I feel obliged to pronounce it the American way? Don't I have the right to choose to speak it with an Scotish, or Irish, or Australian accent for that matter?"

How is it in your country? Supposing you have the skill to pronounce words in both the American and Southern English way (or Scottish, or Australian for that matter), and supposing you stay in the country where you live (and do not move to an English-speaking society) how do you make your mind on the way you pronounce words?


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## Black Opal

I'm not entirely sure it's possible to decide on which accent to adopt.

Surely where you are going to be using your second language will have some bearing on it?
Let's say you were Russian (for example) and you were going to learn English as a second language. 
Let us also say you were going to be living in Scotland. 
Now, you might like the _sound_ of an Australian accent (again, just an example), but it seems to me it would be a bit pointless to deliberately 'put on' an Australian accent.

If, on the other hand, you were going to live in Australia it would make sense, but actually you would probably find you'd automatically pick up nuances or even the accent of your adopted country/region anyway.

If you were going to continue to live in Russia and use your new language there I suppose the logical thing would be to adopt the accent of the english speakers with whom you'd be in contact, but personally I think a clean English English is the best option ( :biased: ).

I know when I first moved here I picked up the Casertan accent (and several words and phrases), and then when I moved to Milan I picked up a bit of a Milanese accent.
The funny thing was though, that the Milanese people I knew continued to tell me I had a southern accent, while my southern friends said I had picked up the Milanese accent 
I didn't consciously opt to speak with either accent, I just picked it up as I spoke to people in the place I was living. 
At the moment I'm in central Italy, so I imagine I have a bit of a Roman accent, but _it's not a deliberate choice, it just happens._


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## Hotu Matua

I understand that the accent is picked automatically when you move to a particular place where everyone else has that accent, and that it would make no sense to try to deliberately speak in a different accent.
But what about staying in your original country (e.g. Russia in your case) and then having to use English with a business colleague, or with a tourist?

You know, for example, that you could utter /wota/ or /wodder/ for "water". Which one the average Russian chooses? What about a person from India, or an Arab Country, or Japan?


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## Black Opal

I suppose it's a personal choice, but I feel that if I were about to start learning a new language I'd want to learn it in it's cleanest form, which for my money would be English English.

Obviously I'm biased though


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## Sepia

One not only can - one has to if he wants to work on his phonetics.

Unless you'll consciously or un-consciously be imitating a whole mixture of accents - like your teacher with an Italian accent, Mel Gibson, some pseudo Oxford-English from another teacher later in your life - a whole range of BBC announcer of unknown origin - all this mixed up with the basic accent from your mother tongue.

This is probably what most people are doing and therefore find difficult ever to get to a point where he sounds like anything near a native.

Why shouldn't a learner pick an Australian accent, if he can find the sources to learn from? If you want to sound like a native why not pick which native you want to sound like - in stead of letting coincidence decide.


However, like I have said in other threads: Phonetics tuition is absolutely lousy in more than 90% of all schools. It is something that should be worked more on. If any teachers or students are around, who have some positive examples to tell us about I'd appreciate it. I like good news.


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## fuzzzylogix

I choose the accent that suits me best, ergo, I use a mixture of accents. I'm a native english speaker having lived in the US, Asia Pacific including the Philippines and Australia, and Europe. And I have what I think is a neutral Asian accent. 

I don't go for the strict British accent because many times the Brits tend to eat the pronunciation of their words. In fact, many times, their pronunciation has nothing to do with the way the word is written. 

I also don't go for the American "twang" or their southern "drawl".

So, I decided on something neutral - as long as the words are clearly stated and easily understood, I don't care what type of accent anyone has. 

Some Asian leaders have very good neutral accents...like Lee Kwan Yew of Singapore or Rico Puno, a Harvard educated newscaster in Manila. Surely they have accents, but nobody would ever misinterpret or have difficulty understanding their speech.

The Scottish accent, for example, is a foreign language to me. 

I like accents, though. I think it enriches the language and makes it more interesting.


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## palomnik

You can indeed do it; my wife has done it for years.  She's Russian, never lived in the UK, she's been in the USA for 34 years, and she speaks with a British accent, partly because that is what she learned first but mostly because that's what she prefers.

It does lead to some unusual situations, though, especially when she speaks with British people; sometimes she doesn't know the correct word for something in British English!  You might find that kind of thing embarrassing, although my wife doesn't.


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## ernest_

Hotu Matua said:


> Can a learner of English living in a non-English-speaking country *choose *whether to speak with a specific accent?



Not only can they choose an accent, they have to choose one inevitably. Otherwise, how would they speak? It is simply not possible to speak without an accent.



> However, one day I listened to the speech of a woman, who spoke in the most beatiful South England accent you could ever imagine


You too? I thought I was the only one 
Undoubtedly, female British accents are the sexiest by far!



> and I told myself: "Since English is not my mother tongue anyway, why should I feel obliged to pronounce it the American way? Don't I have the right to choose to speak it with an Scotish, or Irish, or Australian accent for that matter?"


Exactly.



> How is it in your country? Supposing you have the skill to pronounce words in both the American and Southern English way (or Scottish, or Australian for that matter), and supposing you stay in the country where you live (and do not move to an English-speaking society) how do you make your mind on the way you pronounce words?


I for one have decided to adopt a Scottish accent. Some people feel a wee bit alienated when they hear me, but I just tell them that I have chosen to speak with a Scottish accent just like they (perhaps inadvertently) have chosen to speak with whatever accent they use. The only problem is that it is usually a bit harder to find material from which you can learn if you are studying a rare accent, and you'll tend to mimic the accent you are more exposed to, so it is probably better to make sure you keep getting exposure of some sort to your target accent.


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## K-Milla

I think that you have the right to speak as you want to do it. When I was studying English in Brighton Uk everybody told that I was speaking with an American accent, something that I didn´t realize at the time. 

Now, I know that I speak with a British accent [something I do like] and now that I am in Mexico, everyone tells me that I must speak with the American accent. Funny thing.


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## HIEROPHANT

Hotu Matua said:


> "Since English is not my mother tongue anyway, why should I feel obliged to pronounce it the American way? Don't I have the right to choose to speak it with an Scotish, or Irish, or Australian accent for that matter?"


 
The American pronunciation is much more common in the TV/Music, so I think it would be easier to learn that one. Also, the British pronunciation can be more difficult...


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## K-Milla

I don´t know if the British accent is more difficult than American or Australian. Perhaps the way the British people speak is not that common that it could be just a "weird" way of speaking because of the American TV/Music/Films thar are quite known everywhere.

I would say that it depends where you are. For example, if you are in Spain, maybe you will love to speak with that specific accent.


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## clairanne

hi

I come from South East England and find there are many differnt accents just in one village.  You have the East Sussex country accent, spoken, generally by the older people who were educated in their local village and still live there, maybe 60 - 70 years on.  

A a sort of generalised town accent, which sounds like mild "cockney" - full of dipthongs and "th" pronounced "f" - I personally think this is horrible. 
Also the privately educated "posh" BBC type english - which most of us either aspire to or think is spoken by "snobs"  

I put myself somewhere in between - fairly BBC with touches of the East Sussex rounded vowels. I have been chosen to be the voice on my work voicemail service because they think I have a nice voice - it may be for the timbre rather than the accent though.

I would not be able to tell the difference between different areas in France, for example a school french tutor once told me the Marseilles accent was coarse - but it just sounded french to me and my Argentinian friend considers her South American spanish to be far more "elegant" than the spanish spoken in Spain.  I can hear the difference in this as the South Americans use soft s's and the  spanish use "th" It sounds to me as if the speakers from Spain speak with a lisp.


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## thuja

Hotu Matua said:


> Can a learner of English living in a non-English-speaking country *choose *whether to speak with a specific accent?
> 
> I am a native Spanish speaker and I have chosen to speak English with a phonetics closer to the Southern England's than to the American accent.
> When I was a child, I started learning English with an American accent, as most children do in Mexico.



As some other speakers have pointed out, one has to choose *some* accent, because there is no such thing as unaccented English (or Spanish). What you are really asking is, is it okay to choose an accent which is not the "easy" one (As the "standard" American accent would be in Mexico).  I say, certainly. It´s not your native language, you can choose whatever you want, without being accused of affectation. I know several Americans who have learned spanish mostly in the US, but who speak with an Iberian accent, rather than the standardized American spanish accent which is most commonly taught here. But there are some practical limits, and  I think it is probably best to stick to the "standardized" accents rather than regional ones such as, say, Scots English or Southern US speech.  The "standardized" accents are most widely and easily understood, and there is much more material available to help you learn. 

I also think that it's not just an accent--it's also a vocabulary and characteristic expressions, and you should probably try to be consistent--if you're going to use British "received" pronunciation, you should learn their vocabulary and their expressions too.  And while you're at it, try to figure out British culture too. They're definitely not just like Americans. 

If you move to a place or spend time there, you will inevitably pick up elements of the local accent/lexicon, whether or not it´s your "target" accent.  It happens to native speakers as well as language learners. 

I have, by the way, heard a number of Japanese who speak English with a British pronunciation, although the American is certainly more common.


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## Nanon

When I was studying English (some years ago, oops!) university students were requested to choose between British and American English. Obviously, that meant 'standard British' / BBC English and 'standard American' English, mostly taught by French teachers (ahem ...).  That meant that we also had to stick to the use of either British or American lexicon and spelling - but we needed to have overall knowledge of both variants. Other variants were equally acceptable. I mean, choosing standard, not (too) colloquial Australian English would not have been frowned upon provided that you were consistent. 
British English is taught at schools here (I mean that most of the audio material uses British English), but the vast majority of secondary school students just pick up a lousy accent!...


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## Sepia

I remember I very agitated dispute I had with a teacher at university (substitute for one month) concerning my pronounciation. I am and was at that time speaking AE with a strong Canadian touch, which I find appropriate because about half of the relatives I have any regular contact with live in Vancouver, B.C.

He spoke BE very well - no BBC-English - sounded like a more civilized version of London East End than you'd hear in the films "Lock Stock and two Smoking Barrels" and "Snatch".

In his arguing that I was stressing one word wrongly - which was not the case - he got very upset and claimed that according to the official curriculum only BE was to be considered correct. All I could say to that at the time was that I'd like to see that in print before I'd believe that. Since he was a politician (MEP) that should not have been such an unusual situation to him. 

This caused me to look into the official curriculums of various non-private school-/university systems where English is taught as a foreign language - and I have not found one yet where there is any legal basis for giving a student more or less credit for speaking one or the other of the generally known versions of the English language.

Anybody else here, who had teachers claiming that only BE goes?


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## Chaska Ñawi

Years ago an elderly professor in Canada told me (with no written justification) that only peninsular Spanish pronunciation was acceptable in the coursework.  It's the only case I've ever heard of at any academic level where a particular accent was urged on the students.

My Spanish is a hybrid of Bolivian pronunciation, Mexican vocabulary, and Argentine syntax, with nothing remotely peninsular about it.  It reflects how I learned it and with whom I speak it ... it reflects who I am.  I could choose to speak as a Bolivian or Mexican or Argentine, but why should I set up a false image of who I am?


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## Sepia

Chaska Ñawi said:


> Years ago an elderly professor in Canada told me (with no written justification) that only peninsular Spanish pronunciation was acceptable in the coursework.  It's the only case I've ever heard of at any academic level where a particular accent was urged on the students.
> 
> My Spanish is a hybrid of Bolivian pronunciation, Mexican vocabulary, and Argentine syntax, with nothing remotely peninsular about it.  It reflects how I learned it and with whom I speak it ... it reflects who I am.  I could choose to speak as a Bolivian or Mexican or Argentine, but why should I set up a false image of who I am?



Aha. So in Canada you have such (Beeep) too, eh?

Of course I'd generally advice that one makes sure that he sticks to a vocabulary that at least fits the pronounciation. But even this is difficult because not even native speakers always do:

"I am preparing for my licence for heavy lorries because I want to be a trucker", an English girl once said to me. It is probably OK to be a trucker in GB, but in BE the word "truck" is used for a certain type of railroad wagon, as far as I remember. 

I mix them up too sometimes - like last weekend when I caught myself saying "number plate" in stead of "licence plate" several times during a conversation. I thought about it afterwards and realized that I reflectively say "licence plate" when I am actuall thinking of one in the usual American shape and format and "number plate" when thinking of a European one.

But there are really a good deal of words that have different meanings so it can be somewhat confusing when people mix the different kinds of English - and probably also different versions of other languages that are widely spread on this planet.


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## Chaska Ñawi

Sepia said:


> But there are really a good deal of words that have different meanings so it can be somewhat confusing when people mix the different kinds of English - and probably also different versions of other languages that are widely spread on this planet.



Yes, you always have to keep in mind the vocabulary differences and be prepared to explain if, during a moment of absent-mindedness, a regionalism hops out.  I can get away with a lot of absent-mindedness, because so many people watch Mexican soap operas.  If your vocabulary doesn't come from a dominant area, it can interfere with your ability to communicate.


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## Sepia

Chaska Ñawi said:


> Yes, you always have to keep in mind the vocabulary differences and be prepared to explain if, during a moment of absent-mindedness, a regionalism hops out.  I can get away with a lot of absent-mindedness, because so many people watch Mexican soap operas.  If your vocabulary doesn't come from a dominant area, it can interfere with your ability to communicate.



That is true - even I occasionally watch Mexican soaps on Spanish television. And various other Latin-American soaps. 

But what I meant, was that you often know what significance the word has, if you know more than one, based on the pronounciation. That improves the communication flow. But then again, native speakers often don't know either.


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## K-Milla

One of my cousins have a friend who is from Germany. He was living in Mexico for about 1 year and then he went back home. He said that his Spanish Teacher told him to speak Spanish with the Iberian accent, something he dislike. He explained that the latin accent is more common and because we are Millions of people speaking with this peculiar way, that was the perfect Spanish accent.


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## barceloní

K-Milla said:


> One of my cousins have a friend who is from Germany. He was living in Mexico for about 1 year and then he went back home. He said that his Spanish Teacher told him to speak Spanish with the Iberian accent, something he dislike. He explained that the latin accent is more common and because we are Millions of people speaking with this peculiar way, that was the perfect Spanish accent.


 
And because Latin American sort of accent is easier to learn than Iberian Spanish accent. Even the Latin American people make mistakes when they write z, s, or c before e, i. It's so funny for peninsular speakers.


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## Nanon

Aha. To concur with Chaska Ñawi, what I wrote about English is not valid for Spanish here in France.
If I had decided to become a Spanish teacher here, I too would have been told that Spain was the official reference. When I gave Spanish lessons in some occasions, I had to explain that my Spanish was Latin American (Venezuelan, in fact), and to tell my students that this was the reason why I didn't pronounce c/z...

