# The sound of English



## hsam

Hello all, 

A question that has always intrigued me is "What does English sound like to a foreigner?" I realise that there are many accents and I'm interested in all of them but I'm primarily interested in the sound of British English.

It's an interesting idea for a native as it is always just going to sound normal for them. I was hoping for answers like for example "to me French sounds very feminine" or "to me German sounds very macho" or something like that.

If possible I'd like to get lots of opinions on this from different nationalities.

Looking forward to your answers as usual,

Hoz


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## VenusEnvy

Here is a previous thread that addressed the same curiosity.


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## hsam

VenusEnvy said:
			
		

> Here is a previous thread that addressed the same curiosity.


 
That made very interesting reading but I was kind of thinking how does the English language sound to someone who isn't native (like for me I French is very feminine and German is quite harsh and macho.)

That was something I was going to ask about next so thanks.

Hoz


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## Nocciolina

Hmmm, I think that hsam is more interested in knowing what foreigners think when they hear English speakers speaking English. Correct me if I am wrong. For example for me, when I hear Italians speaking it sounds as though they are singing. It's such a melodic language. When I hear Chinese people speaking chinese they sound angry or very excited. Spanish speaking seem to talk extremely fast and rarely need to come up for air. Am I on the right line hsam?


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## Nocciolina

Ok, you were quicker! I would also be interested to know. Especially the what foreigners think of the different variations, ie English English v Scottish English v Australian English v Canadian and so on.......


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## cirrus

Sad but true I suspect that goes for the majority of us.  Where I live is fab for this. On my street alone you can easily hear more than 60 different languages spoken as people take their kids to school.

I have a really funny memory of fiddling with the radio when I came back from Colombia I hadn't heard English English on the radio for two years.  I was convinced that either my ears were still back on the plane or there was something wrong with the radio.  It sounded like there was a glottal stop between each and every syllable.  "he lo here is the news. to day in lon don..." 

As for where are the others, I suspect they either have a life or are still at work.


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## LV4-26

hsam said:
			
		

> Where are all the foreigners?!


 Here's one 
But sorry, I have never associated any language with any feeling or psychological trait. I've really tried hard to consider your question and asked myself "what does English sound like?" but the only answer I got was "English sounds like.......English" 
Not much of an answer, is it ?

However, even if this isn't exactly what you're asking, I'm very interested in all the various accents in the UK. And there's something I've noticed.
To my foreign ears, women and girls sound different than men. I don't know why. Take a young man and a young woman (yes, it's more different with young people, don't ask me why) from the same region in England. The woman's accent sounds different to me, more "jerky", like.(more glottal stops maybe ?)

And I haven't noticed the same sexual difference among Americans.


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## Laia

English... mmm...

British English sounds elegant, very very high-pitched, sometimes slow, difficult to speak (a lot! because words are written in a different way than they are pronuncied), etc. 

On the other hand, American English is easier to understand than British English for me, because americans open more their mouth when they speak.

Please correct my mistakes... (but be good with me... I only have the level of the First Certificate...  )


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## LV4-26

Laia said:
			
		

> On the other hand, American English is easier to understand than British English for me,


It's exactly the other way round for me. To be honest, I just love the British accent. For instance, the way the Brits say "_at the moment_", stressing the diphtong very much as if it were really two vowels just makes my delight.


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## Nocciolina

Laia said:
			
		

> English... mmm...
> 
> British English sounds elegant, very very high-pitched, sometimes slow, difficult to speak (a lot! because words are written in a different way than they are pronuncied), etc.
> 
> On the other hand, American English is easier to understand than British English for me, because americans open more their mouth when they speak.
> 
> Please correct my mistakes... (but be good with me... I only have the level of the First Certificate...  )


 
Very interesting. I always thought that foreigners understand North American Eng better because it dominates the media. They also use fewer vowel sounds, and don't pronounce a lot of the consonants.


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## Vanda

I was searching at the bottom of my mind  how English sounds
to me. Well, couldn't remember nothing. It was centuries ago the
first time I heard it , so can't remember my perception. Although
I can remember what En/British sounded to me when I first went
to Britain in 1997. I thought people spoke like they had mashed
potatoes in the mouth. Sorry, I couldn't find another metaphor.
No offense. Anyway I'm not referring to the pattern English
from BBC on cable TV though. I mean the English spoken by
regular people. 
I'll make a research among my students and discover what
they think about and promise to come back with fresh ideas.
As someone has already mentioned above, if you ask about
other languages I have "finished" answers... Eg.:  men would 
say French is for women, not men (all macho) . Japanese
and Chinese people sound angry, Italian sound fighting all
the time and German very guttural.

As for me I'll try to "feel" my reaction to English, beginning
tonight when I'll stop to see "Frasier" on cable.


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## Nocciolina

Vanda said:
			
		

> I thought people spoke like they had mashed
> potatoes in the mouth. .


lolol, hilarious. Reminds me of the scene from My Fair Lady where, in order to improve her pronunciation, Professor Higgins forces Elisa to speak with a mouth full of marbles.


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## Mita

With few words, this is what English sounds to me like:

British English: elegant, polite, pleasant, beautiful!... 
American English: sounds more informal, spontaneous, nice but not as nice as British English does. 

Regards,


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## Edher

Saludos,

     I remember the first time I heard English been spoken next to me. I was only a child back then. To me it sounded way too nasal and a bit robotic. Hehehe. But back then I thought it was really cool since the person that this language was coming from was a soldier (all dressed up and everything) visiting Mexico City with his extremely gorgeous girlfriend. However, I did notice the stereotype; they ended many words with " -ation" as well as their very modest and soft "r" sound. 

British English does sound more elegant, however, there are times that it sounds as though they are trying way too hard to sound more "sophisticated" than the rest.(Like when people emphesize "not a TALL") Also, at times it seems as though they talk extra and louder because they love to listen to themselves. 

American English sounds quite common now, nothing out of the ordinary, just neutral. But what I can't stand is what here is known as the "valley accent." The pretentious, egoistic, "popular-girl" accent. Ehehe, just thinking about it gives me the chills. haha. It sounds so awful, especially when I see foreign girls trying to adopt it.

I still would like a British accent for Christmas though.

Edher


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## JazzByChas

I think I'll agree with the census here, and say that British English is much more pleasant on the ears than American English. I spent 4 years in England when I was young, and when I had been back in the "States" for a few years, it occured to me that I really missed the accent. And for the record, most dialects of American English sound very nasal to me...obviously more pronounced in the North Cost and Midwest areas of the USA. I have also noticed that Americans of European descent are this way more than not. By that I mean of European descent and having had their families spend 2 or more generations here. I prefer hearing almost anyone (except Eastern Asians...their English sounds a bit choppy) speak English than "born and raised" Americans...(could not say native Americans, or that would refer to what we used to call _*American Indians*_). I find that Middle Asian Indians (from India) speak the most interesting sounding English. It combines the musicality of British English with the stacatto of Spanish. Not to mention their proclivity for using the present progessive tense a great deal. "_I am wanting to know if you are having any fresh milk today."_  The sad part is when the children who are born and raised in this country become "Americans" who sound just like all those other (nasal) Americans

Now African Americans, other than those raised around those who speak in nasal accents, tend to have their own timbre, which is a little more rich in tone, though I couldn't tell you exactly why.

Now, the most interesting sounding American accent is that old New York or Boston "Brahman", which, oddly (or not) enough, sounds a lot like British English, especially upper class British English. So, I guess, at the end of the day, the Brits win! 

Rule Brittania, for the accent is mightier than the sword.


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## hsam

Wow thanks for all these great replies!

So in summary I can think that English is reasonably glottal and more specifically BE is quite elegant whereas AE is more nasal. I like Vanda's idea that we sound like our mouthes are full of mashed potatoes!!

Another sub-question, what is the nearest language (sound-wise) to English (BE to be specific)?

Thanks again everyone.

Hoz


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## LV4-26

Just an afterthought. Reading the thread again I realize some people have said that British English could sound posh or sophisticated. 
This doesn't strike me. I mean you should listen to people from Bermondsey or Newcastle or Liverpool : to me, they don't sound sophisticated at all .


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## hsam

LV4-26 said:
			
		

> Just an afterthought. Reading the thread again I realize some people have said that British English could sound posh or sophisticated.
> This doesn't strike me. I mean you should listen to people from Bermondsey or Newcastle or Liverpool : to me, they don't sound sophisticated at all .


 
A very good point, London/Southern BE is so different to Northern/Scottish/Irish/Welsh BE.

Thanks for pointing that out.

What do you think of my other question: "What language do you think is closest to BE?"


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## jess oh seven

i think english probably sounds very ugly and disorganised to a foreigner.


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## JazzByChas

You are right.

I was thinking of sophisticated London aristocratic, or at least, middle class English.  There are many more unsophisticated accents, like the "Cockney" accent (from East London) and all areas that you mentioned.  Same with AE: there are "country" accents that sound almost comical is their atrocious diction and accent (be it drawl or twang)!  



			
				LV4-26 said:
			
		

> Just an afterthought. Reading the thread again I realize some people have said that British English could sound posh or sophisticated.
> This doesn't strike me. I mean you should listen to people from Bermondsey or Newcastle or Liverpool : to me, they don't sound sophisticated at all .


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## bartonig

As a Brit I heartily concur with Jazz's sentiment.


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## Vanda

As I promissed I'm back. This morning I've asked some students this
question and had some interesting replies.
Some mentioned the fact of it being nasal (in this case they were
being specific about USA English - here we have more contact with it; besides movies, TV, also more North Americans come to our city);
others mentioned that it sound to them as if the persons speaking
it sound confused. I asked in which sense, if it had to do with the
fact that they couldn't understand what was being said and they
said no, it doesn't have to do with their understanding or not  just
sounded it to them , but they weren't able to explain further. 
One said an interesting thing: that it sounds like people are in stage, reciting, acting.... (new perspective for me.). In Portuguese we say 
with a _empostada_ voice (don't know the related word in En). 
Someone above on the thread, commenting on my comparison with
the mashed potatoes, mentioned Pygmalion and that funny part of 
Eliza Doolitle trying to speak posh English - I hadn't remembered that
fact when I wrote that, but yeah, that was the picture I had uncounsciously in mind. ...