PS - Unlike English, my Spanish is not a choice - I was raised bilingual...


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## ayupshiplad

> I for one have decided to adopt a Scottish accent. Some people feel a wee bit alienated when they hear me, but I just tell them that I have chosen to speak with a Scottish accent just like they (perhaps inadvertently) have chosen to speak with whatever accent they use. The only problem is that it is usually a bit harder to find material from which you can learn if you are studying a rare accent, and you'll tend to mimic the accent you are more exposed to, so it is probably better to make sure you keep getting exposure of some sort to your target accent.


 
Ah I am so proud! Which Scottish accent have you adopted? I am glad you used 'a Scottish accent' and not 'the Scottish accent' like 'fuzzzylogix' did. Anyway, I digress...

Everyone should be allowed to choose which accent they wish to adopt. Working in a restaurant and a café, I notice that MANY foreigners choose to pick up an American accent. I think this alerts me more to the fact that the person I'm speaking to is foreign and so I speak slower or more clearly so that they understand (that sounds rather patronising, doesn't it! I don't mean it like that...). If they speak English really well, with any sort of British accent, they are usually Dutch or Scandanavian, whereas I find that many Italians pick up an American accent...maybe some will disagree, but that's my findings anyway!

P.s. I have yet to find a man that doesn't find Scottish accents sexy!


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## Nanon

I agree with you about people who choose an American accent, ayupshiplad. I am under the impression that in my working context, many people mentally associate an American accent (or at least, picking up some American elements, a retroflex r etc...) with being successful in business!!!


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## thuja

barceloní said:


> And because Latin American sort of accent is easier to learn than Iberian Spanish accent. Even the Latin American people make mistakes when they write z, s, or c before e, i. It's so funny for peninsular speakers.



Well, you peninsular speakers have the same problem with the *b,v* pair, not to mention dropping *h*'s.  This pernicious habit of merging sounds and dropping them altogether certainly started on the peninsula.

In passing, and off-topic, let me say that it often surprises me how badly native Spanish speakers spell (admittedly generally worse in Latin America than in Spain).  For us English speakers, used to the memory demands and total illogicalities of English spelling, it seems so ridiculously and delightfully simple.  I suppose part of the reason is that most of the time in spanish, one can get away with  a pure phonetic approach to spelling words, but not always. "azahar", for example.  Written->oral is unambigous, but oral->written simply requires visual memory.  For  English speakers, a visual memory requirement is universal. so we're good at it.


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## mirx

thuja said:


> Well, you peninsular speakers have the same problem with the *b,v* pair, not to mention dropping *h*'s. This pernicious habit of merging sounds and dropping them altogether certainly started on the peninsula.
> 
> In passing, and off-topic, let me say that it often surprises me how badly native Spanish speakers spell (admittedly generally worse in Latin America than in Spain). For us English speakers, used to the memory demands and total illogicalities of English spelling, it seems so ridiculously and delightfully simple. I suppose part of the reason is that most of the time in spanish, one can get away with a pure phonetic approach to spelling words, but not always. "azahar", for example. Written->oral is unambigous, but oral->written simply requires visual memory. For English speakers, a visual memory requirement is universal. so we're good at it.


 
We don't have spelling classes at school, we have ortography lessons but they put emphasis on accents more than in spelling. In spanish there's no such phonetic distinction between b y v, and there has never been, on the countrary to make such difference is completely unacceptable and has been banned by our RAE.

*ayupshiplad: *I don't find scottish accents sexy at all -at least not glasgow accent which I more familiar with-. I first need to decipher what they say and then I can tell whether I find it sexy or not.

My accent is a mix of all, so most people understand what I say with no problem. If I get too confident my true southern American accent will show.


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## Etcetera

I have the impression that our choice often depends not on our wishes, but on our teachers. If you teacher speaks English with standard British pronunciation, it will be pretty tricky for you to speak with American accent, even if you like it most - copying teachers is human.

I know that some language schools offer the students the choice between two or even more varieties of language, but in schools and universities it still depends on the teacher's preferences. I was really lucky that almost all my University teachers are fond of British English.


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## Idiomático

Of course one is entitled to speak a second language with any accent one chooses!  However, one usually speaks any acquired language with the accent of the person or persons from whom one learns it.  Intentionally adopting another accent because one thinks it sounds more pleasant is comparable to adopting the customs of another culture one happens to admire.  (I like to see the Japanese bow to one another, yet people would find it strange if I started bowing to them it in my present surroundings.)  I learned to speak English with an American accent.  Although I consider the Oxford accent more elegant than the American accent, I certainly would not try to put it on in the United States (or anywhere else, for that matter), simply because I know I would sound ridiculous.  That does not mean that if I ever moved to England and lived there for an extended period I would purposely avoid picking up the accent of the region where I settled.


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## mirx

Idiomático said:


> I would purposely avoid picking up the accent of the region where I settled.


 
Why?

I agree with everything, and I am curious about this last statement. And also I actually believe you need to be very conscious to avoid picking the accent of where you settled as this process happens -most of time- unconsciuosly.

Cheers.


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## HistofEng

^^^



Idiomático said:


> *That does not mean* that if I ever moved to England and lived there for an extended period I would purposely avoid picking up the accent of the region where I settled.


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## Alxmrphi

fuzzzylogix said:


> I don't go for the strict British accent because many times the Brits tend to eat the pronunciation of their words.



Hiya, can you elaborate? I don't understand what you mean. Thanks.


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## mirx

Alex_Murphy said:


> Hiya, can you elaborate? I don't understand what you mean. Thanks.


 
I suppose he means not pronouncing the "r" -you know what I mean by this, right?- or saying for example secre*tr*y instead of secret*a*ry, and well having this same pattern in words with similar estructure.


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## vince

I try to adjust my accent to the one the person I'm speaking to speaks. At least with languages other than English. E.g if I speak Spanish and a  person starts using vos instead of tu and says "sh" instead of "y", then I'll imitate that.


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## DiabloScott

Sorry to top this old thread but it seems better than starting a new one.

I find it very interesting that it's quite proper and polite and even expected for someone speaking a non-native language to mimic the accent of the region he/she is visiting, but it's considered rude and phony for someone speaking a native language to mimic an accent.

Eg; English is my first language. Spanish my second and I speak very differently in Spain than in Puerto Rico; it's fun and interesting to make the switch and people compliment me on it.

In England I might say "lift" instead of "elevator" but I wouldn't try to imitate Prince Charles because 1) I wouldn't be very convincing and 2) I would be concerned that people would think I were making fun of them.

This has to do with travelling of course... I would expect the sentiment to be different for long-term living conditions.


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## MarX

Hotu Matua said:


> Can a learner of English living in a non-English-speaking country *choose *whether to speak with a specific accent?
> 
> I am a native Spanish speaker and I have chosen to speak English with a phonetics closer to the Southern England's than to the American accent.
> When I was a child, I started learning English with an American accent, as most children do in Mexico.
> 
> However, one day I listened to the speech of a woman, who spoke in the most beatiful South England accent you could ever imagine, and I told myself: "Since English is not my mother tongue anyway, why should I feel obliged to pronounce it the American way? Don't I have the right to choose to speak it with an Scotish, or Irish, or Australian accent for that matter?"
> 
> How is it in your country? Supposing you have the skill to pronounce words in both the American and Southern English way (or Scottish, or Australian for that matter), and supposing you stay in the country where you live (and do not move to an English-speaking society) how do you make your mind on the way you pronounce words?


I have a mix of Australian, American, and British accents. I usually have a quite American vocabulary and expressions, but my pronunciation still has something Australian or British on it.

I don't really think of how I pronounce the words,
When I speak English I try to concentrate upon the words and the content of what I'm saying. To think about my accent would complicate things a bit more.


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## MarX

Nanon said:


> I agree with you about people who choose an American accent, ayupshiplad. I am under the impression that in my working context, many people mentally associate an American accent (or at least, picking up some American elements, a retroflex r etc...) with being successful in business!!!


I think a main reason why American accent is so widespread is because, well, it's more widespread.
In most parts of the world, if you turn on the TV and watch something in English, it's mostly in American accent.
That's just the way it is in today's world. People are much more familiar with American accent.


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## NotTheDoctor

I have two different accents in Spanish. Although I am Colombian, my main accent is Venezuelan because that's where I grew up. At home, with my parents, we spoke with a Colombian accent. I can switch between the two without missing a beat, but most Colombians are able to "feel" my Venezuelan accent even when I'm speaking with a Colombian accent. However, I tend to mimic the accent and the expressions of the person I'm talking to (the accent, NOT the pronunciation). Some people find this weird or funny. I don't think I have ever offended anyone. This is not a conscious choice, it's just that otherwise I feel like I'm singing to a different tune. I learned English watching American sitcoms, so my accent is 100% American. No matter who I'm talking to. And my French is strictly Parisian.

I have lived in France for 6 years. At University, quite a few teachers told me that my Spanish wasn't good because it wasn't "Spanish from Spain". They were always correcting me and telling me this or that was wrong. I got into the habit of carrying my RAE dictionary to class to prove I was right. I hated it. I still do, and I still have to deal with it. 

And French people find my American accent funny. I happen to speak very good English, but whenever I speak English in front of my French friends, there's always one who finds it extremely amusing. Some of my British friends do the same. I have a friend who cracks up every time I say bottle or water or party or any other word that brings out my American accent. 

I love accents. I wish I could speak English with a Southern drawl. Or a posh British accent. That'd be fun!


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## raptor

While learning Spanish, I had different teachers, one from Spain, one from Cuba.  Although both taught me the same amount of time, I adopt the Latin American accent because it feels more natural somehow.

Accents are very interesting to me as well.  I have heard various accents, and when reading a book with a character from various countries, for example, I can give them the accent they may have.

Sometimes when speaking it just happens that I speak with an accent, even though I was raised almost only Canadian English.  For example, once when trying to speak French to someone, it turned into an Italian accent. 

Some accents I can pronounce (some better than others ), but some are much harder.  What do you think the causes are, because I have only lived in BC, but have heard accents in dozens of languages/dialects.  Is it in some way genetic, because in my family, (1/2 Canadian-British 1/2 Canadian-Belgian) myself and youngest sister can pass of French accents easily, but my other sister can't.

raptor


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## toolmanUF

I think that there is nothing wrong with trying to acquire a certain accent. I guess it is better to perfect a certain accent that really exists rather than trying to go for that fake "textbook" standard accent that every teacher wants you to adopt, but which doesn't really exist in real life.

I love how people say "I want to learn the British accent" or "American accent." What exactly does this mean? As an American, I can tell you that there are some major differences in accent across the country (although, not as many as you might expect for such an enormous country). Listen to people from Boston, New York, Miami, Atlanta, Memphis, Dallas, New Orleans, Minneapolis, and Los Angeles and you will hear so many different accents! And the more you expose yourself to them, you can often guess where people are from by how they talk.

My point being is: these are all "American" accents! And, from what I've seen with the British people that I know, for such a tiny country they have some major dialectal differences. So, I think this concept of the "British accent" or "American accent" doesn't really reflect reality.

One more thing: When I was studying abroad in Spain, I felt like there was a stigma against American English. I saw so many posters saying "I am looking for a conversation partner in English , must be BRITISH English." Many of the students who I met said that the teachers encourage them to focus on British English and expose them to just that. While I have nothing against British English (I find it a charming dialect actually), the reality is that American English (and by extension, its similiar variant Canadian English) is spoken by nearly 330 million people and I feel like it is just more practical to expose English students to the predominant dialect (i.e some form of American English). It becomes really snobby when people act like your dialect of English isn't as worthy as another dialect. (And we have this same problem in the States, as some dialects are viewed quite negatively).

Well, that's my two cents!


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## anothersmith

Many years ago, when I learned Spanish for the first time, I had teachers from Mexico, Peru, and Spain.  I didn't pay much attention to my accent.

Now I am learning Spanish for the second time (after decades of neglect), and am using Latin American study materials.  I am making a conscious effort to develop a Mexican accent and cadence.  It seems appropriate, since I live so close to Mexico.

So my answer to the original poster's question is "yes, definitely."


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## sokol

Hotu Matua said:


> How is it in your country? Supposing you have the skill to pronounce words in both the American and Southern English way (or Scottish, or Australian for that matter), and supposing you stay in the country where you live (and do not move to an English-speaking society) how do you make your mind on the way you pronounce words?



Usually, this will depend on the teacher.
But in Austria, for example, we have a _tradition _of teaching British English, and as our teacher's academies teach British English, too, almost all teachers go for the British accent - and so do most people here when speaking English, despite Hollywood and all that. (The exception being native Americans teaching here.)

However, you will equally find people here in Austria choosing a particular accent, mostly this would be American (as most people start off with British accent), but someone spending a few months in, say, Scotland might come back with a Scottish accent and keep it for sentimental reasons.


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## kirsitn

Sepia said:


> Anybody else here, who had teachers claiming that only BE goes?



Oh, yes! In Norway everyone was supposed to learn English with a British accent (Oxford English), so I had to fight my way through 5th to 8th grade with my American accent which I picked up from watching Falcon Crest (of all lousy TV programs... ) and insisted on keeping. But I won in the end. 

Later on I realized that I actually kind of prefer British English and Scottish, but it's too late for me to switch accent now. I can imitate both "standard" British, Scottish and Australian accents, but it doesn't feel natural and I don't have the vocabulary to go with it.


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## sound shift

toolmanUF said:


> One more thing: When I was studying abroad in Spain, I felt like there was a stigma against American English. I saw so many posters saying "I am looking for a conversation partner in English , must be BRITISH English." Many of the students who I met said that the teachers encourage them to focus on British English and expose them to just that. While I have nothing against British English (I find it a charming dialect actually), the reality is that American English (and by extension, its similiar variant Canadian English) is spoken by nearly 330 million people and I feel like it is just more practical to expose English students to the predominant dialect (i.e some form of American English). It becomes really snobby when people act like your dialect of English isn't as worthy as another dialect. (And we have this same problem in the States, as some dialects are viewed quite negatively).
> 
> Well, that's my two cents!



I would say that this has more to do with geography and politics than with stigma. Britain and Spain are members of the EU, so British citizens can teach in Spain without a work permit (whereas US citizens need a work permit). EU membership also means that it is easier for a British citizen than for a US citizen to set up a language school in Spain. As a result, British English tends to be the norm in the language schools of Spain, and I find it logical that a student who learns British English in class should wish to stick with it in one-to-one conversation. In any case, there are close commercial links between Britain and Spain, so there is some value in being able to understand British English.


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## Nijan

University of Salerno, a Spanish professor from Chile (Matte Bon) once failed a Spanish mother tongue student because of her accent, pretending the standard variety spoken in Spain.