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## Mei

Hi,

Mi turn:

When I was yonger (so much yonguer than today  ) and I heared English people talking it seemed like they were chewing a gum (is this correct? It sounds so bad for me!)...  ... the italian sounded fun to my hears because I could understand some word and the rest words were familiar... 

Cheers

Mei


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## VenusEnvy

Mei said:
			
		

> My turn:
> 
> When I was younger (so much younger than today  ) and I heard English people speaking it seemed like they were chewing a gum (is this correct? It sounds so bad for me! It sounds good!)...  ... the Italian sounded fun to my hears because I could understand some words and the rest words were familiar...


Some correccionitas, girlfriend!


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## Christoph

It seems to change depending on your experiences. British English seemed to me the proper, easily understandable English when I was in high-school and American English was the chewing-gum English. They just swallow half of the pronunciation. After I've been to the US for several years, I adopted the chewing-gum English, but I do not perceive it as such anymore (snicker). British English seems just a little bit clear now to me. I've got slight troubles with the Australian accent. I got used to the Asian-Indian English quite a bit, it's staccato-like as someone said above.

cr


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## Mei

VenusEnvy said:
			
		

> Some correccionitas, girlfriend!


 
Thanks Lady!


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## Isotta

I think we forget we can hear a lot by listening to different accents within our language. Fargo English is English, though it is alien to me, and would often sound only slightly different to a beginner in English. For me I have trouble digesting accents from Birmingham, whereas accents from parts of Appalachia and Ireland sound absolutely divine to me.

I love the sound of English, more than I do the sound of French because English can sound so soft to me in a way French cannot. I think this comes from the relaxed mouth in English. One of my French friends jokes that his accent in English is best when he has had a few drinks, because only then can he relax his mouth (not true in practise, but you get the idea). 

So I understand the "open" comments--but does this sound nice? 

Z.


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## Rach404

I have a english accent, (I'm from London) but I don't have a "cockney" accent...more like the Essex accent, if people know what I'm talking about hehehe...but anyway, it's really interesting when people say that our accent is like we are talking with our mouths full of mashed potato...ever since this thread started I have been listening extra carefully to the accents around me, and  can't see how people can think that, it's very interesting...then again I am a native of England....but still, it's confusing to me!!! 
I find that some American accents (and some English too) can sound very common, but some of them sound very nice. 
I have found this thread very interesting to say the least! 
Rach


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## Outsider

The original question was about standard British English, I take it.

It's almost as difficult to describe what a language sounds like as it is to listen to your own language as though you were not a native speaker. I would agree with others that standard English sounds "elegant", and add "refined" and "precise".

But I must ask: to what extent do these metaphors translate anything real, and to what extent do they just reflect cultural stereotypes? After all, when I think of standard British English the first images that come to my mind are queen Elizabeth II and Margaret Thatcher. No wonder it sounds "elegant" and "sophisticated".



			
				hsam said:
			
		

> Another sub-question, what is the nearest language (sound-wise) to English (BE to be specific)?


That's an even harder question to answer, especially since I don't usually listen to some of the best candidates: Dutch, Frisian, the Scandinavian Germanic languages. I honestly can't think of any language that I would describe as "close to BE".


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## lingo95

Hmmm....some of my students in Brazil thought English sounded like dogs growling!!  They said speaking English made their throats hurt, and I told them speaking Portuguese made my lips and tongue hurt .


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## Outsider

Second languages often have that effect, especially when we don't practice them much.


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## nanel

Christoph said:
			
		

> It seems to change depending on your experiences. British English seemed to me the proper, easily understandable English when I was in high-school and American English was the chewing-gum English


 
Yes, British English sounds to me like a river, fluently and with no stops. American English sounds like someone with a chewing-gum for me, Irish is easier for me because they have a similar accent to Spanish, Scottish English is difficult for me because it sounds to me like someone speaking English but closing his mouth too much.



			
				Laia said:
			
		

> From "help!" of the Beatles? jajaja
> (ya sé que no lo decías por eso, pero soy una friki, no lo puedo evitar  )


Yo también, jeje

The closest language to English? Maybe German. It is something between English and French to my ears which I can't understand.


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## ddddan

> whereas accents from parts of Appalachia and Ireland sound absolutely divine to me


I have to agree that the Irish lilt is my favourite English accent by far (might be influenced by my Irish heritage, who knows?)


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## Vanda

Hsam , 
Did you observe that the perception Europeans have
of English is a bit different from us living in the wrong  
half part of the world?
I read all posts again and observed this feature. I'm 
going to research more about and learn what influences
the differences: closer contact from Europeans ? other
cultural differences? Well, there's plenty to know about,
don't you think so?


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## Heba

British English sounds so classy and elegant.
I always tried to master the British accent, and I thought that producing the same sounds would be easy since the process of producing Arabic sounds is much more difficult (at least theoritically). However, all my efforts were in vain. When I joined college, I realized that the problem is that the British not only nasalize the basic nasal sounds /n/, /m/ and /ng/ but also a bunch of other sounds. Actually that was a hindrance to me, so I shifted to the American accent which is easier for people whose mother tongue is not the English language.


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## pink84

Just an afterthought. Reading the thread again I realize some people have said that British English could sound posh or sophisticated. 
This doesn't strike me. I mean you should listen to people from Bermondsey or Newcastle or Liverpool : to me, they don't sound sophisticated at all .

I would just like to disagree with the above thread.  I believe that the many regional accents that we have in England are wonderful and add a certain colourfulness to our language and culture.  To say they certain accents don't sound very sophisticated is probably not solely to do with sounds but with social prejudices that we have within our country.  Someone can have a regional accent and speak with some colloquialisms yet still be proficient in the English language, speaking correctly grammar wise.  
I would say that my scouse accent is not particurly strong, I have a twang of it one would say, that is until I go baclk home!  However, I would not change my accent for anything as it makes me so proud of the area I come from.  I feel proud to be an ambassodor for Merseyside everytime I open my mouth.  I do agree however that any accent in its extreme can sound very harsh and incorrect.  But this is just how English adapts itself and works in different areas.  I remember reading that non RP English is much closer to Shakespearean English.  However, because of our social prejudices today to read Shakespeare in any other accent then RP sounds like it is being said as a joke.  
So, I was wondering what foriegners make of our many accents in Britain without these social prejudices.  Something, I read once said that the Scouse accent was very popular when played to foriegners but vice versa when played to British people.
So what do you foriegners think?  I imagine it is very hard to understand strong colloquial accents and especially when I think of all the different words we have for things and phrases etc.
My point in this thread by the way was simply to point out that British English has many different accents and dialect that make a person who they are.


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## Vanda

> So what do you foriegners think? I imagine it is very hard to understand strong colloquial accents and especially when I think of all the different words we have for things and phrases etc.


 
I can tell you that. The day I arrived in London and went to the house
I was supposed to be hosted while in London, the ladyland was receiving
a friend of her daughter from the Wales. Can you imagine? After
one day and one night travelling , being totally worn out, listening
English_ in loco _for the first time, what was that for me? The landlady
asked me: Can you understand the girls? I was lost and thought that
I had spent my whole life learning another language than English!
Then, she told me not to worry, neither could native understand
them , they were using the Welsh language.... It was a big relief!
Ah, and I had had before that another experience in a subway station.
I was coming from the airport to the city and had to change train
in one station. I had no idea if I were in the right place to
do it and asked an old man who worked in that station if I had
got the right platform. Can you imagine his accent? Cockney!
I managed to do everything by myself, because for real  i couldn't
understand him. Just take note that I was arriving for the first time
abroad....


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## LV4-26

pink84 said:
			
		

> I would just like to disagree with the above *thread*. I believe that the many regional accents that we have in England are wonderful and add a certain colourfulness to our language and culture. To say they certain accents don't sound very sophisticated is probably not solely to do with sounds but with social prejudices that we have within our country.


 You mean the above *post* ? The one you quoted ?
Don't get me wrong. "_Not sophisticated"_ is far from derogatory in my mouth. On the contrary, my purpose was to counterbalance the slightly depreciatory undertone I found in the adjectives "posh" and "sophisticated".
And I wanted to point out* that* as a prejudice; that the English accent*s *were much more *diverse* than what is sometimes thought by the foreigners.
And I like the accents I mentionned as much (more, to be really honest) as standard English RP. May be I don't understand the actual meaning of _sophisticated _and so I used it inappropriately. My mistake probably came for the fact that "_sophistiqué_" in French is often used negatively.

And of course, as an unflagging Beatles'fan, Scouse is one of my favorites. 
(though I've never found that the four of them sounded exactly alike).


> My point in this thread by the way was simply to point out that British English has many different accents and dialect that make a person who they are.


 As you can see from 1st paragraph above, I couldn't agree more.
I'd deleted one of my posts (because I thought it was offtopic) where I pointed out that the Shetland accent (Shetland being part of Scotland I take it we can consider it as one of the British accents) had nothing to do with, say, the Southern accent and where I wondered to what extent people from those respective areas understood each other.


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## pink84

I forgot to, rather importantly, say that I wasn't sure of the tone of your *post* as written words can so often be misinterpreted. Perhaps, I was wrongly mistaking sophisticated for intelligence. As a suit can be seen as 'sophisticated' and a tracksuit (I am being ironic!) as not so. But, this doesn't make the person wearing the tracksuit unintelligent and the person wearing the suit intelligent. If that makes any sense? Anyway, I am glad we have cleared that up. 

Chao x


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## Heba

pink84 said:
			
		

> Just an afterthought. Reading the thread again I realize some people have said that British English could sound posh or sophisticated.
> This doesn't strike me. I mean you should listen to people from Bermondsey or Newcastle or Liverpool : to me, they don't sound sophisticated at all .


 
I personally cannot make the difference between the accents of different regions, perhaps because I have never been to England and most of the British English I have heard was on television . Few British people live where I live in my city, and most of them are from London or somewhere near it. 

Watching an interview with a singer from Manchester (Cavana from the late 90s), I noticed that his accent is not as hard as that of people in London and easier to understand. Perhaps I noticed the difference coz I was told were he was from. But in general, I do not tell the difference. All the accents sound sophisticated.


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## LV4-26

How about Welsh accent and dialect ? They should sound different and do sound different as Welsh dialect is of Celtic origin, if I'm not mistaken. Whereas English is rather a Germanic-rooted language.
I sometimes listen to Radio Cymru on line (anybody heard of that station?) and I can't understand a single word. 
How far is it, do you think, from "breton"? I mean the dialect they speak in French Brittany and which is Celtic as well.


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## Heba

I never heard Welsh, so I cannot personally judge.
However, one of my professors have been to Britain and told me that Welsh sounds completely different from English


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## Yang

hsam said:
			
		

> "What does English sound like to a foreigner?"


 
Hmmm...English sounds like a foreign language and is the most familiar foreign language to me.

Taiwan has three main languages, besides that, English is the one I have heard most often, from TV, movies and radio. Well, not that so often, actually.

I knew we had been taught AE in school but hadn't noticed the difference of accent between AE and BE. Up until one day morning, about six o'clock, I turned on a radio station ICRT, which was formerly the Armed Forces Network Taiwan (http://www.icrt.com.tw/modules/tinycontent/index.php?id=1). 

ICRT has been the only all-English radio in Taiwan since 1979. I listened to, though couldn't understand them much, their morning news sometimes, which began at seven. However, I turned on it beforehand that morning and heard someone was speaking (English). I totally could not understand what he was talking! Although it sounded like @#&%@ox#*^#x%$... to me, I knew it's English and, Occasionally, I could distinguish some simple words, such as 'I', 'you', 'and'...etc.

I was so surprised. The English was not the one I used to hear. I focused my attention on and tried to catch what the man said. In the end of the program, I finally knew that it's BBC News! ICRT broadcast a real-time BBC News. The next morning, I prepared a tape and recorded BBC News while I was listening to it. Then I listened to the tape repeatedly. I recorded every day's BBC News and listened to them repeatedly. 

The second day, I could feel the special tone of them. I could distinguish them almost word by word after about two days, though I didn't know most of the words, and found them fascinating. Several days later, I thought they (BE) were elegant, graceful. I didn't know why but you just could feel it. And I could find the words that I didn't know in the dictionary by the broadcaster's pronunciation. One male broadcraster was my favorite, his voice and pronunciation and, especially, the way(tone?) he sounded made me thought of a gentleman. In short, the way he spoke was beautiful.

From seven o'clock, after BBC News, was the usual news program of ICRT, whose broadcasters mostly were Americans. After being acquainted with BE, I could tell the difference of accent between AE and BE, though I still can't not speak BE accent.


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## ddddan

I am not British myself but I understand that for some Britons, their particular accent is cultured in order to identify them with a certain social group, real or imagined.  Perhaps this is more evident when families immigrate to other places, such as here in Canada, and want to preserve their cultural identity.  

Thus I know a family where the parents continually corrected their children's accents.

In addition, it used to be quite common for some Canadians to try to imitate a British-sounding accent in order to sound aristocratic.


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## LV4-26

hsam said:
			
		

> Another sub-question, what is the nearest language (sound-wise) to English (BE to be specific)?


 This question hasn't been answered much, it seems,  so I'd like to come back to it.

If you take a French (and probably any European for that matter) who's rarely ever heard or spoken a word of English, BE sounds almost exactly like AE obviously. Same words (almost), same set of sounds, even if they're pronounced differently.
It takes a few months (years?) of learning English to clearly hear the difference between BE an AE accents. So I guess to a French newbie the closest accent is the American accent. Of course they'll soon be aware that American sounds more nasal but that doesn't mean they'll be able to tell one from the other instantaneously.

If you take me, it's different because English is my second language and I've already heard it a lot, spoken by people from various areas of the world. It's been rightly pointed out that there are several British accents. So I'll restrict to what's called "Received Pronounciation".
To me, I can't really relate this accent to any other, no matter how hard I try.
It just sounds like BE to me - full stop.

However, some other British accents, from the top North of Scotland for instance, rather make me think of Northern Europe, like the Netherlands (mostly) or Scandinavia.


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## JazzByChas

Got to agree with you LV...

Acquiring an ear for the nuances in dialects of the same language, esp AE and BE takes a while. And THANK YOU!!! ...a Frenchman also agrees that American English, for the most part, sounds nasal! _(I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks so!)_

And as for "Received Pronunciation", which is defined as_ "A pronunciation of British English, originally based on the speech of the upper class of southeastern England and characteristic of the English spoken at the public schools and at Oxford and Cambridge Universities. Until recently it was the standard form of English used in British broadcasting." ... _I am going to have to say that this is just the old fashioned notion that everyone must a) sound the same, and b) sound like a snob, in my opinion. The same phenomenon occurs here in the USA, where they teach broadcasters to speak with the same dialect, a sort of flat, lifeless, form of English.

In Great Britain, as well as in the United States of America, there are many different dialects, depending upon where you are, so "_enfin, vive la différence!"_

My $0.02(USD), anyway



			
				LV4-26 said:
			
		

> This question hasn't been answered much, it seems, so I'd like to come back to it.
> 
> If you take a French (and probably any European for that matter) who's rarely ever heard or spoken a word of English, BE sounds almost exactly like AE obviously. Same words (almost), same set of sounds, even if they're pronounced differently.
> It takes a few months (years?) of learning English to clearly hear the difference between BE an AE accents. So I guess to a French newbie the closest accent is the American accent. Of course they'll soon be aware that American sounds more nasal but that doesn't mean they'll be able to tell one from the other instantaneously.
> 
> If you take me, it's different because English is my second language and I've already heard it a lot, spoken by people from various areas of the world. It's been rightly pointed out that there are several British accents. So I'll restrict to what's called "Received Pronounciation".
> To me, I can't really relate this accent to any other, no matter how hard I try.
> It just sounds like BE to me - full stop.
> 
> However, some other British accents, from the top North of Scotland for instance, rather make me think of Northern Europe, like the Netherlands (mostly) or Scandinavia.


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## cirrus

LV4-26 said:
			
		

> How about Welsh accent and dialect ? They should sound different and do sound different as Welsh dialect is of Celtic origin, if I'm not mistaken. Whereas English is rather a Germanic-rooted language.
> I sometimes listen to Radio Cymru on line (anybody heard of that station?) and I can't understand a single word.
> How far is it, do you think, from "breton"? I mean the dialect they speak in French Brittany and which is Celtic as well.


 
This should probably be a different thread. I am not surprised you can't understand. It comes from a group of languages called brythonic. It is in effect what was spoken here before the Romans came and then the Angles, Saxons, Danes and Normans and whoever else happened to be passing. 

Welsh people wouldn't take kindly to their language being referred to as a dialect. It is a language in its own right. It reminds me of the remark attributed to Napoleon - a language is a dialect with an army. You're right that is related to Breton, and for that matter, Irish, Gaelic and Manx. When you are in Brittany you can often work out what the place names mean if you understand sufficient Welsh. 

The following link gives more information: http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/storyofwelsh/

In terms of how it sounds, the English used in Wales is heavily influenced by the intonation and syntax of Welsh and it sounds quite different in the south compared to what it does in the north. It is interesting that this seems to apply whether or not people actually speak Welsh.


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## Tamlane

I'd hate to mention any taboo about a certain unpopular linguistic theory, but as one person hears one language as being 'angry' may not be what another person hears, especially if that person is speaking another language. I just don't see the importance of knowing what any spoken English sounds like to the native speaker of any other language, especially considering that it only demonstrates something we ought already to know -that the social factors affecting a language will alter the perception of what is heard when listening to another language, be that angry, loud, slow, or whatever. Unfortunately demonstrating at least some proof of that rather unpopular lingiustic theory.


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## Québecissime

Hi all, im from Québec and my first language is French. I was raised surounded by hundreds of millions of english speaking people so i became pretty bilingual even without speaking it actulay in my daily life. I may sound a bit "childish" in my vocabulary as my knokledge of English word univers is way smaller than in French. lets say i understand it better than i speak/write it.

 About the main question, I have also asked myself the same question about French.. specificly Québec French. one time a british guy in a movie was imitating french and it was pretty funny.

 As for English, I am mostly use to North-American English wich i think sound exacly the same in Canada and northern USA(exept for the "About" lol). I can get Southern USA English pretty good but I have WAY more trouble understanding british english but i still get it if its a normal person (meaning he talk normaly). they use very different word from American english and often talk with mouth half-closed... hard to describe but SOOOO different than USA. 

 As for the Autralian English..... I tried to watch the "Chopper" movie (wich was realy good) in original version but... no way, it was like chinese. Scotish English is also very hard to understand, Harder than British but less than Ozzies....

 In French theyr is also alot of different way of talking. Each Québec region as is own the same way each french region got is. The Marseille old accent is barely understandable for a common Montréal citizen...


 BTW : English sound only like english to me.... some word look alot like German or Dutch but the sound is unique. The "TH" is one of the bigest challent for French people. Three, Three, Three.... biggest fear of quebec people.. im not so bad at it 

 2-BTW : French from France is hardly compatible with english... no offense to the French but your English sounds very very bad. Maybe cauze im french to but Spanish to English sounds way better in my ear... The Québec accent is strongly influenced by English and we can almost get ride of our "French flavour" when speaking english... for those who call themself bilingual of course.