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## toolmanUF

sound shift said:


> I would say that this has more to do with geography and politics than with stigma. Britain and Spain are members of the EU, so British citizens can teach in Spain without a work permit (whereas US citizens need a work permit). EU membership also means that it is easier for a British citizen than for a US citizen to set up a language school in Spain. As a result, British English tends to be the norm in the language schools of Spain, and I find it logical that a student who learns British English in class should wish to stick with it in one-to-one conversation. In any case, there are close commercial links between Britain and Spain, so there is some value in being able to understand British English.


 
I understand that British English would be the most logical dialect for a Spaniard to learn, especially considering the proximity and the fact that there are probably more Brits in Spain than Americans.

However, does that mean that a student cannot meet with an American conversation partner to practice his English? I was a student of Spanish, and I would always take advantage of any opportunity that I had to speak the language, whether it was with a Mexican, Cuban, Colombian, Chilean, Spaniard etc. After all, the differences among the vaieties of Spanish are not so severe as to cause major comprehension difficulties. I cannot fathom how snobby it would have to been to put up a sign "Searching for Spanish conversation partner, but Castillian Spanish only!"

I must confess that when I first started learning Spanish I fell for the myth that Spanish Spanish is the purist and I even went as far as to say that certain things about the Latin American pronunciation were wrong (or lacking.) I think that this is common among many learners. But now I realize how silly this kind of thinking is, as Latin American Spanish is spoken as a native language by nearly 350 million people: their Spanish is just as valid as that of Spain.

Many students that I met majoring in English told me that they found my accent quite difficult to understand, and would often "correct" me when I would say things like "my grade in this class" (Oh, your "mark"?) or "the elevator." I'm sorry, but if you are majoring in English you are expected to know how English is spoken by the majority of its speakers and not act as if one variety is so much more prestigious than the rest. I personally feel like English students should at least be _exposed_ to all common varieties of the language, meaning English, Scottish, Irish, Australian, New Zealand, South African, Canadian, and of course the many varieties that make up American English.


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## Sepia

kirsitn said:


> Oh, yes! In Norway everyone was supposed to learn English with a British accent (Oxford English), so I had to fight my way through 5th to 8th grade with my American accent which I picked up from watching Falcon Crest (of all lousy TV programs... ) and insisted on keeping. But I won in the end.
> 
> Later on I realized that I actually kind of prefer British English and Scottish, but it's too late for me to switch accent now. I can imitate both "standard" British, Scottish and Australian accents, but it doesn't feel natural and I don't have the vocabulary to go with it.


 
Well I actually checked up on the laws after the dispute with that teacher I mentioned and found that there was no law whatsoever entitling them to value BE higher than AE at the final exams - a teacher I had later told me not to try to change my Canadian influenced AE. 

I have no idea how they can believe they are entitled discriminate that way. The name of the subject is "English" not "British English".

And the kind of English those - usually non-native - BE-fan(atic)s are teaching is not spoken by anyone I've ever met anyway. The people from England you really meet speak like John Lennon did, or like Bullet-Tooth-Tony from "Lock, Stock, and two smoking Barrels" or something. And those who only learned from the BE-fan(atic)s usually don't understand a word they are saying. Some English-tuition that is!


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## Montesacro

K-Milla said:


> One of my cousins have a friend who is from Germany. He was living in Mexico for about 1 year and then he went back home. He said that his Spanish Teacher told him to speak Spanish with the Iberian accent, something he dislike. He explained that the latin accent is more common and because we are Millions of people speaking with this peculiar way, that was the perfect Spanish accent.


 
Thus the prestige of an accent (or language) should be gauged from the number of its speakers... 
O tempora, o mores!

A great deal of people justify their choice of studying a particular language (or adopting a particular accent) on the grounds of its large(r) number of speakers…
A proper (if sadly utilitarian) point of view…


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## sound shift

I used to teach English in Spain, and I can assure you that neither I nor any of my colleagues was "fanatical" about BE. We simply taught the type of English that we were familiar with. "Prestige" or "superiority" didn't come into it. Let's not forget that most English is common to all varieties. In the time available it was difficult enough for the students to become proficient in core English. I would not have been happy to reduce the time spent on this in order to make time for the teaching of non-BE varieties. In any case, I could not have taught AE, because I am not proficient in it: look at all the threads in this this forum in which a BE speaker says "I think this is AE" and a AE speaker replies, "No, it is not" (and vice-versa).


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## yecru

Sepia said:


> And the kind of English those - usually non-native - BE-fan(atic)s are teaching is not spoken by anyone I've ever met anyway. The people from England you really meet speak like John Lennon did, or like Bullet-Tooth-Tony from "Lock, Stock, and two smoking Barrels" or something.


Exactly. There is no such thing as a "British accent". Foreigners (especially Americans) use that expression to refer to a posh-sounding southern English accent which only a small percentage of people in the UK actually speak with.


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## Spectre scolaire

I don’t think you “choose” an accent. Like a child will grow up speaking the language(s) of its surroundings, an adult will adopt the way of speaking a foreign language according to where (s)he _chooses_  to live – only with a “small” difference, though: an adult will not be able to adopt minute details pertaining to the phonetic inventory of the language (which inevitably will result in a “foreign accent” ), whereas a child (up to around 12) is still able to learn the nitty-gritties of the surrounding idiom.

There are lots of strange ideas about “accent”. Generally, people with no ideas about phonetics will think that after 30 years in a foreign country they speak the language more or less with the relevant accent. Well, in most cases they don’t. 

One example: A Greek woman having lived and raised her children in the States, pretended she was being regularly mistaken by the Americans to be British. First of all, she had never lived in Britain – she was thus conveying American ignorance about what sort of accent she acctually had (most Americans haven’t lived in Britain either!) – and secondly, her American accent (and indeed her English language skills in general) were good enough for all intents and purposes, but one “small” thing was missing: _she didn’t aspirate her consonants_. 

Greek p/t/k are _non-aspirated_ – English p/t/k are _aspirated_. The same obstreperously neglected detail obtains for Spanish (which has a phonetic inventory surprisingly similar to that of Greek) – and for many other languages. 

Does it make a difference?

The Greek woman in question – she could have been Russian or Italian! – had no idea about _aspiration_. She never learned it in school while still in Greece, and the reason is obvious: everybody in Greece speaks English with non-aspirated consonants – including the teacher. 

Many people will not be able to pin-point what is “wrong” with her accent. But if you ask a Chinese or an Indian, they will immediately recognize where the shoe pinches; they have grown up with both sets of consonants. 

Another example. Once I read about this American actor who was playing a character in a film featuring Irish society at one point in time – I can’t remember the details. He was briefed in how to produce an Irish accent – the so-called “Irish brogue” – and according to film critics, he did “marvellously well”. I never watched the film, but I just wonder _how well_ he performed – phonetically speaking.

How on earth will an adult American learn how to _*pre*-aspirate_ p/t/k – not in all positions, though! – instead of “_post_-aspirating” them, so to say. I am sure the lessons in Irish phonetics that he was subjected to, had precious little about pre-aspiration which is a typical Hiberno-English feature due to the inevitable Irish substratum. Indeed, they still pre-aspirate in Irish like they do in Icelandic – only somehow differently. Is this feature “learnable”? 

I don’t exclude at all that minute phonetic features relative to just *any* language or dialect can be learned theoretically by an adult, but will (s)he be able to practice it _consistently_? In most cases, a so-called “accent” is acquired early in the adult language learning process. It could be a British accent if a student from say, Greece, embarks on a university study in England. The surprising thing, however, is that after 4 or 5 years of study the well-qualified graduate returns to his home country – _without aspirated consonants_ in his English speaking habits... Nobody told him to focus on it. 

By contrast, a 6 year-old child learned not only English – on the level of his peers! – during a two-year stay in Ireland, but he left the country ...with an Irish brogue. 

Being fluent in Italian – with a “supra-regional” Italian accent – does not mean that you are not able to imitate f.ex. a Bologna accent or a Milano one (depending on how much time you have actually spent in these cities). You might even be doing it better than the Italians themselves because you are less stuck in their supra-segmental linguistic behavior. But you shouldn’t imagine that your Bologna singsong has anything to do with a real Bologna accent. It might as well be recognized by _non bolognesi_ as the “right sauce”, but local people will probably judge otherwise – unless they are very polite (and we all are when it comes to foreigners and their ability to speak a local vernacular ).

Even the accent of _Veneto_ you can perfectly well imitate – I do it myself! – but I have never pretended to be able to generate consistently the correct morphology of any of the numerous dialects in question. Don’t even imagine that you can do so without inattentively slipping into standard language – except on a theoretical level and provided you are an assiduous reader of the review _Quatro ci__àcoe_...
 ​


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## Montesacro

Well, you can indeed choose an accent even if you’ll never be able to master all its subtle phonetic nuances.

Words like _dance_, _hostil_e, _writer_, sound very different when pronounced by an Englishperson or by an American.
An obvious objection might be that these same words sound different even when they are pronounced by two Americans or two Englishmen.
Nevertheless a foreigner usually either ignores or is unaware of language geographical “micro-variability”and thus recognizes (and classifies) some pronunciation features as being generically English or American or Scottish; therefore he can decide to take a particular accent by simply adopting its set of generic distinctive characteristics. (an obvious example: even if some English English accents are rhotic, a non-native wishing to have BE pronunciation will invariably drop their r’s because non-rhoticity is readily associated with BE speech).
So a person’s accent can deliberately tend towards (but very rarely reach) a particular “model”.



Spectre scolaire said:


> Even the accent of _Veneto_ you can perfectly well imitate – I do it myself!


 
Spectre Scolaire, are you able to reproduce Venetian l’s and r’s? That would be amazing! Permettimi di essere un po’ scettico al riguardo…


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## Tetina

Very interesting topic.
Fisrt of all, I think that you choose the accent according what's closest to your mother language. For Greeks the American way is more approachable.

I will agree with Spectre- an expert in greek language - that is very *difficult for Greeks to aspirate their consonants*! 

Personally, I'm intrigued by the English accent. But, for me, that I haven't lived in England, it needs double effort to speak in this way. Meaning, I can do it if I try but when I want to speak fast and communicate I loose my ...  touch.

Far from that, in Greece we are used to the most simple pronunciation and it seems a little be strange if we hear a Greek with a "heavy" english accent. 
The result? Even you want, and can, and do choose an english pronounciation it's most probable you are not going to be understood and very likely to receive a ... "comment".


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## Orreaga

I often debated (politely) with a Hungarian friend I made on the Internet, who said that UK English (Received Pronunciation) was the commonly taught variety of English in Hungary, the version he imitated and thought was best.  His written English was surprisingly good for someone who'd never been to an English-speaking country.  He also said he taught UK English privately to friends who wanted lessons.  In the course of our correspondence I gradually introduced him to different words we Americans use for things, (like "apartment" instead of "flat", etc.), and provided him with statistics about how there were more Hungarian citizens living in the US than the UK (this was before 2004, so may have changed), the US does more trade with Hungary than the UK does, Hungary receives more tourists annually from the US than the UK, etc., and he became somewhat convinced that I did have a case for making room for teaching American English in Hungary.  Then when we actually met in Budapest, I had to tell him that I didn't notice that he was trying to speak with a British accent, that I only noticed a Hungarian accent.


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## Michael_Boy

Orreaga said:


> I often debated (politely) with a Hungarian friend I made on the Internet, who said that UK English (Received Pronunciation) was the commonly taught variety of English in Hungary, the version he imitated and thought was best.  His written English was surprisingly good for someone who'd never been to an English-speaking country.  He also said he taught UK English privately to friends who wanted lessons.  In the course of our correspondence I gradually introduced him to different words we Americans use for things, (like "apartment" instead of "flat", etc.), and provided him with statistics about how there were more Hungarian citizens living in the US than the UK (this was before 2004, so may have changed), the US does more trade with Hungary than the UK does, Hungary receives more tourists annually from the US than the UK, etc., and he became somewhat convinced that I did have a case for making room for teaching American English in Hungary.  *Then when we actually met in Budapest, I had to tell him that I didn't notice that he was trying to speak with a British accent, that I only noticed a Hungarian accent.*


He was probably very upset after that  
It's just funny when people never lived in the UK or in the US claim that they have a british/american accent.I mean of course you can have a little bit of it but the accent of your own language will dominate...
As for me,I can't watch any british movies nor british tv programs,it's just so hard to understand their accent.They don't even pronounce R at all!!!!
To me,American accents(all of them) sound better than any other english accent.I also like australian.Even though it's very hard to understand it for a person who never lived in Australia,it sounds so cool...


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## rogelio

This is a very interesting topic.  I thank you can, at least temporarily, choose an accent, or at least an imitation of an accent.  I am a native English speaker (southern US) and my southern accent is not noticeable to myself, although it is to others.  However, my wife and I both have on ocassion just for entertainment (there's not much to do out here) 'put on' accents; Australian and British, usually.  Have to be careful with that, though.  My daughter was about 3 years old and my wife and I were using those 'accents' a lot, and we noticed our girl was pronouncing some words with quite an interesting imitation of our imitation accent.  Some of the grandparents were quite concerned, so we cut it out.
Also, in my experience, you pick up the accent of wherever you're at or the accent of those who are teaching you a language.  However, I say again, I believe you can choose to use or not use an 'accent' up to a certain degree.
For example, I learned Spanish on my own, (the basics) and then working together with people from Mexico and Honduras.  I have spent a lot of time in Mexico, and many of my friends and co-workers are Mexican.  Therefore, I have somewhat of a Mexican accent when I speak Spanish.  When I meet teachers (I work with the schools) from Central and South America, they usually comment that I learned Spanish from Mexicans, or ask if my wife, parents, etc. are Mexican.  However, when I work as an interpreter on trips to Honduras, I consciously choose to use a different speech pattern that does not reflect as much of my 'adopted' Mexican accent.  I use different words and phrases that are common in parts of Honduras and I speak much more formally than I would if I were in Mexico.  This does help understanding between myself and the locals, however, even when I am intentionally trying not to sound 'Mexican' I usually get called out over certain word choices.
Of course, when I meet people from Mexico, they usually assume that I am from some other Latin American country, or again, that I married a Mexican (I did not, my wife is American, but I taught her Spanish, too).  A few times I have been able to convince someone that I am from Northen Mexico, but it's not very often.  Epsecially considering I am 6'4" tall and weigh 280 lbs, and am very light skinned.
Anyway, have fun with accents and expirement.  It's good for a laugh, if nothing else!

Rogelio\


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## Orreaga

This topic also makes me think about my own tendency to imitate the person I'm speaking with and be a kind of chameleon, how I adjust the kind of Spanish I speak according to whom I'm speaking with, and that I haven't settled on a specific version of Spanish for myself, which can lead to odd situations.    I wonder if there is a tendency toward empathy that leads people to study languages and then try quickly to adapt to the speech patterns even of individuals.