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## Amityville

Enjoyed your post Québecissime, fascinating to hear how things sound to you.
Tamlane - nothing to do with any theory or taboo, it's just interesting to hear how others hear things.


----------



## I.C.

hsam said:
			
		

> Another sub-question, what is the nearest language
> (sound-wise) to English (BE to be specific)?


 Maybe Frisian? 
By the way, 


> German is quite harsh and macho


 "Gelassen stieg die Nacht ans Land, 
Lehnt träumend an der Berge Wand"
doesn't sound very macho if it's recited properly - at least to my ears. Though I don't have a problem if it does to yours. But I do wonder if you have heard or noticed German being spoken in certain ways.
However,
“Und vergessen Sie nicht, meine Herren: Das Leben im Felde ist_ harrrt_! _Harrrt_ und entbehrungsreich!" 
certainly did sound (humorously) macho when my Company Sergeant Major bellowed it at the end of roll call. German can sound very harsh, brusque and cutting - I use it to my advantage at times -, but it doesn't have to, in my opinion. 

Likewise, as I can't go back to the time when English was a mere garble to me, when I hear English, most of all I hear flexible individual voices. Plus a certain local colour and maybe social background. These may carry stereotypical associations. But there are so many places and spheres, it's impossible and unjust to attach one label to all of them.


----------



## ampurdan

Honestly, when I was a child and went to the beach, where families of Germans, French, British, Swiss and Dutch lay down altogether mixed with some nationals, I just could not tell apart all the nonsense my ears heard. There was much "gkh" sounds, though -I can remember that- maybe because of the "French-German-Dutch r".

I remember asking my father if either to speak French or English, I just have to talk backwards. He disappointed me.

Then I begin to notice that French was not such nonsense after all. It had lots of similarities to Catalan. All the trouble was with pronounciation.

But English sounded to me just as any other foreign language. If I had to attach some feeling to its sound, I would say it sounded to me as harsh and rough as all the Germanic languages I used to hear.

Then I was introduced to English through the music my siblings listened to and those strange video-clips of the first 80's.

I begin to learn some English when I was 9. The sounds my British teacher emitted did not seem harsh or rough at all to me. The first time I heard the word "butterfly", it sounded cool to me. Indeed English sounded utermost cool and modern.

This image fell down when I happened to pay attention to British TV series. The American ones did not affect, because they were the "normal" series and they did not seem alien to me (in Spain, all foreign movies and series are dubbed). But British ones had a somewhat grey old-fashioned look from the early 70's, but they were the most hilarious. This has not much to do with our topic, though.

I've been to England and to the USA. In the USA I never had problems with the pronounciation of the guys over there. I have no problem understanding the BBC standard accent but in England... I remember having heard people whose accent resembles so much to German (someone said to me "turn royt", that is "turn right", "oy" as the German "eu" ). And I have also a prob with Londoners. Now I don't remember how they speak but it requires absolute attention to get sentences as "regular or large?".

I do think Tony Blair talks as if he mashed potatoes and he sounds really posh to me. I've never heard a word from the mouth of the Queen or a member of her family.


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## Tamlane

Amityville said:
			
		

> Enjoyed your post Québecissime, fascinating to hear how things sound to you.
> Tamlane - nothing to do with any theory or taboo, it's just interesting to hear how others hear things.


I was making reference to a theory (or rahter, a hypothesis) by Sapir and Whorf that basically suggests that two people speaking two different languages would find it impossible to understand one an other, or to explain an idea from their language, something absract or intangeable, because '...the distinctions encoded in one language are not found in any other language.' _Crystal, 15._ Most people would agree that this is not true, because absolutely any idea, anything at all, can be communicated by two speakers of two different languages to each other with understanding, for we can speak more than one language and indeed can translate languages with absolute meaning intact. I wasn't referring to the literal intention of the hypothesis, but to the idea that philosophers take into account when examining the hypothesis, and that is that no native speakers of any two languages will indeed see the world the same way, or at least not exactly so. The importance, as I meant, of this is that what is perceived as an angry voice will not matter when the speaker of another language tells us they're hearing what sounds like an angry voice when hearing, say, English speakers, because we should already expect that they'd hear something different than what English speakers perceive when hearing English. It's only showing us that they are used to hearing a different tone level when hearing what they think of as a pleasant voice, or an angry voice. I don't mean to say that it's not fascinating to know what some native speaker of another language hears when they hear English, only that it's not an important or helpful thing to know.


----------



## LV4-26

Québecissime said:
			
		

> . no offense to the French but your English sounds very very bad.


I couldn't agree more.....alas. 


			
				JazzByChass said:
			
		

> a Frenchman also agrees that American English, for the most part, sounds nasal!


To be quite frank, I was comforted in my impression by hearing this particular phrase a few times : "anybody can speak with a pinched nose". I won't tell you where I heard it as I don't want to trigger off another anglo-american war.


----------



## hsam

Yang said:
			
		

> Hmmm...English sounds like a foreign language and is the most familiar foreign language to me.
> 
> Taiwan has three main languages, besides that, English is the one I have heard most often, from TV, movies and radio. Well, not that so often, actually.
> 
> I knew we had been taught AE in school but hadn't noticed the difference of accent between AE and BE. Up until one day morning, about six o'clock, I turned on a radio station ICRT, which was formerly the Armed Forces Network Taiwan (http://www.icrt.com.tw/modules/tinycontent/index.php?id=1).
> 
> ICRT has been the only all-English radio in Taiwan since 1979. I listened to, though couldn't understand them much, their morning news sometimes, which began at seven. However, I turned on it beforehand that morning and heard someone was speaking (English). I totally could not understand what he was talking! Although it sounded like @#&%@ox#*^#x%$... to me, I knew it's English and, Occasionally, I could distinguish some simple words, such as 'I', 'you', 'and'...etc.
> 
> I was so surprised. The English was not the one I used to hear. I focused my attention on and tried to catch what the man said. In the end of the program, I finally knew that it's BBC News! ICRT broadcast a real-time BBC News. The next morning, I prepared a tape and recorded BBC News while I was listening to it. Then I listened to the tape repeatedly. I recorded every day's BBC News and listened to them repeatedly.
> 
> The second day, I could feel the special tone of them. I could distinguish them almost word by word after about two days, though I didn't know most of the words, and found them fascinating. Several days later, I thought they (BE) were elegant, graceful. I didn't know why but you just could feel it. And I could find the words that I didn't know in the dictionary by the broadcaster's pronunciation. One male broadcraster was my favorite, his voice and pronunciation and, especially, the way(tone?) he sounded made me thought of a gentleman. In short, the way he spoke was beautiful.
> 
> From seven o'clock, after BBC News, was the usual news program of ICRT, whose broadcasters mostly were Americans. After being acquainted with BE, I could tell the difference of accent between AE and BE, though I still can't not speak BE accent.


 
Wow, firstly I thought you guys had finished two weeks ago!

Wow thanks!

That's interesting there is this one presenter who does breakfast news and he is so infuriating!! He has this very long "I'm so handsome" drawl (no more like a slide) and Mum and I are sometimes like "What the hell did he just say!" 
Then you turn on children's TV and you get this geordie (Liverpuddlian (!!)) and it just grates on the ears!!

Thanks for all the comments


----------



## hsam

I.C. said:
			
		

> Maybe Frisian?
> By the way,
> "Gelassen stieg die Nacht ans Land,
> Lehnt träumend an der Berge Wand"
> doesn't sound very macho if it's recited properly - at least to my ears. Though I don't have a problem if it does to yours. But I do wonder if you have heard or noticed German being spoken in certain ways.
> However,
> “Und vergessen Sie nicht, meine Herren: Das Leben im Felde ist_ harrrt_! _Harrrt_ und entbehrungsreich!"
> certainly did sound (humorously) macho when my Company Sergeant Major bellowed it at the end of roll call. German can sound very harsh, brusque and cutting - I use it to my advantage at times -, but it doesn't have to, in my opinion.
> 
> Likewise, as I can't go back to the time when English was a mere garble to me, when I hear English, most of all I hear flexible individual voices. Plus a certain local colour and maybe social background. These may carry stereotypical associations. But there are so many places and spheres, it's impossible and unjust to attach one label to all of them.


 
Sorry if I caused any offense!!

It's probably from the bad pronunciation of my peers who are learning German and don't have the correct intonation! (I don't speak German I hasten to add!)

P.S. Your English is great!!


----------



## I.C.

hsam said:
			
		

> Sorry if I caused any offense!!


 Don’t worry, you didn't. 


> It's probably from the bad pronunciation of my peers who are learning German and don't have the correct intonation!


 Well.. I will say that having trouble to pronounce the German "ch"- and "s"-sounds, for instance, doesn't really make it sound any softer. It can be very cruel to listen to. 
Movies with WWII-themes may not be an ideal source for the melodic variety of spoken German, either...
But let me add it’s not impossible to become good. Actually I informally helped someone, whose native language was English, to acquire a perfect German accent.

But I said it, the German language has harsh traits. One or the other German may also be a bit harsh in his manners or personality, which in turn might find its reflection in the way he individually pronounces the language...
Also, maybe as an insider my view is too differentiated anyway to judge the sound in comparison to other languages. But when comparing German to English in particular, I'm a bit sceptical whether German is really rougher on the ear.


> P.S. Your English is great!!


 Thanks. Sadly it's a bit rusty.


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## kiro

hsam said:
			
		

> just say!"
> Then you turn on children's TV and you get this *geordie (Liverpuddlian (!!))* and it just grates on the ears!!


Don't you mean Geordie from Newcastle (not Liverpool)?
By the way, Estuary English can also grate on the ears of people from other parts of the country. 

(About German: I agree that some of the perceived harshness in its sound is undoubtedly due to the kind of stereotypes portrayed in films about WWII, etc. Since hearing the smooth, elegant voice of the woman on my Learn German CD, my perception has definitely changed).


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## la reine victoria

I often wonder how European people who are learning English are able to interpret the Scottish language if ever they visit Scotland.  My mother was from Scotland but I was born and brought up in the south of England.  Educated in London at an all girls school where we were expected to speak very correctly; we even had elocution classes!!

My mother's accent had a trace of Scottish but I remember that we spent many happy times when she would deliberately lapse into a broad Aberdeen dialect, full of very strange words, which I quickly picked up and we had long conversations in 'Aberdonian' punctuated with gales of laughter  .  

So, any French, Italian, Spanish, German, etc. who have been to Scotland, I would love to hear how you coped with the Scottish accent.


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## I.C.

Haven't been to Scotland, but of course met Scottish people. I didn't have many problems with the _accent_ so far, but dialect or whatever you prefer to call it could prove to be a challenge, I guess. I could make sense of Irvine Welsh (I ken you...). 
Some while ago I met some Miami-based Columbians and they were almost outraged about the sounds the Scottish make, said this wasn't English at all. I myself feel a few edges _can_ indicate character.


----------



## DBM

Nocciolina said:
			
		

> Ok, you were quicker! I would also be interested to know. Especially the what foreigners think of the different variations, ie English English v Scottish English v Australian English v Canadian and so on.......


 
Ok,I'm an advanced student of English and it seems to me highly interesting the theme you've posted in here. To me British English is the best one (maybe b/c there are lots of people who mistake me for a Brit when speaking in English haha). To me, people with British English sound like they were cleverer than the rest. An American accent with too much tongue-retroflexion when pronouncing the letter "R" really drives me up the wall. A refined Australian accent is really similar to the British one and to me, it is really funny to hear 'em pronounce words such as "snake", which is almost pronounced as "/snaik/". And what about the "about" of Canadien people??? aint it funny? haha. So, in short, Australian English is like a blending of both British and American accent. To me, Tony Blair's accent is great, basically b/c it is noticeable he's British but he doesnt have a really strong British accent and it therefore sounds clever but, at the same time, not pretentious.


----------



## joanpeace

Nocciolina said:
			
		

> Hmmm, I think that hsam is more interested in knowing what foreigners think when they hear English speakers speaking English. Correct me if I am wrong. For example for me, when I hear Italians speaking it sounds as though they are singing. It's such a melodic language. When I hear Chinese people speaking chinese they sound angry or very excited. Spanish speaking seem to talk extremely fast and rarely need to come up for air. Am I on the right line hsam?



**************

My mother tongue is English.

I think the most melodic English is that spoken by people from Ireland. They seem to have a much wider range of pitch to their sentences. I love hearing someone with an Irish accent!  

My girlfriend (who was born and raised in Canada but has lived in three different regions in the United States for the past 20 years) says the biggest difference between Canadian English and American English is that we enunciate our words better. I think Canadian spoken English is quite sloppy, but apparently she feels we still speak more clearly than our southern counterparts. Just an opinion, mind you.


----------



## BasedowLives

i've only spoken to a few canadians.  and they sounded almost exactly like i did.

whenever i think of English accents, I think of Hugh Grant and Elizabeth Hurley, but i've been told that they're not really representative as they sound very "posh". it also seems more glottal than AE. and i'm lazy so it'd be hard for me to keep that up for more than say an hour. people from the usa are the masters of slurring words and inventing contractions!


----------



## luis masci

I find Brit people “forget” to pronounce the last “r” and that creates confusion to me. For example when they spell the  word “November” I expect hear whole letters spelled but instead I hear something like “novamba”. In other words it’s even worse, in “better” I hear “beta” and so on.


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## pink84

Your so right, I just can't pronounce my r's!  I am having real trouble with the rrrrrrr sound in Spanish.  It's impossible!  When I talk i say novemba beta I can't say it any other way.  My Mexican friend can't understand me half the time because he used to the American accent.


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## diegodbs

luis masci said:
			
		

> I find Brit people “forget” to pronounce the last “r” and that creates confusion to me. For example when they spell the word “November” I expect hear whole letters spelled but instead I hear something like “novamba”. In other words it’s even worse, in “better” I hear “beta” and so on.


 

For me it's just the opposite of what luis masci said, I'm used to the English way of pronouncing and its rhythm, and I always think that the American accent is full of "r" all the time. I like the way that British people pronounce "cart/start/dart" and so on, with no "r" sound and the lengthening of the vowels. That's the way I'm used to. In Spain there are more people and teachers coming from the U.K., and less American teachers.


----------



## DBM

pink84 said:
			
		

> Your so right, I just can't pronounce my r's! I am having real trouble with the rrrrrrr sound in Spanish. It's impossible! When I talk i say novemba beta I can't say it any other way. My Mexican friend can't understand me half the time because he used to the American accent.


 
Hello, pink84:
Ok, I'm Spanish and I must tell you that the problem with pronouncing the Spanish "r" sound is not exclusively yours, British people. American can't pronounce this sound either and they produce an extra-retroflexed "r" instead, which makes them be really funny. So don't really worry about that. The "r" sound in Spanish is difficult to pronounce even by Spanish children. In fact, this is the last sound they adopt.
How can you be worried about your r's???? I love the way you say "car, go, moment, thanks very much indeed (haha), video...." In fact, having been allowed to choose (given that I'm not a native speaker but a learner), I've been declined to adopt your accent from the very beginning of my learning process (I was 8 then -now I'm 20). So, the point I'm trying to make is that you British should be proud of your smart, clever, tantalising accent.


----------



## mamboney

I.C. said:
			
		

> Haven't been to Scotland, but of course met Scottish people. I didn't have many problems with the _accent_ so far, but dialect or whatever you prefer to call it could prove to be a challenge, I guess. I could make sense of Irvine Welsh (I ken you...).
> Some while ago I met some Miami-based Columbians and they were almost outraged about the sounds the Scottish make, said this wasn't English at all. I myself feel a few edges _can_ indicate character.


 
Many people would agree with the Columbians.  There was a Scottish movie called "My Name is Joe" that actually had subtitles (in English!) for the English (spoken with a thick Scots accent/lots of slang) being spoken in the film.  I had no trouble understanding it (because I am a devoted Irvine Welsh reader), but apparently many other people did need a little help--hence the subtitles...

a side note: maintaining seperate accents/slang vocabulary is one way to maintain a seperate identity (being Scottish in Great Britain)...


----------



## Hakro

It’s exactly as Nocciolina said: there are so many variations of English (the most common is bad English) that it’s not possible to tell simply and shortly how it sounds for a foreigner.



> Very interesting. I always thought that foreigners understand North American Eng better because it dominates the media. They also use fewer vowel sounds, and don't pronounce a lot of the consonants.


 I totally agree with Nocciolina about the reason of better understanding American English, it’s the American domination in the cinematic art and business, films and TV. We hear American English every day for a couple of hours, if we have time for sitting at the TV set, because the films and TV-shows are never dubbed in the Finnish TV.

British English should be easier to understand because British pronunciation is much more clear, both consonants and vowels are more distinct. “T” sounds like “t” and not like “d” as in American English.




> On the other hand, American English is easier to understand than British English for me, because americans open more their mouth when they speak.




 I disagree with Laia about opening the mouth. If you all promise not to feel hurt or offensed, I could tell that to my ears AE sounds like the speakers had their jaws tied with a strat, and BE sounds like the speakers had breathing difficulties (or they were chewing gum, as Mei said). Or I could say that the Americans sound lazy or tired to speak, but the Brits sound inperious or a bit angry.

    That’s how I hear it. You have to consider that my native tongue, Finnish, is very different from English; we have a lot of vowels, something like Italian. 

I have spoken in English with people of many different nationalities. The most difficult to understand has been the Far East English but the French often come pretty close. The easiest to understand has not been BE (too heavy accent for me) nor AE (too indistict vowels), not even Finnish English (although they pronounce the same way as I do). I’d like to choose Dutch English as number one English: clear pronunciation, no special accent, no dialects, no slang...


----------



## Maika

hsam said:
			
		

> Hello all,
> 
> A question that has always intrigued me is "What does English sound like to a foreigner?" I realise that there are many accents and I'm interested in all of them but I'm primarily interested in the sound of British English.
> 
> It's an interesting idea for a native as it is always just going to sound normal for them. I was hoping for answers like for example "to me French sounds very feminine" or "to me German sounds very macho" or something like that.
> 
> If possible I'd like to get lots of opinions on this from different nationalities.
> 
> Looking forward to your answers as usual,
> 
> Hoz




I just love british english, actually i learned english here in mexico city in a british school many years ago, and by then my accent was so british! but now it is almost gone. I mean i did not  have contact with many british people afterwards, and the only contact was with people from usa, so now what i have is a strange accent, sometimes americans say that my english sounds like from the north of usa.  Well, how does british english sound to me? definitely very clear, very nice and.... how would i put this? a language with personality, yes, indeed.

Regards


----------



## Molesto

It depends on the accent, but as far as I´m concerned, British English sounds to me weird, no offence. It´s just that sounds very straight, polite and sometimes too formal.


----------



## luis masci

I ‘d say that depends mainly of the person who is speaking. I used to find Frank Sinatra for instance, so easy to understand in his songs. 
I always understand better when the person pronounces clear (whether Brit or American), but if I have to choose between both with the same clarity I will rather prefer AE. Surely due my English formation.​


----------



## Isotta

Recently I became curious to see how well foreigners can distinguish accents within the English language. So I've been doing imitations of the Appalachian accent and an approximate RP, both of which I can do with much success since I grew up around both. Test subjects are about a dozen French people, four Germans and one Spanish person, most of whom initially expressed a preference for the English accent. Not a single one of them could tell the difference between the two.

Thus I am surprised to find that so many non-natives in this thread prefer one accent over the other, because I wonder how well they can distinguish them. Even though I have virtually no accent in French, I have a tough time detecting and certainly attributing accents in French unless they are strong. 