For instance, I've done student exchanges in Peru and Mexico, was taught Spanish by people from different countries, and have traveled in Spain. I've had a long friendship with a local porteño (Buenos Aires native) who has taught me a lot of lunfardo and Argentine expressions.  When we go to coffee we'll both speak in Buenos Aires dialect ("che pibe, mirá vos...") , and he'll brag to his friends about how well he's taught me.  (Curiously he's part of what must be a minority of porteños who don't speak with the "zh" sound, as in "Zho me zhamo Zholanda".)   Then a few times another friend has joined us who speaks Mexican Spanish.  So I find myself addressing one using Argentine pronouns/verb forms and switching to Mexican ("tú tienes...") to the other in the same conversation. I guess because they identify strongly with their own country's speech, and I don't have a stronger affinity for one over the other, this happens, but I end up annoying myself (and them, probably).  

After a short time in Spain I tried to use ceceo but inevitably the "lisp" got applied to a few sibilants where it shouldn't have.  In any case, I found it important to say "vale" all the time.


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## Ynez

yecru said:


> Exactly. There is no such thing as a "British accent". Foreigners (especially Americans) use that expression to refer to a posh-sounding southern English accent which only a small percentage of people in the UK actually speak with.



And there is no such thing as Iberian or Spanish from Spain accent. We have many different accents, so I guess people say that to mean what in English is called RP. That accent in Spain can be found especially in the center of Spain, especially Castilla León, Madrid and a bit less in Castilla la Mancha. But people from that central area also make their typical "mistakes".

As for acquiring a foreign accent, I'd love to have any English accent, but I am afraid my accent in English is just Spainsh accent


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## Dr. Quizá

I may prefer how some specific accent sounds, but as far as I'm understood, I don't care how I sound. I've told "lift" to customers from the US while sounding to them as a British and I've told "elevator" to English customers while sounding to them as from NY and I had no problem. I had a problem only when I spoke Spanglish with Andalusian accent to native English speakers (but not when I spoke that way to non-native English speakers  ).

Maybe I'm too pragmatic?



toolmanUF said:


> I must confess that when I first started learning Spanish I fell for the myth that Spanish Spanish is the purist and I even went as far as to say that certain things about the Latin American pronunciation were wrong (or lacking.) I think that this is common among many learners. But now I realize how silly this kind of thinking is, as Latin American Spanish is spoken as a native language by nearly 350 million people: their Spanish is just as valid as that of Spain.



The myth is the existance of "Latin American Spanish" as opposite to the Spanish one. For example, Mexican Spanish is as close or closer to European Spanish than to Argentinian Spanish, Canarian Spanish is closer to the Venezuelan and maybe to the Cuban than to the Iberian, half of Andalusians would seem American instead from the same country as Galicians and so on.


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## Spectre scolaire

Spectre scolaire said:
			
		

> [#50] Once I read about this American actor who was playing a character in a film featuring Irish society at one point in time – I can’t remember the details. He was briefed in how to produce an Irish accent – the so-called “Irish brogue” – and according to film critics, he did “marvellously well”. I never watched the film, but I just wonder _how well_ he performed – phonetically speaking. How on earth will an adult American learn how to *pre*_-aspirate_ p/t/k – not in all positions, though! – instead of “_post_-aspirating” them, so to say. I am sure the lessons in Irish phonetics that he was subjected to, had precious little about pre-aspiration which is a typical Hiberno-English feature due to the inevitable Irish substratum. Indeed, they still pre-aspirate in Irish like they do in Icelandic – only somehow differently. Is this feature “learnable”?


 Thanks to _Black Opal_ I have now found the film I was referring to:




Black Opal said:


> The above quote reminds me of the film *Snatch*, in which Brad Pitt managed an almost completely incomprehensible Irish dialect, of which I am totally ignorant - couldn't understand a word he said


 I never saw the film, but does anybody honestly believe that Brad Pitt was able to _pre-aspirate_ relevant consonants – _in addition to_ producing the kind of Hibernian English which can sometimes be, well, “absolutely incomprehensible”? –starting with Northern constituencies of Dublin!

I don’t. And Wikipedia (s.v. Brad Pitt) seems to support this view:




> In 1997 Pitt played the IRA terrorist Rory Devany in _The Devils’s Own_ alongside Harrison Ford, _the first of several films_ [my italics] where he has acted using a poor Irish accent.


 Now, this man got a fortune for “_modifying_ his accent”. What do _we_ get? That’s probably why most of us don’t really care... 

One should probably leave imitation of foreign accents to linguists and comedians – whatever the difference may be between them. 

Enfin, zeя aя many comédiens among øs. ​


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## jonquiliser

Spectre scolaire said:


> I don’t think you “choose” an accent.




I agree; choosing an accent -as in, focusing on one variety and attempting to pick that up- is very difficult. I'm sure some can do it do, after all, all sounds are possible to produce, though perhaps some muscle training is required  But most of us don't.



> an adult will not be able to adopt minute details pertaining to the phonetic inventory of the language (which inevitably will result in a “foreign accent” ), whereas a child (up to around 12) is still able to learn the nitty-gritties of the surrounding idiom.



I'm not too sure of this. I think it depends on how and where you learn, more than on when (though generally yes, kids learn better). For example, my English is clearly not definable as having a native accent (let alone a consistent vocabulary). When I was still in school what come out of me, Englishwise, probably resembled American variants more than British or Austrialian; now it goes more in the British direction. I don't have a Finnish or Swedish accent, but I also don't have any native English accent. 

On the other hand, I speak Spanish with a rather Galician accent, and have many times had Galicians believe I too was Galician. I'm sure there are people who notice I'm not (especially since sometimes things come out wrong), but still, many are convinced. I learnt both Spanish and Galician way after age 12. I think it's more about the fact that I pretty much learnt the languages from scratch, in a place where they are spoken natively. I had pretty much no frame of reference whatsoever for pronounciation, so what I heard is what I focussed on.

English I studied in school for about ten years, with a wide variety of teachers (in FInland there's not much of a preference for either British or American English - though Austrialian, Canadian, Indian or South African accents rarely are tought other than as varieties ot recognise - as long as one consistently sticks to one set of vocabulary and structures. The assumption is, of course, that there is "American" and "British" English. And somehow it's fair to say there is.) I had also used English quite a bit before I visited any English-speaking place, so I'm not as susceptible to sounds as with a new language.

Dutch sort of the same as Gz/Esp, I was in Belgium and knew no Dutch whatsoever; inevitably I ended up with an accent convincing enough for people to mistake me for a Belgian (though my vocabulary otherwise is and was rather poor... )


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## Etcetera

Hola Hotu Matua.


Hotu Matua said:


> Can a learner of English living in a non-English-speaking country *choose *whether to speak with a specific accent?


I'm a native Russian speaker, and for the last 4.5 years I've been learning to speak English with RP.

It wasn't my own choice, actually. At school (I started learning English at the age of 10) we didn't pay much attention to pronunciation, and we even didn't always read the transcriptions carefully. The most important thing was to put the stress on the right syllable. But most English textbooks in Russia give British pronunciation of words, although American pronunciation can also be given. 

Then I entered Moscow University and started learning English professionally - at the English Department of the Faculty of Philology. The first year was dedicated to phonetics: we learned to speak with RP, we practised it a lot, we did a lot of exercises... RP is accepted here as the model for the students, but, as our Methodology lecturer told us, if the student speaks with American accent, no one will force him or her to speak RP instead. 

As for Scottish, Welsh, or Australian accents, I think there are places in Russia where you can learn them: but it's something really exotic!


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## sokol

Etcetera said:


> Then I entered Moscow University and started learning English professionally - at the English Department of the Faculty of Philology. The first year was dedicated to phonetics: we learned to speak with RP, we practised it a lot, we did a lot of exercises... RP is accepted here as the model for the students, but, as our Methodology lecturer told us, if the student speaks with American accent, no one will force him or her to speak RP instead.



It's the same here in Austria: if you're inscribed on English philology here on any university you will learn RP.
(As for teachers in primary and secondary school - those too try to learn the children RP, but as many of them speak English only with a heavy accent themselves - well ... you get the picture.)

I am not sure how university teachers here in Austria would react if someone would firmly insist on speaking American English - but I think this would be accepted.
But I'm not so sure the same would be the case for Scottish or Australian accents.


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## Apócrifo

HIEROPHANT said:


> The American pronunciation is much more common in the TV/Music, so I think it would be easier to learn that one. Also, the British pronunciation can be more difficult...



Hi.

I don't think (the so-called) _standard British _pronunciation is difficult or so...: for me, a single word as "order" in the standard (?) _American way _is much more difficult to pronounce than its standard British way.


----------



## Apócrifo

Chaska Ñawi said:


> My Spanish is a hybrid of Bolivian pronunciation, Mexican vocabulary, and Argentine syntax, with nothing remotely peninsular about it.  It reflects how I learned it and with whom I speak it ... *it reflects who I am.*



Beautiful.


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## 0stsee

sound shift said:


> In any case, there are close commercial links between Britain and Spain, so there is some value in being able to understand British English.



Which you would even if you had American or Aussie accent. 
Of course some words are different, but it's not like BE and AE were two different languages.


As for the original question: I don't choose my accent in English. I noticed that the more I spend time with Americans, the more I adapt to their accent, the same way with Brits. I had to laugh at myself when I once realized how "British" I sounded after regularly meeting some blokes from London for a couple of months. 


Groetjes,



0stsee


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## jaypzl

I met an old man (I forgot what country he was originally from) that spoke English with an Australian accent, his 2nd language. I found out later that he learned English from an Australian soccer team that he lived with in Atlanta (USA) during his 20's. He had never been to AU but had the full-on accent and carried it with him til' now (40-45 yrs?) while living here in the US... It was a very interesting experience talking to him...


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## IxOhOxI

I was living in the U.S. since I was in 10 grade. My own choice (Or I'd say my only choice), I'd rather speak the American accent. Well, It's not that I prefer the American's than British's but because I couldn't speak the accent of British so well unless if I were to pretend speaking like the native Englander though my British accent would not be perfectly correct. 

I've got to say it's kinda hard, super. No doubt about it, I probably sound like an American due to where I lived which was in Chicago. In my point of view, I fond of listening the British dialect and so does my father, we say it sounds classy and beautiful. Anyway, by saying that doesn't mean I dislike the American way of speaking, I also like speaking it 

Sometimes I somewhat am confused how to pronounce or use some words in British, it's just difficult for me because I've never lived in England nor watched the British T.V. 

Btw, it would be embarassing for me if spoke the British accent to the British people because I know for certain that I would get messed up with the pronouciation and yes the words which some are used differently.

Anyway, now, I live in Thailand and I found that most Thais here prefer to speak English with the Thai accent, lol.


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## Grux

This thread is old but I find it interesting. Until recently, my poor English level did not let me to wonder about what English accent should I use, but now I can distinguish between American and British accent and although I am still unable to speak correctly with any of them, I can decide between pronouncing some words the American or British way.

As you said, your accent is influenced by the people arround you, but since I do not live in an Enlish speaking country and my aim is to use English as an international "lingua franca", I tend to use the pronunciation that I consider to be the clearest or the most closely connected with the spelling in each case (I know, that could be quite subjective and surely I am biased by my own language).

For example, I prefer to pronounce at least slightly the "r" in "clever" or "farm", like Americans do, instead of simply changing the sound of the previous vowel. I think that pronunciation is easier to understand for any non-native speaker and helps to avoid possible misunderstandings. However, to my ears, Britons pronounce the "t" much more clearly than Americans, so I try to pronounce it that way. If you do not have a defined accent and you are free to choose, I would choose the one that you feel is potentially easier to understand for more people, although in some situations that means to mix several characteristics of different regional accents.

But perhaps I have a very utilitarian or pragmatic view.  

Regards


----------



## learnerr

toolmanUF said:


> While I have nothing against British English (I find it a charming dialect actually), the reality is that American English (and by extension, its similiar variant Canadian English) _is spoken by nearly 330 million people and I feel like it is just more practical_ to expose English students to the predominant dialect (i.e some form of American English). _It becomes really snobby when people act like your dialect of English isn't as worthy as another dialect._ (And we have this same problem in the States, as some dialects are viewed quite negatively).


As a joke rather than anything serious: don't you feel there is some kind of contradiction between the two sentences?


----------



## merquiades

Grux said:


> For example, I prefer to pronounce at least slightly the "r" in "clever" or "farm", like Americans do, instead of simply changing the sound of the previous vowel. I think that pronunciation is easier to understand for any non-native speaker and helps to avoid possible misunderstandings. However, to my ears, Britons pronounce the "t" much more clearly than Americans, so I try to pronounce it that way. If you do not have a defined accent and you are free to choose, I would choose the one that you feel is potentially easier to understand for more people, although in some situations that means to mix several characteristics of different regional accents.



This makes me think you probably have self-taught yourself to have an Irish accent.  


I'm all for mixing accents and remixing them.  Some people believe you have to try to sound like an authentic XX or YY speaker and make an effort to keep them apart. I think the opposite.  By all means mix.  So much the better.


----------



## Peterdg

merquiades said:


> This makes me think you probably have self-taught yourself to have an Irish accent.
> 
> 
> I'm all for mixing accents and remixing them.  Some people believe you have to try to sound like an authentic XX or YY speaker and make an effort to keep them apart. I think the opposite.  By all means mix.  So much the better.


Well, that certainly applies to me. When I'm in the UK, they tell me I have kind of an American accent and when I'm in the US, they tell me my UK accent is rather cute. I don't know what they think of me in India.


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## Nino83

Being an Italian speaker, I found more natural RP pronunciation (vowels are more clear and distinct, IMHO, as intervocalic _t_) with a rhotic accent, as in Southern English (because I normally pronounce the _r_).


----------



## merquiades

Nino83 said:


> Being an Italian speaker, I found more natural RP pronunciation (vowels are more clear and distinct, IMHO, as intervocalic _t_) with a rhotic accent, as in Southern English (because I normally pronounce the _r_).



I'm not following you Nino.  All Southern English RP accents are non-rhotic.



> Well, that certainly applies to me. When I'm in the UK, they tell me I have kind of an American accent and when I'm in the US, they tell me my UK accent is rather cute


.

Dutch speakers do seem to have a particular accent that sounds about right in the middle.  Sometimes I try to tune into it to see what it is they are actually doing as I hesitate between thinking it's half way between the two or else it's just a Dutch accent in English after all, but to do so I have to stop listening to what the speaker is actually trying to say!  it IS pretty.


----------



## Nino83

merquiades said:


> I'm not following you Nino.  All Southern English RP accents are non-rhotic.



I was referring to _southern rural and west coutry accents_.