I don't mean to doubt or criticise anyone in the thread--I just wonder if one accent is stigmatised, depending on the country, for I've noticed the notion of the American one is here. Then again, perhaps the majority of our members really can distinguish the accents perfectly. 

Isotta.


----------



## MCL

Wow! Perhaps not the best forum in which to admit to being from the US! In small defense of ourselves - there ARE mannerly, well educated, well spoken Americans!  Although in the US the entertainment media doesn't often portray them.  Onward!   
 
BTW -I LOVE a British accent!
 
   Let me add one more English accent to this discussion - Jamaican!  It has a beautiful, lilting, musical sound to my ears.  It's roots are British English, and African Patois!  (And the people were just as delightful!)

 And, an observation, if you will indulge me...  (I'm giving away my age here.) We grew up with a stereotype of Russians as being coarse, and their language harsh!  On visiting the Ukraine last year we found the people lovely - and the Russian language sounded musical to our ears!

Wonder how much our perceptions are filtered through our preconceptions!


----------



## hsam

oh my god... i have to continually come back and check this thread its amazing...i keep thinking oh its finished now but everytime i come back there's more to read... keep going!!
it's great to hear from so many different perspectives from right across the world.
there are so many accents that have been brought to discussion here and its interesting how where you live affects your perception of english.

it's nice to know that us Brits are elegant sounding but i would like to add that whatever people say an american guy who comes over to blightly with some wonderful rich US accent (where i live new yorkers go down well) has all the girls' attention!! sometimes i wish i had their accents they're so much more interesting than mine!!

Anyway i will continue to check on this thread so keep putting down your thoughts.

Thanks a bundle...

Holly


----------



## clipper

I too have been reading this thread for a while so I´ll give my opinion for what its worth. 

I have taught english in Madrid and so I am quite surprised that so many spanish speakers express a preference for british english as most of my students said that they preferred to hear and hence learn american english. I would like to know if there are underlying reasons for this though as I believe that many of my students had summer schools paid for by their parents and lets face it a trip to San Francisco or LA is a bit more appealing than a trip to Wolverhampton or Slough... (sorry to offend anyone from those towns...), second choice was usually irish english.

And to show solidarity with other strugglers in spanish speaking countries, my "r"s are my weakness in spanish too I am often complimented on my spanish but when ther´s a criticism its always directed at my "r"s..

And to show solidarity with those learning english, we too have problems understanding each other. I was in New York few years ago and went to a 7/11 or something similar and had to ask 5 times for a lighter until I was understood. Of course I was asking for a "lightah" and not a "lyderrr" as I eventual figured out, and immitating the accent I was understood straight away.


----------



## hsam

clipper said:
			
		

> I too have been reading this thread for a while so I´ll give my opinion for what its worth.
> 
> I have taught english in Madrid and so I am quite surprised that so many spanish speakers express a preference for british english as most of my students said that they preferred to hear and hence learn american english. I would like to know if there are underlying reasons for this though as I believe that many of my students had summer schools paid for by their parents and lets face it a trip to San Francisco or LA is a bit more appealing than a trip to Wolverhampton or Slough... (sorry to offend anyone from those towns...), second choice was usually irish english.
> 
> And to show solidarity with other strugglers in spanish speaking countries, my "r"s are my weakness in spanish too I am often complimented on my spanish but when ther´s a criticism its always directed at my "r"s..
> 
> And to show solidarity with those learning english, we too have problems understanding each other. I was in New York few years ago and went to a 7/11 or something similar and had to ask 5 times for a lighter until I was understood. Of course I was asking for a "lightah" and not a "lyderrr" as I eventual figured out, and immitating the accent I was understood straight away.


 
v.true! In fact differing english word usage also impacts my understanding. sometimes the words used in the US are so different i have to get them to describe what they trying to say:

i.e. BE tap= AE faucet (that is just such a strange word for me
personally it sounds v.old fashioned

BE pavement = AE sidewalk 

BE trousers= AE pants (in england pants are underwear (ropa interior!))

I'd be interested if any americans/australians etc. could suggest words or phrases that they find amusing in BE.

Thanks for bringing that up clipper.

Holly


----------



## BasedowLives

hsam said:
			
		

> v.true! In fact differing english word usage also impacts my understanding. sometimes the words used in the US are so different i have to get them to describe what they trying to say:
> 
> i.e. BE tap= AE faucet (that is just such a strange word for me
> personally it sounds v.old fashioned
> 
> BE pavement = AE sidewalk
> 
> BE trousers= AE pants (in england pants are underwear (ropa interior!))
> 
> I'd be interested if any americans/australians etc. could suggest words or phrases that they find amusing in BE.
> 
> Thanks for bringing that up clipper.
> 
> Holly



In AE a tap is usually something that is put on a keg
pavement is what sidewalks are made out of
trousers are a subset of pants

words that i find amusing in BE:  lift, telly, tube, the concept of WC, bollocks, pissed (its drunk connotation)

a british phrase that ive imported into my regular speech is "arsed".  i can't be arsed to incorporate much more though.


----------



## nichec

Hello to all,
Okay, let's hear some opinion from Asia 
First of all, I'm sorry that you guys find Chinese unpleasant (... sounds like they are angry or very excited....), not that I like it much myself It's such a unromantic language, if you ask my opinion.

Secondly, I agree with most of you guys that French sounds quite tender and light to the ears, and German sounds quite rough. To me, both Spanish and Italian are beautiful ( Italian, the most beautiful language I've ever heard ) 

We were forced to learn English in Taiwan from junior high on, I've never understood why but I love the language so much from the very beginning.( It was the first foreign language I heard ) We were taught northern AE, and at that time, it sounded like a song for me. I thought it sounded romantic and poetic, especially comparing to my mother language....

But then, I started to get the chance to hear many different kinds of accents in English and other languages as well. I began to realize my biggest interest lies in literature and language when I was in senior high. I thought, at that time, the southern accent sounds more aggresive ( no offence ) , and the English that's spoken in Ireland sounds melancholy and a bit difficult to understand in the beginning. By the time when I started taking classes in poetry in college ( and I was already quite good in northern AE ) , I found BE impossibly elegent, and you simply can't read a poem properly without that accent.

Though when I really went to England years later, I was a bit taken aback by their everyday language , I still love to hear BE on TV or movies


----------



## throughout

I also love languages, I don't even speak a good english, but I'm learning.
About "r's" thing..My brother can't pronounce it, and he's 25  and his mother tongue is spanish, so don't worry about it. There are kids that can't pronounce it as well.


----------



## jimreilly

Tamlane said:
			
		

> c I don't mean to say that it's not fascinating to know what some native speaker of another language hears when they hear English, only that it's not an important or helpful thing to know.


I find it very helpful to know that some French people find the sound of American English "lazy" because we don't form our vowels with quite as much tension around the mouth and consistency as French people usually do. It helps me understand, for example, some of the changes I need to make in my own pronunciation of French to speak it better. 
It also helps me understand some of the negative reactions I might get from some French people (the majority of whom I have always found kind, polite, and helpful, by the way) when I speak in a way they might find "lazy". 

I also find it useful to know that many people find American English nasal. It is nasal, often unnecessarily so, and their reactions are good reminders! The nasality affects the pleasantness of people's speaking voices and also their ability to sing some kinds of music with what is considered an attractive sound, country western twang not included (I'm not knocking it, just noting that a different amount of nasality can be succesfully used).

Some of the reactions are also very usefull (sometimes unintentionally) in what they tell us about people's attitudes toward class, social status, ethnic origin, and other sociological issues. It might be endlessy useful for some white U.S. folks, for example, to analyze their reactions to some African-American speech, perhaps helping them to discover just how persistent racism actually is.


----------



## Maika

MCL said:
			
		

> Wow! Perhaps not the best forum in which to admit to being from the US! In small defense of ourselves - there ARE mannerly, well educated, well spoken Americans!  Although in the US the entertainment media doesn't often portray them.  Onward!
> 
> BTW -I LOVE a British accent!
> 
> Let me add one more English accent to this discussion - Jamaican!  It has a beautiful, lilting, musical sound to my ears.  It's roots are British English, and African Patois!  (And the people were just as delightful!)
> 
> And, an observation, if you will indulge me...  (I'm giving away my age here.) We grew up with a stereotype of Russians as being coarse, and their language harsh!  On visiting the Ukraine last year we found the people lovely - and the Russian language sounded musical to our ears!
> 
> Wonder how much our perceptions are filtered through our preconceptions!




Of course there are a LOT of people from USA who speak a very nice, clear and educated English, I have been with many of those people. We are just giving some personal opinions and viewpoints, don't worry  =)

About Jamaican accent, you must then like Harry Belafonte's songs, don't you? have you heard him? If not, tell me and I woul suggest some of the songs I love.

Regards


He's one of my predilects from the "oldies".


----------



## Maika

Ouch, did I say "predilects"? LOL, must be it's too late and I am sleepy.

I meant "favorite", sorry.

Hope all of you have a great New Year 2006


----------



## LV4-26

Being used to British pronounciaton (mostly RP by the way) I often have difficulties to understand Americans. However there are some Americans I understand perfectly even though I've never been to the US. I'm mentionning that because I've just heard Woody Allen being interviewed on BBC4 and I realized he's one of those few Americans I can understand every single word from. So I wondered what was that peculiar accent? Is it plain New-York accent or is it mixed with another one? Why do I find it more comprehensible than the other American accents?


----------



## hsam

nichec said:
			
		

> First of all, I'm sorry that you guys find Chinese unpleasant (... sounds like they are angry or very excited....), not that I like it much myself It's such a unromantic language, if you ask my opinion.


 
thanks for your response nichec and im sorry if anyone offended you. after watchin "crouching tiger, hidden dragon" (madarin with english subtitles) i was taken aback by your extraordinary language, and was determined to learn more. i am now taking up madarin lessons and am throughly enjoying it even though im not very good!!

thankyou holly


----------



## hsam

LV4-26 said:
			
		

> Being used to British pronounciaton (mostly RP by the way) I often have difficulties to understand Americans. However there are some Americans I understand perfectly even though I've never been to the US. I'm mentionning that because I've just heard Woody Allen being interviewed on BBC4 and I realized he's one of those few Americans I can understand every single word from. So I wondered what was that peculiar accent? Is it plain New-York accent or is it mixed with another one? Why do I find it more comprehensible than the other American accents?


 
i sympathise with you, i sometimes struggle to understand them!!
as for woody allen's specific accent-no idea!

thanks


----------



## hsam

diegodbs said:
			
		

> For me it's just the opposite of what luis masci said, I'm used to the English way of pronouncing and its rhythm, and I always think that the American accent is full of "r" all the time. I like the way that British people pronounce "cart/start/dart" and so on, with no "r" sound and the lengthening of the vowels. That's the way I'm used to. In Spain there are more people and teachers coming from the U.K., and less American teachers.


 
its very interesting that within england specifically there are cockney accents and very formal london area/ home counties accents.

the cart/start/dart people are probably the latter and for luis masci i think he's referring to cockneys or just plain lazy people!!

out of interest is anyone familiar with how to understand cockney-rhyming-slang, for example:

rosy lea = tea (tea and lea rhyme) 
but then for the slang we would say "a nice cup of rosy"

barnet fair = hair (hair and fair rhyme) 
so we would say "oh she's got a nice barnet!"

butcher's hook = look 
quite crude but a man might say to his mate "have a butcher's at her" if an attractive girl walks past

interesting stuff? i have a very good book on this slang if anyone is interested enough to want to learn more.


----------



## BasedowLives

LV4-26 said:
			
		

> Being used to British pronounciaton (mostly RP by the way) I often have difficulties to understand Americans. However there are some Americans I understand perfectly even though I've never been to the US. I'm mentionning that because I've just heard Woody Allen being interviewed on BBC4 and I realized he's one of those few Americans I can understand every single word from. So I wondered what was that peculiar accent? Is it plain New-York accent or is it mixed with another one? Why do I find it more comprehensible than the other American accents?


I don't know what his accent is. It's very unique and I really don't know anybody that sounds like him. He just sounds very unsure of himself...

Speaking of unintelligable accents.  I just watched Vera Drake a while ago, and I could barely understand it!  I was amazed at how much I struggled to understand them.


----------



## jimreilly

LV4-26 said:
			
		

> Being used to British pronounciaton (mostly RP by the way) I often have difficulties to understand Americans. However there are some Americans I understand perfectly even though I've never been to the US. I'm mentionning that because I've just heard Woody Allen being interviewed on BBC4 and I realized he's one of those few Americans I can understand every single word from. So I wondered what was that peculiar accent? Is it plain New-York accent or is it mixed with another one? Why do I find it more comprehensible than the other American accents?


Well, folks he was born in Brooklyn and schooled in Brooklyn, which is one big clue! In High School on Long Island I knew lots of people who had that accent. The same thing was true in college in Upstate New York, where many students came from the New York City area, more than a few of them Jewish and intellectual. One of the things that made the college tolerable, I might add. I particularly remember one young man active in civil rights stuff (this was in the 60's) who had the same kind of somewhat high-pitched and nasal eagerness in his voice, and I also remember a sociolgy professor with a similar vocal production. Both were Jewish and from New York. Haven't thought about them for years, hope they're both well and happy!

One even hears the accent in Minnesota occasionally, since lots of us here originally come from points East, but it's much rarer.


----------



## nichec

Hello again to all:
@hsam
Please don't say sorry for such a trivial thing, as I mentioned in my previous post, I don't really find Chinese very attractive myself ( but I should, right? ). So, there's no offence whatsoever ( at least non taken ). I've noticed that you've always been very polite and kind to everyone, I'm sure we all appreciate it very much 

As to the movie you mentioned, I'm sorry to tell you that among the four main characters, only two of them are native speakers, one of them comes from Hong Kong, the other one comes from Malaysia. And among the two whose mother tongue's Chinese, one speaks Chinese from China, the other speaks Chinese from Taiwan.

So, I'm not sure which kind of Chinese are you learning right now, but I understand that it's very difficult for western people to learn Asian languages, and vice versa, so hang in there. And I totally agree with you that Chinese is an extraordinary language because of the long history we have. 

I do love the sound of English and certain European languages, and I really have fun trying to master them. So, I hope you'll enjoy your experience too. And if you have any problem, please don't hesitate to ask 

Cheers, N


----------



## ewhite

Woody Allen's accent:

Jewish New York, which is different from Irish, Italian,  Latin or African-American New York. At least to this New Yorker.


----------



## xav

May I say I personally don't like much the music of English ?
I call it "this awful nose-spoken language without any properly pronounced vowel". As a Frenchman, I like beautiful vowels and neat consonants, and I don't find much of that in English. I don't like much stressed syllables either, and I especially hate diphthongs - as well in Alsacian or Bayrisch as in English, anyway. 
I find English especially unpleasant in the mouth of young girls.

The softest pronounciation, the easiest to be understood is the best in my eyes (ears !). I prefer to discuss with a Canadian, a New-Zealander or a Bostonian than with a British, a Texan or an English-speaking Chinese !

But I must say it's rather expressive : MY TOYOTA IS FANTASTIC sounded much less stupid than MA TOYOTA EST FANTASTIQUE, since you can hear the stress on "TAS" and the four mouth-filling "T".

And I must add I can find English (like probably all languages of the earth, except perhaps Dutch ?) very sexy, when pronounced softly by the beautiful mouth of a very beautiful woman...

A British teacher I asked about the sound of French told me he didn't like it much, since it sounded a bit like a "Tommy gun" (because all syllables are equal in length).


----------



## cyen

I'm an English Canadian and I've often wondered the same thing. As a child, other language sounds seemed to correlate with different animals. For example, Chinese sounded cat-like, as there seemed so much 'ee' and 'ow' type sounds there. Quebecois French sounded bird-like, and like ducks quacking in some ways, particularly the way they would say 'oui' as 'ouai'. A friend, whose first language was Ukranian and who went to school in England, told me that his first impression of English was of dogs barking. And I can imagine that - what with alot of the 'w' words, like what when who would, yes yup, yip, would who ... German, too, sounds a bit dog-like, but more growly. And Russian sounded bear-like to me at first. But these impressions fade when one becomes familiar with the particular language. Anyone else remember anything similar from childhood?


----------



## xav

ampurdan said:
			
		

> Well, I wouldn't say so... A minute problem in any case, since English speakers don't have generally much problems to understand English learners.


Not so sure. Once in NY, I asked a man for the ferry to Staten Island, and I had to repeat it three times (desperately trying to ar-ti-cu-late, with the stresses on the right place : *stä*it'n *aï*l'nd) before he had a big laugh : "Aoh ! STÄIN AÏL !!"


----------



## nichec

[MOD EDIT: The 1st part of this post was a reply to previous off-topic deleted posts]

Okay, back to the subject. I personally think that there are simply too many different kinds of accents in English, just like there are different kinds of accents in French ( I find it difficult to understand the French they use in Canada ). So I think you'll probably prefer one than another, and even when you are in the same place, everyone can pronounce words in such a different way according to their backgrounds. And I have to confess that I think it's a bit different when you approach a language through everyday conversation and when you merely listen to the music in that language. For example, I love the sound of English, but I simply can't stand some AE/BE pop songs ( and the language/lyrics in it )

Bonne journee/soiree , Nicole


----------



## Lizziewoo

I am so glad that I found this thread! I have always wondered what English sounds like to none English speakers.  

I am originally from Birmingham (central England) and although I do not have a 'brummie' accent, I still wonder how I sound to other people. I asked my foreign flatmates (Finnish, Thai, Singaporian and Chinese) and they all said I have a plain English accent. 

Brummies usually go up at the ends of sentences and are described as moaning all the time! When I lived in Aberdeen in Scotland, I had difficulty understanding the locals. They used many different words and shortenings such as 'd'ya ken fa' a mean?' (do you know what I mean?)...

Thought this might be interesting to add.


----------



## I.C.

Lizziewoo said:
			
		

> I am originally from Birmingham (central England) and although I do not have a 'brummie' accent, I still wonder how I sound to other people.


 Well, the one verifiable example of brummie accent that I have stored away for reference sounded jovial, but this may be due to the jovial nature of the speaker…


MOD EDIT: The 2nd part of this post was a reply to an off-topic deleted post.


----------



## Outsider

I've only noticed now that this thread was about English accents in general. I gave my impression of BE RP a few pages ago. Here are some additional thoughts.

How do I compare BE with AE? I know there are several accents within each, but, even if I focus on RP and General American it isn't easy. I'm so used to listening to Americans on films and on the news that GA just sounds 'normal'. It doesn't cause a big impression on me either way.

I like some American regional accents. The Southern accent, like the one of Mary Beth Sutton in the series *Dear John*, sounds sweet, languid and naive, especially in women. It really does sound like the accent of simple country folk. Of course, I'm probably just falling prey to TV stereotypes, here.

It seems that the accent of New Yorkers isn't well regarded by Americans, and I don't know it very well, but I like *Woody Allen*'s nervous, intellectual, overly self-counscious ramblings. And his Jewish old relatives in some of his films sound warm, down-to-earth, practical, and 'family-like'; they sound like everyone's favorite relatives.

I also thought *Edith Bunker*'s accent in _All in a Family_ was very charming, grammatical mistakes and all.

Having said this, there are some American accents I don't particularly like. Oddly enough, I've heard them in journalists and politicians, the kind of people you'd expect would be very self-conscious about these things. There are a few news shows in British TV that often have Americans as guests or regular participants. The contrast with the English reporters is striking, and, I have to say, not flattering to those Americans I'm thinking about. (An example: *Thomas Friedman*.) I agree with what others have said about this accent: it sounds excessively nasal, mouthfullish, 'lazy'.