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## merquiades

Nino83 said:


> I was referring to _southerns rurals and west coutry accents_.



All right.  I see. I've never heard this accent.


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## SaritaSarang

I think one of the cool things about learning a second language is getting to choose your accent, but a lot of it has to do with where you learned it. In my own case, my accent developed based on who I used my Spanish with. I grew up around Mexicans and learned Spanish outside of the class with them, and so not only my vocabulary but my accent became very "Mexican". In the classroom, we were taught a somewhat neutral form of Spanish, so it's the interactions outside of the class that made my accent develop. This was reinforced by daily usage of the language. Throughout the learning process, I have come across certain words or phrases from other countries that I really like, and I choose to use them sometimes, even though they don't neccesarily mesh with my Mexican accent. For instance, I just love the phrase " caile pa ca" (caele para aca), and sometimes I will adopt a northern mexican accent and pronounce the ch like sh, only sometimes when I'm saying it very fast and it kind of rolls off the tongue that way. Most Mexicans tend to use "esposo" and not "marido", but I often like to use marido instead, though I don't really know why.


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## cisarro

Hi people!

Very interesting thread! Fortunely I saw it just  ontime because I'd like to do a related question, so I'd be very pleased  if you can help me.

Some years ago I visited the UK (30 days in  England and Scotland and I hope get back in the future) but I couldn't  avoid my "Spanglish" accent (I'm from Chile). My spoken English level is  very poor (except if you speak slowly LOL). So I thought working some  British accent wich were comfortable to me  because watching British  series on TV I got some "habits":

I hate the glottal stop of Cockney accent and use to mark the T's between vowels (for "water" I use to say "wota").
I like non-rothic accents (that's weird because Spanish is very rothic).
I really hate when people pronunciate the "TH" as "F" in words like "bath".
I hate the way of Scottish people saying "sorry".

So... what accent could be more comfortable to work my pronunciation? Because watching videos with different accents is being confusing to improve my spoken English hahahaha 

When I'm practicing and I can focus on my pronunciation (talking to myself) I sound like a Youtube user named *whoahchloe *(in case you are able to find her channer in Youtube, I like the way she sounds but I'm not sure where she is from).

Cheers

PS: I don't care about "prestige" or "superiority" of accents.


----------



## Susan Y

I had a listen to Whoahchloe on You Tube and I have to say she has a strange accent - mostly RP, but with hints of Estuary English (dropping t at the end of words) and Northern English (for example, she pronounced _last _to rhyme with _gassed_). This is perhaps explained by the fact that she grew up in the Netherlands but went to university in the UK (maybe in the North?). She mentions this in her "letter to her eighteen-year old self". Without the odd Northern vowel she would sound much like many young UK people, who seem to alternate between glottal stops and non-glottal stops almost randomly (to me).

Anyway, good luck with your studies!


----------



## Nino83

cisarro said:


> I hate the glottal stop of Cockney accent and use to mark the T's between vowels (for "water" I use to say "wota").
> I like non-rothic accents (that's weird because Spanish is very rothic).
> I really hate when people pronunciate the "TH" as "F" in words like "bath".
> I hate the way of Scottish people saying "sorry".



You made a portrait of RP (but T-glottalization in absolute final position is very common in both GA and RP/SBE). 

I think that the easier accent for Romance speakers is Bristolian:
- it is rhotic 
- it doesn't make differences between cat [æ] bath, cart [ɑː], there is only [a], [kat] [baθ] [kaɹt] 
- all other vowels are equal to RP (in quality) except [ɔʊ] instead of [əʊ] (which is the Romance speaker's natural pronunciation)


----------



## cisarro

Susan Y said:


> I had a listen to Whoahchloe on You Tube and I have to say she has a strange accent - mostly RP, but with hints of Estuary English (dropping t at the end of words) and Northern English (for example, she pronounced _last _to rhyme with _gassed_). This is perhaps explained by the fact that she grew up in the Netherlands but went to university in the UK (maybe in the North?). She mentions this in her "letter to her eighteen-year old self". Without the odd Northern vowel she would sound much like many young UK people, who seem to alternate between glottal stops and non-glottal stops almost randomly (to me).
> 
> Anyway, good luck with your studies!



Hi!

Yes, surely her accent is a bit influenced by Dutch (in fact, her pronunciation of Dutch surenames is very good). And about my T-glottalization it dissapears in some words like "pretty" (I sound "priri", surely influenced by Roy Orbison singing _Oh, pretty woman_).

Anyway, I was listening a Youtube video of a Yorkshire girl (from Leeds) and I understand better Whoahcloe's than this other girl's (named GoAlybongo)... well, besides the Yorkshire girl speaks too fast!



Nino83 said:


> You made a portrait of RP (but T-glottalization in absolute final position is very common in both GA and RP/SBE).
> 
> I think that the easier accent for Romance speakers is Bristolian:
> - it is rhotic
> - it doesn't make differences between cat [æ] bath, cart [ɑː], there is only [a], [kat] [baθ] [kaɹt]
> - all other vowels are equal to RP (in quality) except [ɔʊ] instead of [əʊ] (which is the Romance speaker's natural pronunciation)



Hi!

I'll take a look at Bristolian. At first sight it sounds like me speaking English at the school a lot of years ago... for example my "water" and "party" used to be glottal and rothic. But I'm talking about 20 years ago, now I don't sound too rothic but keeping saying [æ] as [a] LOL

Thank you for your help


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## Sepia

Now that somebody has dug this thread out of its grave I'll say what I have been missing all along: Any teachers here - which accent do you suggest your students to learn?

Currently I am teaching somebody Danish as part of a tandem-partnership. She is very talented and I have noticed that her "natural" way of pronouncing the words sounds a bit POSH. I think that is totally OK - if she gets the POSH pronunciation faster than the way I would normally speak, wonderful. She is a student, not working class, so it will not be out of place. So I'll go on teaching her slightly POSH Danish.


----------



## Pietruzzo

I was told that English is the international language(though no one has asked me to vote on that) but, as far as I know, there is no such thing as International standard English.
So, as a non-native speaker of English I think I should speak either with a standard British accent(since English people invented English, I guess) or with *my own* accent. I mean, why shouldn't be acceptable the *Italian standard English*? It's not my fault if English an Americans put up those huge empires and now we all have to speak their language. On the other hand, it wouldn't make sense to me to learn, as an Italian, Australian or Scottish English.


----------



## Nino83

Pietruzzo said:


> Italian standard English[/B]?



Italian pronunciation is a good one. It seems that it is well understood, like this video clearly shows.


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## Pietruzzo

Nino83 said:


> Italian pronunciation is a good one. It seems that it is well understood, like this video clearly shows.


Well..what I meant was that we''ll proudly speak Italian English when we manage to learn it


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## merquiades

Sepia said:


> Now that somebody has dug this thread out of its grave I'll say what I have been missing all along: Any teachers here - which accent do you suggest your students to learn?
> 
> Currently I am teaching somebody Danish as part of a tandem-partnership. She is very talented and I have noticed that her "natural" way of pronouncing the words sounds a bit POSH. I think that is totally OK - if she gets the POSH pronunciation faster than the way I would normally speak, wonderful. She is a student, not working class, so it will not be out of place. So I'll go on teaching her slightly POSH Danish.



I think that is fine.  Follow your Danish instinct.  Nothing wrong with being posh.  Do you think Danes would not want to talk to her because it's sounds too posh.  The only problem I can think of is regardless of her own pronunciation she will have to understand the Danes who do not speak that way.


In English I purposely teach as an ideal an accent that is as much from nowhere as possible, preferably from somewhere deep in the middle of the Atlantic.  I don't teach RP English cause I think that it sounds like a very strong accent, as much so as a Texan drawl.  I just tell students they need to pronounce everything written, especially the difficult phonemes for foreigners like th, h, r, w, and distinguish the short and long vowel sounds.




			
				Pietruzzo said:
			
		

> I think I should speak either with a standard British accent(since English people invented English, I guess) or with my own accent. I mean, why shouldn't be acceptable the Italian standard English?


  First, nothing forces English to be the one and only international language.  There are many.  Second, what is important for Italians is to be understood.  The stronger the Italian accent the less likely it is that native speakers will be able to catch a word.  As is the case of Roberto Benigno.  But a slight Italian lilt is nice to hear.


----------



## cisarro

Sepia said:


> Now that somebody has dug this thread out of its grave I'll say what I have been missing all along: Any teachers here - which accent do you suggest your students to learn?
> 
> Currently I am teaching somebody Danish as part of a tandem-partnership. She is very talented and I have noticed that her "natural" way of pronouncing the words sounds a bit POSH. I think that is totally OK - if she gets the POSH pronunciation faster than the way I would normally speak, wonderful. She is a student, not working class, so it will not be out of place. So I'll go on teaching her slightly POSH Danish.



Hi!

Having a posh acent isn't bad if she feels comfortable and natural pronouncing in that way. But if she tries to imitate posh habits of posh people just to look consistent... I think that would be an error.

I'm not very good on spoken English but when I can focus and speak a bit slow, my mother language (Spanish) and some sequences of sounds force me to make a mix between RP and Bristolian LOL


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## chipulukusu

I don't know if this has been debated before (honestly, this thread is too long to read...), but in my opinion it is always better to privilege fluency over a particular accent.
I started hearing English with an American accent, then I was strongly influenced by African English and now i mostly deal with British speakers. My accent is obviously influenced by all of this, plus of course my native Italian. I just try to sound as natural and fluent as possible, focusing on the real pronunciation mistakes that people point out at me, than on trying to imitate any particular accent. I try my best to be myself... after a life of pretency


----------



## Sepia

cisarro said:


> Hi!
> 
> Having a posh acent isn't bad if she feels comfortable and natural pronouncing in that way. But if she tries to imitate posh habits of posh people just to look consistent... I think that would be an error.
> 
> I'm not very good on spoken English but when I can focus and speak a bit slow, my mother language (Spanish) and some sequences of sounds force me to make a mix between RP and Bristolian LOL



She doesn't. It is actually her first close encounter with the language. It is my estimate that slightly POSH Danish comes easier for her and I do tell her what it sounds like and to which social levels and regions it belongs. It is her third lesson and she already has wonderful pronunciation because I don't try to force standard greater Copenhagen Danish upon her (like the current Danish chief of state). And of course it can still change along the way.

What I personally think is more important than just choosing an accent, is choosing a role model, when you are working on your pronunciation. Someone you admire or just thinks sounds fine and then try to pick up as many aspects of his way of speaking. In NLP we call that master modelling. In language classes I always had trouble reading texts aloud - it wasn't until a few years ago, during Spanish classes, I began imagining I were Antonio Mirò from the TVE 1 news - suddenly everything went fine. 

I told that to a professional who talks in radio-commercials and does station-voices, off-voices in documentaries and image-films. He laughed and said, "That's the way I do it too."


----------



## Pedro y La Torre

Pietruzzo said:


> I was told that English is the international language(though no one has asked me to vote on that) but, as far as I know, there is no such thing as International standard English.



American_ish_ English has become the world language. I think most learners are influenced by AE these days. Whether that approximates the AE spoken by Americans is another matter.


----------



## Словеса

Pedro y La Torre said:


> American_ish_ English has become the world language.


I would think that the world language is IE, "International English". Though I would fail to specify its exact features that delimit it from BE or from AE. Maybe some negative ones, like failure to follow certain requirements on composition of phrases, _but_ (on the positive side) shift of attention instead to some other requirements?..


----------



## chipulukusu

Словеса said:


> I would think that the world language is IE, "International English". Though I would fail to specify its exact features that delimit it from BE or from AE. Maybe some negative ones, like failure to follow certain requirements on composition of phrases, _but_ (on the positive side) shift of attention instead to some other requirements?..



If I had to outline the characteristics of "World English" (I wonder if it is somehow different from the "International English" you referred to) I would say

- Limited number of words actually used; English has a_ lot of synonims _and _real duplicates_ due to the commistion of Saxon and Latin origins. There is no point in using all of them if it is not your native language, unfortunately.
- In case of real duplicates, a remarkable preference for the Latin root, due to the high number of Spanish speakers in the world. This is a huge difference with standard AE and BE.
- An intonation and pronounciation that are as much far as conceivable from standard BE, expecially the RP and SouthEast version.
- a preference for passive forms even where a native speaker would prefer the active ones.
All this without considering the obvious and "standardized" shifts from corret grammar (the ubiquitous _isn't it, _to give a classical example_)

_I understand that what I'm saying is highly debatable; it's just my two cents.


----------



## Словеса

chipulukusu said:


> If I had to outline the characteristics of "World English" (I wonder if it is somehow different from the "International English" you referred to) I would say


It is the same thing, I think — the language[s] that happen[s] to be spoken by English non-natives in international communication, especially among themselves (when they don't have to care about standards).


> All this without considering the obvious and "standardized" shifts from corret grammar (the ubiquitous _isn't it, _to give a classical example_)_


Such ones is what I mean, partly. Standartisation of grammar, of derivation of meanings, et cætera. Also, simplification, like shrinking of the vocabulary. Another example, misuse of the so-called genitive case (the friend's of my friend  boots), but this may be more Russian, because we understand the word  "case" in a more literal way. But "isn't it" doesn't appear to be incorrect, at least by itself.


----------



## chipulukusu

Словеса said:


> It is the same thing, I think — the language[s] that happen[s] to be spoken by English non-natives in international communication, especially among themselves (when they don't have to care about standards).



Ok, thanks, I was in doubt that _World English could _somehow be an inferior lingo compared to _International English..._




Словеса said:


> Such ones is what I mean, partly. Standartisation of grammar, of derivation of meanings, et cætera. Also, simplification, like shrinking of the vocabulary. Another example, misuse of the so-called genitive case (the friend's of my friend  boots), but this may be more Russian, because we understand the word  "case" in a more literal way. But "isn't it" doesn't appear to be incorrect, at least by itself.



We Italian also misuse the genitive case but not in this particular way (in worst ways actually  )

Regarding "isn't it" it is really a problem of context:

This is the first delivery for this month, _isn't it_? -----> _correct

_You are on mission for the first time this month, _isn't it -------> perfectly comprehensible but not correct.

_At least we Italians use _isn't it_ with disturbing frequency...


----------



## Словеса

chipulukusu said:


> Ok, thanks, I was in doubt that _World English could _somehow be an inferior lingo compared to _International English..._


No, it was not a lingo, it was only how I called it.
Yes, your example is certainly one of standartisation. 
On the genitive case, the more regular manifestation of this interpretation is that in the phrase "the friend's boots" we think that we're talking about _the boots_, not _the friend_, and as far as I know this thinking is utterly incorrect…


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## merquiades

The correct name for it is Non-native English.  Some mistakes both grammatical and phonetic might be commonplace but we shouldn't strive to learn them or validate them because millions of people who have studied English many years say them.  
In France there are hundreds of English-like words (in daily use in French) that have been coined in France.  They are erroneously used in English too.  No native speaker understands them.  In my opinion they are simply mistakes that have to be tweaked out.


----------



## Словеса

Well, as for validation, what became French was initially non-native Latin, if I am not mistaken; you could not negate that non-native English is different than just any generic non-native language. For example (just one example), in English one non-native often finds himself talking to another non-native; in other languages, like Italian, non-natives usually speak only to natives. The question is, of course, whether the non-native English language forms its own rules for its speakers, or it is different for all. As for learning, first they may be interesting phenomena to know of and play with, and second, say a Slovac may well want to know what a Bulgarian is meaning with his words that he addresses to the former.


----------



## elirlandes

chipulukusu said:


> You are on mission for the first time this month, _isn't it -------> perfectly comprehensible but not correct.
> 
> _



English in South Africa uses "is it?" (pronounced "izzit?") all the time like this...

"You are on a mission for the first time this month - is it?" 
...would be perfectly normal to hear in Cape Town. 


With respect to the original question, I originally learned my Spanish with a bit of a Northern Irish accent (my own and my teacher's). I then spent time in Andalucia and picked up a clearly recognisable Málaga accent. When working in Madrid, I realised that to be taken seriously, it was important to speak less "dejao" so I learned to do that as well, but in truth, I like my Málaga accent so I chose to hold on to it.

Handy tip - For an anglophone learning Spanish, if you are confused about when to use Tú and when to use Usted, the "s" on the end of a conjugated verb in the present tense is pronounced as a very very slight aspiration, so there is hardly any difference between (tú) tienes and (usted) tiene, so if you use the local accent and drop the pronouns, you are never too informal!


----------



## chipulukusu

elirlandes said:


> English in South Africa uses "is it?" (pronounced "izzit?") all the time like this...
> "You are on a mission for the first time this month - is it?"
> ...would be perfectly normal to hear in Cape Town.



At this regard, I've just realized that I've never paid attention to if "_innit?" (_so common in London's East End, in the North West and I don't know where else in England) is used according to the grammar or in a SA-like way as "is it?"

Please clarify!


----------



## elirlandes

chipulukusu said:


> At this regard, I've just realized that I've never paid attention to if "_innit?" (_so common in London's East End, in the North West and I don't know where else in England) is used according to the grammar or in a SA-like way as "is it?"
> 
> Please clarify!


Typically, "innit?" is used gramatically correctly as a contraction of "isn't it?", but increasingly I have heard immigrant members of the population use it in an SA-like way (as you describe it). I think that its use is changing...


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## chipulukusu

elirlandes said:


> Typically, "innit?" is used gramatically correctly as a contraction of "isn't it?", but increasingly I have heard immigrant members of the population use it in an SA-like way (as you describe it). I think that its use is changing...



Thank you for this informations Elirlandes, very kind of you.


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## Giorgio Spizzi

Ciao, cipu.

In realtà "innit?" è il risultato del tentativo di dare forma grafica alla sequenza dei foni che costituiscono l'espressione "isn't it?", specialmente quando sia pronunciata "di corsa".
Quanto alla "grammatical correctness" cui fa riferimento elirlandes, nutro forti dubbi.

GS


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## chipulukusu

Ciao Giorgio, long time no see! 

In effetti, di solito, sentire "innit" mi da la garanzia di trovarmi di fronte ad un parlante nativo... Io mi troverei a disagio a usare "innit", quasi come se cercassi di parlare in dialetto veronese! 
Grazie per la precisazione, io pensavo che "innit" fosse proprio degli Eastenders, ma in effetti si sente un pò dappertutto in Inghilterra. 
Ciao! 



Giorgio Spizzi said:


> Ciao, cipu.
> 
> In realtà "innit?" è il risultato del tentativo di dare forma grafica alla sequenza dei foni che costituiscono l'espressione "isn't it?", specialmente quando sia pronunciata "di corsa".
> Quanto alla "grammatical correctness" cui fa riferimento elirlandes, nutro forti dubbi.
> 
> GS


----------



## L.P. Translator

As for me, I'm learning Standard British English.

Because:

1) I live in Italy, which is nearer to the UK rather than to any other English speaking country (other than Africa!).
2) It's what I have on my dictionaries and books.
3) thus said, it would make no sense for me to speak American English (even though there are exceptions... you oughta sing Johnny Cash with a South US accent ).
4) I like it! 

So yes, not only you can choose an accent - you have to!

Leonardo


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## More od Solzi

I am from former Yugoslavia and living in Scandinavia, so American English was the obvious choice:
99% of movies, sitcoms and songs are in American English,
you have to search for stuff in UK English,
American English is everywhere.

75% of Americans speak General American,
while only 3 % of British people use RP
(according to Cambridge Encyclopedia of language),
so General American seems like a more democratic choice.


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## L.P. Translator

More od Solzi said:


> I am from former Yugoslavia and living in Scandinavia, so American English was the obvious choice:
> 99% of movies, sitcoms and songs are in American English,
> you have to search for stuff in UK English,
> American English is everywhere.
> 
> 75% of Americans speak General American,
> while only 3 % of British people use RP
> (according to Cambridge Encyclopedia of language),
> so General American seems like a more democratic choice.



If you were refering to my post, RP is not Standard British English but more of an upper-class accent.

I have nothing against Americans, but I just don't feel that the American accent would be a sensible choice for me. If I live near England and study on books and dictionaries which report British English pronounciation, why should I try to fake I was from Tennessee? 

Of course I'm not English, but still I consider myself more English than American.


----------



## Nino83

More od Solzi said:


> 75% of Americans speak General American



source?


----------



## merquiades

I still don't see the problem of learning all variants of English.  It's not as if we were choosing from Spanish, Portuguese and Italian.  It's enriching to know all.

Besides, people learning English as adults will never speak either variant.  They will speak with the accent of their mother tongue.  Have you ever heard a native speaker of English speak with a Milan, Roman or Venetian accent in Italian?  If they do they most likely grew up there.

The largest accent group in America is the Southern American Accent group.  More people speak with a southern accent than any other, but even this group dialect varies quite a bit from one southern state to another.


----------



## L.P. Translator

merquiades said:


> I still don't see the problem of learning all variants of English.  It's not as if we were choosing from Spanish, Portuguese and Italian.  It's enriching to know all.
> 
> Besides, people learning English as adults will never speak either variant.  They will speak with the accent of their mother tongue.  Have you ever heard a native speaker of English speak with a Milan, Roman or Venetian accent in Italian?  If they do they most likely grew up there.
> 
> The largest accent group in America is the Southern American Accent group.  More people speak with a southern accent than any other, but even this group dialect varies quite a bit from one southern state to another.



I beg to differ.

We are so many in this world and everyone is different. There are people who have been learning English since they were a child and never lost their accent, and there are people who manage to lose they original accent when they speak a foreign language. I know how difficult this is, but it however doesn't stop me from trying. I'm not at all ashamed of my italian origins, but I'm one that likes to do things right if he has to do them at all, and I try to use the correct pronounciation as close as possible, and I have to choose one. 

I too like to research and discover all the beautiful English variations and accents out there, such as the Scottish English, Irish English, American English (especially Southern American, which I happen to like more than the Northen American - being, to my hears, richer and old fashioned, making for a really peculiar English accent), but I MUST choose one to use, or else how would you think I could learn to speak proper English if I mixed them all? And this leads us to a second question: if you were a native English speaker, what would you think of me faking a Scottish accent?.


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## Nino83

merquiades said:


> Have you ever heard a native speaker of English speak with a Milan, Roman or Venetian accent in Italian?  If they do they most likely grew up there.



Honestly, I've never heard a native speaker of English speak with an Italian accent.  
For example journalist Barbara Serra (Italian parents, raised in Copenhagen, at 20 years old goes to London, now journalist of Al Jazeera English) has a clear English accent (as one can hear here ) when she speaks Italian. 
Probably it's the same when Italians speak English


----------



## merquiades

Nino83 said:


> Honestly, I've never heard a native speaker of English speak with an Italian accent.
> For example journalist Barbara Serra (Italian parents, raised in Copenhagen, at 20 years old goes to London, now journalist of Al Jazeera English) has a clear English accent (as one can hear here ) when she speaks Italian.
> Probably it's the same when Italians speak English



Exactly. You can't tell. I remember a few students of Italian in a class at university in the US being really angry because the teacher was from Trieste and they wanted to learn how to speak the way their grandparents did from southern Italy.  They were suspicious of everything she taught and it caused problems for them. When she marked their exams and gave them low grades it was always her fault.  Now you can guess what accent they really used.   Pure New Jersey

L.P. Translator, when I teach English, I purposely mix the varieties for the students so not one dominates.  I think it is better they strive for something practical and generic.  It's fine to go for perfection.  That's great.  More power to you.  I encourage you to endeavor in your studies and I hope you end up speaking better than Barbara Serra!   I'm just saying of the hundreds of foreigners I've heard speaking English I could not tell you if they learned British/American or Singapore English.  Many speak well but it's hard, even those who have been studying for 10 years have their native accent.  And that's not just those studying English, so it's not something specific to students of English.

About speaking Scottish English... well, why not?  People pick up typical expressions in the countries in which they live.  I've heard French people coming back from semesters in Edinburgh say "a wee lass" and things like that. It adds a layer on top and in their linguistic history you can see where they were born and also where they have been.

I met an Uzbek lady once who spoke English with a Russian/ Mississippi accent.  It was original but you could easily tell what her history was.  It's not a bad thing.


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## L.P. Translator

merquiades said:


> L.P. Translator, when I teach English, I purposely mix the varieties for the students so not one dominates.  I think it is better they strive for something practical and generic.  It's fine to go for perfection.  That's great.  More power to you.  I encourage you to endeavor in your studies and I hope you end up speaking better than Barbara Serra!   I'm just saying of the hundreds of foreigners I've heard speaking English I could not tell you if they learned British/American or Singapore English.  Many speak well but it's hard, even those who have been studying for 10 years have their native accent.  And that's not just those studying English, so it's not something specific to students of English.



Well, that's true merquiades, imitating an accent is really difficult - especially if you don't know much about the culture in that particular country or region. As for me, I do not claim I speak perfect British English - my version of British English consists in just following 100% the rules and pronounciations I see on the Oxford dictionary and miss out all the "r" before a consonant - and a few more basic rules - but a native English speaker, especially a true Brit, would tell immediately I was from 1000kms away! 

I don't know if you have ever been to Italy, but with many people here you can tell immediately which region of Italy they come from within the first words they speak (sometimes the first).


----------



## Nino83

merquiades said:


> I hope you end up speaking better than Barbara Serra!



In fact she says, during the interview, that English people say that she has a strong Italian accent and Italians say that she has an English accent  

So, also for who learns languages very early it's difficult to have a native accent. 

Most people say that Bill de Blasio has a good Italian accent. He speaks (with some mistake) and understands sufficiently well (to make himself understood) but his American accent is really strong


----------



## merquiades

Nino83 said:


> In fact she says, during the interview, that English people say that she has a strong Italian accent and Italians say that she has an English accent
> 
> So, also for who learns languages very early it's difficult to have a native accent.



I just listened to her.  She speaks very well, perfectly even, but she has a slight Italian accent.  It's about the intonation really...

Edit:  Yes, I heard the Bill de Blasio video, and to think he probably heard the language spoken at home when he was a child.


----------



## L.P. Translator

Nino83 said:


> In fact she says, during the interview, that English people say that she has a strong Italian accent and Italians say that she has an English accent
> 
> So, also for who learns languages very early it's difficult to have a native accent.
> 
> Most people say that Bill de Blasio has a good Italian accent. He speaks and understands sufficiently well but his American accent is really strong



Anyhow, we should consider that it is not phisical impairment that prevents us speaking like native English speakers or native speakers of any other language, for I believe it is a _forma mentis _question.

I've been told that, when speaking English, I have little accent (although you can DO hear the italian in me) - while when speaking italian, with italians, I think I have a strong regional accent, that goes away only when speaking with people in my work environment or in very formal events/environments - I've been hearing phrases like "ma sei di Roma?" ("are you from Rome?" for the other readers) for all my life and in every part of Italy (I'm not from Rome, anyway, but very near)... funnily enough, when I speak English this accent goes away, because I'm _thinking _in English. What I mean is that you can probably still tell I am from Italy, but surely not that I'm from Lazio. Now, I don't want to sound pretentious and/or like I'm better than the other people who have English as a second language here on the forum, because I am not - at all, but I thought that I'd tell you about this and see, as I'm sure, if you have experienced it as well.


----------



## Nino83

L.P. Translator said:


> I've been hearing phrases like "ma sei di Roma?" for all my life and in every part of Italy... funnily enough, when I speak English this accent goes away, because I'm _thinking _in English. What I mean is that you can probably still tell I am from Italy, but surely not that I'm from Lazio.



It's normal, because we learn our mother tongue imitating the way other people speak (so, with an accent) but when we speak English we try to imitate the way English/American people speak, and, probably, the differences (in vowels, intonation, rhythm) between English and Italian are greater than the small differences between Italian regional accents.


----------



## More od Solzi

Nino83 said:


> source?



Longman Dictionary of American English


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## More od Solzi

L.P. Translator said:


> If you were refering to my post, RP is not Standard British English but more of an upper-class accent.
> 
> I have nothing against Americans, but I just don't feel that the American accent would be a sensible choice for me. If I live near England and study on books and dictionaries which report British English pronounciation, why should I try to fake I was from Tennessee?
> 
> Of course I'm not English, but still I consider myself more English than American.



As an European, I consider myself more Irish than English,
I'd pick Dublin English anytime over RP, Estuary or Cockney.

In fact, George Bernard Shaw said " _the best English is spoken in Ireland_".


----------



## More od Solzi

Nino83 said:


> Honestly, I've never heard a native speaker of English speak with an Italian accent.
> For example journalist Barbara Serra (Italian parents, raised in Copenhagen, at 20 years old goes to London, now journalist of Al Jazeera English) has a clear English accent (as one can hear here ) when she speaks Italian.
> Probably it's the same when Italians speak English



She sounds like a New York City Italian American, albeit with a strong rhotic accent.
No one would would ever mistake her for a British.


Me (talking to a Briton ): I have a general Slavic accent.
The British: No, you have an American accent.

An Italian focusing on British English (talking to the British): I have a British accent.
The British: No, you have an Italian accent.

 British accents are very difficult to imitate,
I've only heard some Norwegians, some Swedes and some Flemish with convincing British accents.
That girl on ''Flemish for dummies'' has a nice British-like accent.


----------



## Nino83

More od Solzi said:


> British accents are very difficult to imitate



Yes, I agree. I find very difficult to imitate non-rhotic accents (British, Australian, New Zealand, Bostonian), with those reduction, like [nɪː] (instead of [nɪə]) for "near", and "linking r". 

On the other hand I find easier British/Canadian /æ/ (pronounced [a], as in [kat]) than American /æ/ and find more natural to pronounce "cot" like British do [kɔt] (instead of [kɑt]).


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## merquiades

More od Solzi said:


> She sounds like a New York City Italian American, albeit with a strong rhotic accent.
> No one would would ever mistake her for a British.


She doesn't sound American or like a New Yorker or like an Englishman.  Just like an Italian that has learned English quite well.


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## More od Solzi

Nino83 said:


> Yes, I agree. I find very difficult to imitate non-rhotic accents (British, Australian, New Zealand, Bostonian), with those reduction, like [nɪː] (instead of [nɪə]) for "near", and "linking r".
> 
> On the other hand I find easier British/Canadian /æ/ (pronounced [a], as in [kat]) than American /æ/ and find more natural to pronounce "cot" like British do [kɔt] (instead of [kɑt]).



In RP it's still [kɒt   ]  and not [ kɔt  ].
That means it's not an ɔ, but a rounded ɑ.
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/cot


----------



## Nino83

More od Solzi said:


> In RP it's still [kɒt   ]  and not [ kɔt  ]



In traditional/conservative RP it's just raised, [ɒ̝], link. 
Today (from 1970 on) in South Britain it's more raised, [ɔ] (like in Australian, New Zealand, North English and Scottish accents), link


----------



## merquiades

More od Solzi said:


> She sounds like a New York City Italian American, albeit with a strong rhotic accent.



This is the NYC Italian accent.  Compare that to Barbara Serra (also the Mississippi accent of her co-host).


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## Pedro y La Torre

merquiades said:


> This is the NYC Italian accent.



I would've thought that Tony Soprano was more the NYC Italian accent. Though I've met working class Irish-American New Yorkers that spoke like that too.


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## merquiades

Pedro y La Torre said:


> I would've thought that Tony Soprano was more the NYC Italian accent. Though I've met working class Irish-American New Yorkers that spoke like that too.



That's the less refined version.

I don't know if the Irish have the long diphthonged a in "la-est" though.   They do have "feesh" sandwiches. 

P.S.  I found a better link.  I'll change it


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## Pedro y La Torre

merquiades said:


> That's the less refined version.
> 
> I don't know if the Irish have the long diphthonged a in "la-est" though.   They do have "feesh" sandwiches.
> 
> P.S.  I found a better link.  I'll change it



You'd know better than me. 

I've come across Irish Americans from South Boston that spoke with a peculiar accent, but the Italians (and Jews) seemed to share it too. I don't know whether these accents are particular to one community, or just to class.


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## merquiades

Pedro y La Torre said:


> You'd know better than me.
> 
> I've come across Irish Americans from South Boston that spoke with a peculiar accent, but the Italians (and Jews) seemed to share it too. I don't know whether these accents are particular to one community, or just to class.



I don't know where I read that the two often share neighborhoods, so the Jews frequented the Italian businesses and the Italians ended up transmitting their dialect to the Jews. 

Class also plays its role.  No educated New Yorker world say "thoidy thoid" for "thirty third" anymore.


----------



## More od Solzi

merquiades said:


> I don't know where I read that the two often share neighborhoods, so the Jews frequented the Italian businesses and the Italians ended up transmitting their dialect to the Jews.
> 
> Class also plays its role.  No educated New Yorker world say "thoidy thoid" for "thirty third" anymore.



Except for Fran Drescher.


----------



## Peterdg

More od Solzi said:


> Except for Fran Drescher.


----------



## merquiades

Peterdg said:


>



  Haeh haeh!


----------



## L.P. Translator

Nino83 said:


> Yes, I agree. I find very difficult to imitate non-rhotic accents (British, Australian, New Zealand, Bostonian), with those reduction, like [nɪː] (instead of [nɪə]) for "near", and "linking r".
> 
> On the other hand I find easier British/Canadian /æ/ (pronounced [a], as in [kat]) than American /æ/ and find more natural to pronounce "cot" like British do [kɔt] (instead of [kɑt]).



I believe everyone is different. I find British pronounciation much easier and natural than American English. I, of course, wish not to offend none of our american friends on here. 

If I have a problem with something, it's just with the rythm of my speech that - being I italian - more often than not sounds probably strange (or better: 'stranger') to British ears.


----------



## Sepia

L.P. Translator said:


> As for me, I'm learning Standard British English.
> 
> Because:
> 
> 1) I live in Italy, which is nearer to the UK rather than to any other English speaking country (other than Africa!).
> ...
> 
> Leonardo




You've forgotten one - your closest neighbour to the southern regions of your country: Malta! 
But even there you are better off with any accent from England than with American English.

However, you mention somewhere that you are learning "Standard British English" - What IS that, who SPEAKS that? I mean, I have heard several versions of socalled Standard BE that was being taught to people who afterwards claim to be speaking the only correct and acceptable English and sounding very fake, very foreign and in no way like any English person I have ever heard neither in person nor in the media. A "wonderful" example of such a person is the former chief of state and present top leader of the NATO, Fogh-Rasmussen.

If you really want to learn to speak English in a way that sounds really genuine, find someone on the internet (like on Youtube) that you really, really like and who speaks the kind of English that you would like to speak. Listen closely to everytihing this person says, use this person as a role model - at least what speaking is concerned. There is no way this could not have a positive effect.


----------



## merquiades

Sepia said:


> . A "wonderful" example of such a person is the former chief of state and present top leader of the NATO, Fogh-Rasmussen.


 Just checked him out. Sounds pure Swedish to me. 



> better of with any accent from England than with American English


I'm not sure if anyone is better off with Estuary, Liverpool or Geordie speech anywhere.


----------



## L.P. Translator

Sepia said:


> You've forgotten one - your closest neighbour to the southern regions of your country: Malta!
> But even there you are better off with any accent from England than with American English.
> 
> However, you mention somewhere that you are learning "Standard British English" - What IS that, who SPEAKS that? I mean, I have heard several versions of socalled Standard BE that was being taught to people who afterwards claim to be speaking the only correct and acceptable English and sounding very fake, very foreign and in no way like any English person I have ever heard neither in person nor in the media. A "wonderful" example of such a person is the former chief of state and present top leader of the NATO, Fogh-Rasmussen.
> 
> If you really want to learn to speak English in a way that sounds really genuine, find someone on the internet (like on Youtube) that you really, really like and who speaks the kind of English that you would like to speak. Listen closely to everytihing this person says, use this person as a role model - at least what speaking is concerned. There is no way this could not have a positive effect.



Hello, 

I don't live in England and thus haven't got the chance of personally testing everyday the way native British speakers speak, but Standard British English's pronounciation is that reported in British dictionaries such as this one: http://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/standard_1 and derives from Estuary English which is, as wikipedia has it,  "Standard English spoken with the accent of the south-east of England". No one says that it is the only way of speaking correct English as, i.e., you can speak correct English with an Irish accent in Ireland (I suppose) - it's just a standard form of English used in formal enviroments and generally by learned people who don't wish to  show off their regional accent - and it sounds good to me. Wouldn't I, a native Italian speaker, sound very ridicolous if I believed myself to be a cockney or I spoke with a west-midlands accent on purpose? 

Also, I think that you have mistaken Standard British English for the Received Pronounciation, which is different and not much used anymore even on TV and radio.


----------



## Pedro y La Torre

L.P. Translator said:


> i.e., you can speak correct English with an Irish accent in Ireland (I suppose)



There's no I suppose about it. If an Irish person started to affect an English accent in order to ''speak properly'' they'd be rightly lambasted.


----------



## L.P. Translator

Pedro y La Torre said:


> There's no I suppose about it. If an Irish person started to affect an English accent in order to ''speak properly'' they'd be rightly lambasted.



Hello, 

As I see that you are an "English of the Irish variety", I really hope that you aren't offended by my supposing - especially knowing that I never set foot in Ireland (but would very much wish to do so).

Cheers from Italy


----------



## Nino83

L.P. Translator said:


> but Standard British English's pronounciation is that reported in British dictionaries such as this one [...]
> Also, I think that you have mistaken Standard British English for the Received Pronounciation, which is different and not much used anymore even on TV and radio.



Hi, L.P. 
I'd like to recall that dictionaries report "phonemes" but not "phones". So, for example, Oxford dictionary says that  cat  is pronounced /kæt/ but this vowel is equal to [æ] in US, [a] in Southern Britain, [a ̴ ä] in Midlands and Northern England and [ä] in Scotland, Canada and Western US (see Canadian and California vowel shift). 
The same for  can , /kæn/, whose pronunciation is [kän] in Scotland, Canada, Western US, [kan] in England and [kɛən] in US (as you can hear from the audio sample on the site).


----------



## Pedro y La Torre

L.P. Translator said:


> Hello,
> 
> As I see that you are an "English of the Irish variety", I really hope that you aren't offended by my supposing - especially knowing that I never set foot in Ireland (but would very much wish to do so).
> 
> Cheers from Italy



No worries.


----------



## L.P. Translator

Nino83 said:


> Hi, L.P.
> I'd like to recall that dictionaries report "phonemes" but not "phones". So, for example, Oxford dictionary says that  cat  is pronounced /kæt/ but this vowel is equal to [æ] in US, [a] in Southern Britain, [a ̴ ä] in Midlands and Northern England and [ä] in Scotland, Canada and Western US (see Canadian and California vowel shift).
> The same for  can , /kæn/, whose pronunciation is [kän] in Scotland, Canada, Western US, [kan] in England and [kɛən] in US (as you can hear from the audio sample on the site).



This is also true. Of course with Standard British English I was talking about pronounciation - in which case æ, as you said, resembles our italian "a".

For a funny coincidence, I started a thread on this not so long ago and you are invited to give your contribution: http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=2878361


----------



## Nino83

L.P. Translator said:


> For a funny coincidence, I started a thread on this not so long ago and you are invited to give your contribution



The entangledbank's link (which is an expert on these matters) is very helpful. 
If you want to know more about English accents, I suggest that you read the Cambridge History of the English Language and A Critical Introduction to Phonetics of Ken Lodge (and English wikipedia articles, whose sources are very reliable).


----------



## L.P. Translator

Nino83 said:


> Cambridge History of the English Language and A Critical Introduction to Phonetics of Ken Lodge.



These sound like very useful books, thank you


----------



## Nino83

L.P. Translator said:


> These sound like very useful books, thank you



You're welcome  



L.P. Translator said:


> This is also true. Of course with Standard British English I was talking about pronounciation - in which case æ, as you said, resembles our italian "a".



With more accuracy: 
the Romance /a/ is open and central: 
casa: [käːzä] (Northern Italian) [käːsä] (Central and Southern Italian) [käsä] (Spanish) [käzɐ] (Portuguese) 
while, in South East British: 
/æ/ is open but fronted: cat [kat] (more fronted than Italian "a", i.e the tongue touches the lower teeth) 
/ʌ/ is central but higher: cut [kɐt] (higher than Italian "a")
/ɑː/ is back: cart [kɑːt] 

So, if one were to use the Italian "a" (i.e [ä]), his accent would be similar to Northern/Scottish/West Country/Canadian/Californian English. 
If one were to use the the Italian "a" (i.e [ä]) for both /æ/ and /ɑː/ (for example, [kät] for "cat" and [käːt]/[käɹt] for "cart"), his accent would be similar to Northern/Scottish English or West Country English (while Canadians and Californians would say [kɑɹt] for "cart", using the "broad a", i.e the back vowel).


----------



## L.P. Translator

Nino83 said:


> You're welcome
> 
> 
> 
> With more accuracy:
> the Romance /a/ is open and central:
> casa: [käːza] (Northern Italian) [käːsa] (Central and Southern Italian) [käsa] (Spanish) [käzɐ] (Portuguese)
> while, in South East British:
> /æ/ is open but fronted: cat [kat] (more fronted than Italian "a", i.e the tongue touches the lower teeth)
> /ʌ/ is central but higher: cut [kɐt] (higher than Italian "a")
> /ɑː/ is back: cart [kɑːt]
> 
> So, if one were to use the Italian "a" (i.e [ä]), his accent would be similar to Northern/Scottish/West Country/Canadian/Californian English.
> If one were to use the the Italian "a" (i.e [ä]) for both /æ/ and /ɑː/ (for example, [kät] for "cat" and [käːt]/[käɹt] for "cart"), his accent would be similar to Northern/Scottish English or West Country English (while Canadians and Californians would say [kɑɹt] for "cart", using the "broad a", i.e the back vowel).



Thank you very much for this


----------



## Nino83

And you're right when you say that everyone is different. 

For example, I find more natural to pronounce "cat" and "cot" like [k*a*t] and [k*ɔ*t] (British) than [k*æ*t] and [k*ɑ*t] (American).
At the same time, I find easier to pronounce "cart" like [k*ɑ*ɻt] (American/Canadian) than [k*a*ɻt] (West Country), because the tongue makes less movement from [ɑ] to [ɻ] than from [a] (front vowel) to [ɻ] (retroflex consonant), but a Scottish would pronounce it like [k*a*ɾt]/[k*ä*ɾt] (with a flapped "r", so there is both front/central vowel and front consonant). It depends, for example, on which "r" one chooses. 
For me, [ɑ] is an allophone of [a] before retroflex "r", i.e I use always [a], unless before an "r" (and, consequently, I say [b*a*θ] and not [b*ɑː*θ], like people do in West Country, Midlands, Northern England and Scotland). 
So it is similar to the West Country/Bristolian accent (rothic, British vowels, no trap/bath split) with [ɑ] before "r". 

Finally, the most important thing is to differenciate between "bad" and "bed", "cat", "cut" and "cart" (if one uses a a non-rothic accent) and between "six" and "seeks" and "pull" and "pool". The most important thing is to be understood. 

P.S. 
My choice could be influenced by the music I listen to (Northern English bands like Wombats, Arctic Monkeys, once Oasis, Scottish like The Fratellis).


----------



## L.P. Translator

Nino83 said:


> And you're right when you say that everyone is different.
> 
> For example, I find more natural to pronounce "cat" and "cot" like [k*a*t] and [k*ɔ*t] (British) than [k*æ*t] and [k*ɑ*t] (American).
> At the same time, I find easier to pronounce "cart" like [k*ɑ*ɻt] (American/Canadian) than [k*a*ɻt] (West Country), because the tongue makes less movement from [ɑ] to [ɻ] than from [a] (front vowel) to [ɻ] (retroflex consonant), but a Scottish would pronounce it like [k*a*ɾt]/[k*ä*ɾt] (with a flapped "r", so there is both front/central vowel and front consonant). It depends, for example, on which "r" one chooses.
> For me, [ɑ] is an allophone of [a] before retroflex "r", i.e I use always [a], unless before an "r" (and, consequently, I say [b*a*θ] and not [b*ɑː*θ], like people do in West Country, Midlands, Northern England and Scotland).
> So it is similar to the West Country/Bristolian accent (rothic, British vowels, no trap/bath split) with [ɑ] before "r".
> 
> Finally, the most important thing is to differenciate between "bad" and "bed", "cat", "cut" and "cart" (if one uses a a non-rothic accent) and between "six" and "seeks" and "pull" and "pool". The most important thing is to be understood.
> 
> P.S.
> My choice could be influenced by the music I listen to (Northern English bands like Wombats, Arctic Monkeys, once Oasis, Scottish like The Fratellis).



I, as I have already said, after studying British English now find it easier to speak with non rhotic accents. I used to watch American TV and listen to American music (especially Johnny Cash), so I was developing some sort of an American accent - but then adventured into studying British English. It is now with great difficulty that I can sing Cash's song without chopping off all the r's between consonants and at the end of the words.

So, in the end, I think it all depends on your background.


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## cisarro

Gemma Arterton comes to my mind when somebody says "the British accent",  and I really like hers. She has a RP accent on screen (learned at the drama  school) but she grew up at Kent (Gravesend) with a strong Estuary accent.

Among  all the British accents I have heard, her accent is the most understandable to me (maybe because she doesn't speak quickly). What do you  think... does she sounds too posh or exaggerated if I wanted use her as role model to learn English?


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## merquiades

cisarro said:


> Gemma Arterton comes to my mind when somebody says "the British accent",  and I really like hers. She has a RP accent on screen (learned at the drama  school) but she grew up at Kent (Gravesend) with a strong Estuary accent.
> 
> Among  all the British accents I have heard, her accent is the most understandable to me (maybe because she doesn't speak quickly). What do you  think... does she sounds too posh or exaggerated if I wanted use her as role model to learn English?



I listened to one of her interviews
I like her accent.  It sounds like it would be a good model.  It sounds nice, elegant but not too posh or arrogant.  Also modern. Go for it.
And it's definitely not Estuary.  I couldn't stand all the glottal stops and twangy vowels in London accents.


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## cisarro

merquiades said:


> I listened to one of her interviews
> I like her accent.  It sounds like it would be a good model.  It sounds nice, elegant but not too posh or arrogant.  Also modern. Go for it.
> And it's definitely not Estuary.  I couldn't stand all the glottal stops and twangy vowels in London accents.



Hi! I meant she had an Estuary accent before she started to use RP even in her everyday life (which she learned at drama school).



> I grew up in Kent with an Estuary accent so strong it was almost  Cockney. I was all like "wot the f*** are you lookin’ at?" until I went  to "drrrrramah" school, where they told me that it wouldn’t do me any  favours and they teach you RP [received pronunciation] instead
> 
> I remember going to my dad’s house for Sunday roast and I said  something like: 'May you pass the ketchup?' and he went: 'F*** off, I'm  not passing you nuffing when you speak like that. What are you, Mary  Poppins, or somefing?'


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## bearded

> Nino 83:
> The most important thing is to differentiate between 'bad' and 'bed'


Do you also differentiate between 'man' and 'men', and between 'gentleman' and 'gentlemen'?  From what I heard, Americans do not differentiate much in these cases.


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## merquiades

bearded man said:


> Do you also differentiate between 'man' and 'men', and between 'gentleman' and 'gentlemen'?  From what I heard, Amerivans do not differentiate much in these cases.



I think the difference between "man" and "men" is crucial.  As is "woman" and "women".  But I don't differentiate much between "gentleman" and "gentlemen" in normal speech.  Since the accent falls on the first syllable "Gen", the vowel in the last syllable is greatly reduced.


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## Giorgio Spizzi

Hullo, bearded man.

The reduction of the last syllable (and its vowel, which becomes a _schwa_) is present in the British variety known as "Received Pronunciation" (RP).
What applies to "gentleman/men" also applies to all compounds with "man/men": e.g.. businessman/men, sportsman/men, Englishman/men, etc.

GS


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## bearded

merquiades said:


> I think the difference between "man" and "men" is crucial.


 Is the difference in vowel pronunciation between 'man' and 'men' really as big in AE as in BrE?
Thanks to you, and also to G.Spizzi for explanations.


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## merquiades

bearded man said:


> Is the difference in vowel pronunciation between 'man' and 'men' really as big in AE as in BrE?
> Thanks to you, and also to G.Spizzi for explanations.



Yes, it's as important as bad/bed.


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## Nino83

bearded man said:


> Is the difference in vowel pronunciation between 'man' and 'men' really as big in AE as in BrE?
> Thanks to you, and also to G.Spizzi for explanations.



Hi bearded man. Yes, it is.  
In the US and Canada, according to Labov: 
General American: "man" = [mɛən] and "men" = [mɛn]; "cat" = [kæt]
Northern Cities: "man" = [meən] and "men" = [mɜn]; "cat" = [keət] (see Northern Cities vowel shift) 
 New England: "man" = [meən] and "men" = [mɛn]; "cat" = [kæt]
Canada and California: "man" = [mæən] and "men" = [mɛn]; "cat" = [kat] (see Canadian/Californian vowel shift)


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## london calling

Sepia said:


> However, you mention somewhere that you are learning "Standard British English" - What IS that, who SPEAKS that?


Standard Southern British English is what I speak and is what you will find in British dictionaries. I cetainly don't sound fake, I speak using all the usual slang etc., it's just that I don't have a regional accent (people have to ask me where I'm from).

That said, I personally do not believe someone should set out to speak a foreign language with a given accent. The important thing is to be able to express yourself understandably in that language. And I don't understand why you have got it in for American English. There are British accents which are far thicker and far more incomprehensible than many American accents. Let me give you an example. My son was brought up here in Italy speaking both languages. We've been to the States on more than one occasion and he's never had any trouble but when confronted by English spoken by a bloke from Belfast he didn't understand a word the man said. He also has problems with Glaswegian.


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## Nimbrethil

When I started worrying about my English accent, I decided to learn British accent. From my European point of view, it was the most logical option. However, most movies, series etc. are American (at least, the ones that I liked). Besides, American accent was easier to imitate for me. American intonation is flowing and it doesn’t have some extra-complicated sounds like the final “r” (“ah”).

In fact, I found British accent harder to understand too. In American movies and series, there are a lot of British actors. American people find British accents very sexy, but I was annoyed because I could not understand them. Now I find it sexy too (and intelligible ) and sometimes my accent switches depending on what I have been watching on TV lately.


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## Dymn

The English variety learned in Spain and probably around Europe is British English, because most people take Cambridge exams. I still remember the first time I saw "color", I just thought it was a silly misspelling. Now I have misgivings about what orthography to choose, I generally have my own criteria (-ize but -our e.g.). It doesn't trouble me much anyway.

This is a different but related issue from accent. I guess you can always choose an accent, but it won't come naturally to you unless you are exposed to it. Since I am mostly exposed to American cultural stuff I notice I have a rather American accent, and I like it that way. Maybe people whose exposure to English is just educational material will have a more noticeable British accent. I also find it a bit hard to understand Scottish (Trainspotting's at least) and Australian English. I am totally unable to distinguish different accents from Americans and Canadians (in films, series, youtube etc.) by the way. On the other hand English accents (from England) seem more diverse to me.


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## apmoy70

Dymn said:


> The English variety learned in Spain and probably around Europe is British English, because most people take Cambridge exams. I still remember the first time I saw "color", I just thought it was a silly misspelling. Now I have misgivings about what orthography to choose, I generally have my own criteria (-ize but -our e.g.). It doesn't trouble me much anyway.
> 
> This is a different but related issue from accent. I guess you can always choose an accent, but it won't come naturally to you unless you are exposed to it. Since I am mostly exposed to American cultural stuff I notice I have a rather American accent, and I like it that way. Maybe people whose exposure to English is just educational material will have a more noticeable British accent. I also find it a bit hard to understand Scottish (Trainspotting's at least) and Australian English. I am totally unable to distinguish different accents from Americans and Canadians (in films, series, youtube etc.) by the way. On the other hand English accents (from England) seem more diverse to me.


The key for me to distinguish the Canadian from the American accent is the -ou- diphthong (e.g in about), the Americans pronounce it [əˈbɐ̞ʊ̯t] or [əˈbæʊ̯t] while Canadians pronounce it [əˈbʊt] mostly.
Generally speaking, I agree with you, in Greece we learn BE (the most prestigious institution for learning English in the country, is the British Council) but nowadays influenced by American tv series and movies (note foreign movies & tv programmes are not dubbed in the Greek language, they are subtitled) one tends to use American accent or American slang & idioms when speaking English, rather than British.


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## Dymn

apmoy70 said:


> The key for me to distinguish the Canadian from the American accent is the -ou- diphthong (e.g in about), the Americans pronounce it [əˈbɐ̞ʊ̯t] or [əˈbæʊ̯t] while Canadians pronounce it [əˈbʊt] mostly.


From what I read it is not a monophthong, but rather a /ʌʊ/-like diphthong.

I guess that if I heard a thick regional American/Canadian accent I could easily notice it, but otherwise I would have to pay attention in order to hear any difference among the accents of TV and film people as well as youngsters.

Well, AAVE clearly stands out, but I don't know up to what extent of what I hear is genuine and what is staged.


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## merquiades

Dymn said:


> From what I read it is not a monophthong, but rather a /ʌʊ/-like diphthong.
> 
> I guess that if I heard a thick regional American/Canadian accent I could easily notice it, but otherwise I would have to pay attention in order to hear any difference among the accents of TV and film people as well as youngsters.
> 
> Well, AAVE clearly stands out, but I don't know up to what extent of what I hear is genuine and what is staged.


There is a very big difference.  All of the vowels seem to be open wide in Canada.  There is a rise in intonation too.  Plus vowel sounds seem nasalized.  Listen to how they pronounce Toronto, Canada.  There is a curly r sound too some of them have.  The diphthong in _about_ sounds a bit like _a boat.  _But that oa sound like in _low_ sound like _law_.  And when they say _not_ it sounds like _naaht_.  I have heard these are Scottish and Scots-Irish influences in their language. Put it all together and it sounds really different to me, especially from Central and Southern versions of American English.

It's kind of like I told you the accent was the same in Barcelona and Valencia.  Listen to Radio Canada International on the net.  They have programs in English and French.  You'll see the difference. Canadian actors on series have to learn the differences, like those actors on Castle that are Canadian and Pamela Anderson and Michael J. Fox when they are in role.


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## Pedro y La Torre

I can't tell the difference between someone from Vancouver and Seattle. The traits you describe seem to be characteristic of Eastern Canada (and Ontario in particular). Montreal English speakers don't exhibit markedly "Canadian" traits from what I can remember.

Newfoundland, of course, is an entirely different kettle of fish and is probably closer to Irish English than mainstream CanE or AmE.


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## Penyafort

merquiades said:


> It's kind of like I told you the accent was the same in Barcelona and Valencia.



I don't think there is an analogy here, because Canadian, while different, can be grouped with the American ones (North American English) and even native speakers seem to have trouble distinguishing them. Catalan in Valencia belongs to the Western group, uses a different standard to that of Barcelona, has differences in phonology, vocabulary and grammar, and any native speaker can quickly distinguish them, so the comparison, if possible, would be closer to that of British English vs American English.


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## merquiades

Pedro y La Torre said:


> I can't tell the difference between someone from Vancouver and Seattle. The traits you describe seem to be characteristic of Eastern Canada (and Ontario in particular). Montreal English speakers don't exhibit markedly "Canadian" traits from what I can remember.


  Perhaps my idea of CanE has been skewed by Ontario.  I've only met one person from Vancouver.  It sounded like he had the vowel pattern though, but maybe there was a connection to Toronto as well.  As far as Seattle goes, I have no idea what they sound like either. I imagine them fronting their "u" a bit and saying "kewl".  Honestly, if you asked me to describe anything about the way people talk in Western Canada I couldn't say.  That West Canada, Pacific North West US area are unknown places for me, but I'm sure I could distinguish them if I spent time there. Hearing differences is a matter of exposure. Until someone taught me to tell the difference between Australia and New Zealand I had no idea either.  Now, I just listen to the short vowels and it's pretty clear.  I have heard differences in England too, but I would have to pinpoint exactly where an accent is from to be sure.



Penyafort said:


> I don't think there is an analogy here, because Canadian, while different, can be grouped with the American ones (North American English) and even native speakers seem to have trouble distinguishing them. Catalan in Valencia belongs to the Western group, uses a different standard to that of Barcelona, has differences in phonology, vocabulary and grammar, and any native speaker can quickly distinguish them, so the comparison, if possible, would be closer to that of British English vs American English.


For me it's just as clear though.  I once got on an elevator at a hotel in Florida.  The man asked "what flurr? Yerr ga'an doan?" and I knew immediately he was Canadian.


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## Penyafort

merquiades said:


> For me it's just as clear though.  I once got on an elevator at a hotel in Florida.  The man asked "what flurr? Yerr ga'an doan?" and I knew immediately he was Canadian.



So is it the same impression of 'openness' as when a French speaker hears a Quebequois?

Still, identifying someone's accent doesn't mean much regarding closeness from a strictly linguistic point of view. I'm a speaker of central Catalan, the variety used in Barcelona, but I can easily spot someone from the city area just because of a couple of common features that are not used where I live.


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## merquiades

Penyafort said:


> So is it the same impression of 'openness' as when a French speaker hears a Quebequois?
> 
> Still, identifying someone's accent doesn't mean much regarding closeness from a strictly linguistic point of view. I'm a speaker of central Catalan, the variety used in Barcelona, but I can easily spot someone from the city area just because of a couple of common features that are not used where I live.


I've been watching the series Fatale-Station.  It appears that there is a wide umbrella for what is Canadian French.  It goes from people speaking such a neutral variety it almost sounds like it could be European to such a strong accent that I don't understand a thing and have to read the subtitles. Of course, there is everything in between.  I've noticed strong nasalization, and indeed some opening of vowel sounds to the point they become diphthongs:  like père becomes something like paér, and moi-même is mwé méam.  The i of riche is open enough to be moving in the direction of rêch.
It would be interesting to know if English and French have been influencing one another in Canada.  The nasal character too... like in Caen ada in Canadian English.
Canadian accents are rejected by Americans, surprising since regional Am. accents are accepted.  There are numerous sites on internet for Canadians wanting to reduce accent to work in the US.

Edit:  There is a documentary you can find on internet called "Talking Canadian" by Jeff Barrett.  From minutes 20-25 it gives some very interesting information about differences between Canadian and American English.


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