Now on to British accents. I like RP, as I said in my previous reply, but I don't dislike other British accents, although they can be very different. Where RP is refined and elegant, cockney feels working-class, spontaneous and kind of crude, but it also makes people sound very genuine, 'regular blokes'. Examples: the characters of *Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps*, some *Monty Python* characters. Cockney can also make people sound mischievous, like *Mrs. Raven*, in _My Hero_. 

Recently, the show *Queer as Folk* was on our TV. The sing-song rhythm of the Manchester accent of the characters was quite fascinating. (Would this be considered cockney?)

Then there are the accents of Wales, Scotland and Ireland. I don't know the Welsh accent very well. I find Scottish accents pleasant to listen to, but difficult to understand when they are very thick. I do like the accent of Sharleen Spiteri, from the band *Texas*. Irish accents can be quite beautiful (*Sinéad O'Connor*, many other pop singers), but I've recently found that there is a lot more to them than I was aware of. I wouldn't describe *Thermoman*'s accent as beautiful, but it does sound friendly in a clumsy way... or maybe that's just a description of Thermoman himself. 

To be fair and balanced, I must also give an example of a British accent I don't like. Well, the channel BBC News has a reporter named *Lyse Doucet*. She seems like a good reporter and a nice lady, but I don't like her accent very much. It has all sorts of unexpected reverberations which make it a little hard for me to follow what she's saying. Though I'm still glad they didn't force her to learn RP. 

What else... Canada? Sorry. I couldn't tell a Canadian accent from an American accent to save my life. 

Australian accents! I used to watch *Neighbours*, many years ago. I like them, too. They sound very relaxed and down-to-earth, to fit with the pioneer image of the country. Well, I have heard a few Australian accents I didn't like, too, to be honest. But a slight touch of Aussie (*Kylie Minogue*) tends to be a plus. 

New Zealand accents are a bit similar to Australian accents, but less divergent from BE. I've heard some nices ones, and some I didn't like. Or maybe it was the person I didn't like. Who knows?

The more I write about this, the more I convince myself that there's a lot of stereotyping going on behind this accent business.


----------



## ampurdan

Down-to-earth... I wonder how an accent may sound down-to-earth, Outsider. This is more than synesthetic... I know you probably won't be able to explain me what you mean, since it is a very personal appreciation, though.


----------



## Outsider

Definitely subjective. I probably won't be able to explain it, but here's a try. Down-to-earth: the opposite of "posh". Unpretentious, natural, etc. 

I'd like to add one thing to my post above. Although some of the examples I mentioned were singers, in general *I cannot tell accents apart when people sing*. Most people sing more or less with the same accent, as far as I can make out. What I know about their accents normally comes from interviews and normal talk in live shows.


----------



## Outsider

I wish I had found this before:

United States
United Kingdom


----------



## Gabriel Marín Aballi

*To me... maybe, few could agree with me , but American English sounds best. That nasal trait give it an appealing soft and ellegant sound. I like a lot how AMENG sounds.*


----------



## blancalaw

I asked the same question to an Argentine who did not speak English, and the way she imitated the English language kind of sounded like she was trying to talk with a huge jawbreaker in her mouth.  It was pretty eye opening.  To me the Spanish language seems like a machine gun with all the rrrrr while English sounds like a galloping horse.


----------



## irka_hcmc

It sounds terrible, especially when an american lady of 40 years old say "cheers" and insist on it. If she has the voice very acute it sounds pathetic at first. When you know english after you get used to that kind of voice. You even talk like that


----------



## Mulliman

To me, English in general sounds like a long line of words, where little pause is given between them and the sentence is rabbled as fast as possible . The soft "r" is easily recognized and often heard. British English sounds a little more pretentious and stuck up, whereas Scottish or Irish sounds very relaxed and laid-back. American English is alot swifter with more words that are smashed together and r:s that sometimes can be quite funny .

Your question reminds me quite much of the dilemma i have; that of how Swedish sounds. It's a pain that you understand the language, but cant actually *hear* it. It's been said that it is melodic, but i seriously cant find how.
Anyone have an answer for this?


----------



## timpeac

Mulliman said:
			
		

> Your question reminds me quite much of the dilemma i have; that of how Swedish sounds. It's a pain that you understand the language, but cant actually *hear* it. It's been said that it is melodic, but i seriously cant find how.
> Anyone have an answer for this?


 
Mod comment -

No answers to this part of Mulliman's post in this thread please.

He has started a particular thread for it here -

http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=88711

Thanks.


----------



## Apus

The sounds that strike me as being frequent and standing out are /a/ as in _that_ and the r's, the pronunciation of which is probably unique to English.


----------



## LV4-26

Something that occurs to me occasionally when I  hear BE spoken. (seems to be in-topic, but I'm not sure).

1.There are no nasal sounds in English. The only real nasal sounds seem to exist in French and Portuguese (and maybe other languages I'm not aware of).
Example of nasal sound in French : _France, danse, constance, chance, penser_ etc...(those all contains the same nasalised vowel sound)

2. The letter sequence 'an' is pronounced differently in BE and AE. 
[an*] in BE [æn] in AE
as in _dance, chance, France,_ etc....

3. I don't know if it's just me but I sometimes hear a nasal sounds (close to the French sound mentionned in 1) in the above words in BE. I know it's supposed to be the vowel 'a' followed by the consonant 'n' but I can't help hearing something of the French '_an'_ (or 'en'). In other other words, I hear the word _France_ as [Frãns] instead of [Frans] and _dance_ as [dãns] instead of [dans].

Am I imagining things or do you natives (or non natives) hear a light trace of nasality in those BE sounds (maybe only in some regions of Britain?)?

* [an] : this isn't exactly the actual phonetic sound, but the link to the IPA typewriter seems to be dead.


----------



## la reine victoria

LV4-26 said:
			
		

> Something that occurs to me occasionally when I hear BE spoken. (seems to be in-topic, but I'm not sure).
> 
> 3. I don't know if it's just me but I sometimes hear a nasal sounds (close to the French sound mentionned in 1) in the above words in BE. I know it's supposed to be the vowel 'a' followed by the consonant 'n' but I can't help hearing something of the French '_an'_ (or 'en'). In other other words, I hear the word _France_ as [Frãns] instead of [Frans] and _dance_ as [dãns] instead of [dans].
> 
> Am I imagining things or do you natives (or non natives) hear a light trace of nasality in those BE sounds (maybe only in some regions of Britain?)?
> 
> * [an] : this isn't exactly the actual phonetic sound, but the link to the IPA typewriter seems to be dead.


 
Yes, you are right.  Even the most well spoken Brits will say these words with a slight nasal tone.  Especially 'France'.  

Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth may be the one exception.  But then her enunciation is, I think, unique.  She was very out of character recently.  Rolf Harris (the Australian goon) was commissioned to paint her portrait.  The 'sittings' were filmed and shown by the BBC.  Rolf asked HM if she ever got tired of sitting for portraits.  She replied 'Naaah.'  Then quickly added, in those familiar tones, 'One is able to find a bit of peace and privacy.  Hardly anyone knows where one is.' Big triumphant smile.

LRV


----------



## timpeac

LV4-26 said:
			
		

> Something that occurs to me occasionally when I hear BE spoken. (seems to be in-topic, but I'm not sure).
> 
> 1.There are no nasal sounds in English. The only real nasal sounds seem to exist in French and Portuguese (and maybe other languages I'm not aware of).
> Example of nasal sound in French : _France, danse, constance, chance, penser_ etc...(those all contains the same nasalised vowel sound)
> 
> 2. The letter sequence 'an' is pronounced differently in BE and AE.
> [an*] in BE [æn] in AE
> as in _dance, chance, France,_ etc....
> 
> 3. I don't know if it's just me but I sometimes hear a nasal sounds (close to the French sound mentionned in 1) in the above words in BE. I know it's supposed to be the vowel 'a' followed by the consonant 'n' but I can't help hearing something of the French '_an'_ (or 'en'). In other other words, I hear the word _France_ as [Frãns] instead of [Frans] and _dance_ as [dãns] instead of [dans].
> 
> Am I imagining things or do you natives (or non natives) hear a light trace of nasality in those BE sounds (maybe only in some regions of Britain?)?
> 
> * [an] : this isn't exactly the actual phonetic sound, but the link to the IPA typewriter seems to be dead.


 
There's definitely a trace of nasality at least, can't say I'd noticed very much. On the other hand there are some American accents which, to my ears, are extremely nasal - whether or not there are nasal consonants involved or not.


----------



## Mayagirl

Hi everybody!
I've been having a great time reading this thread.  I've always wondered what people from other countries *really* thought of the sound of English...specifically American English. I've always been enamored with the sound of BE (I always hoped I could move to Britain someday just in the hope that I might pick up the accent ). I remember once telling someone from England how much I loved their accent. Of course they were really polite and said they loved hearing mine too.  But, since I knew they were just saying it to be nice, it got me thinking: does anybody out there (i.e. from countries/cultures outside of America) really find listening to speakers of American English to be pleasant????
Just wondering...


----------



## Mayagirl

As I read more of this thread, I realized that I'm really interested in a more specific question: What do all you speakers of British English (also Scottish, Irish, Welsh, or Australian, etc) think of American English? I mean really and truly...You can be honest...


----------



## nichec

Mayagirl said:
			
		

> it got me thinking: does anybody out there (i.e. from countries/cultures outside of America) really find listening to speakers of American English to be pleasant????





			
				Mayagirl said:
			
		

> Just wondering...




Hello:
I lived in London for some time, and I'm living in USA now. And my answer to your question is YES!  I mean, I love the british accent when it's nicely and smoothly spoken. (especially in literature.... )But I found it very difficult to understand sometimes when it's spoken by some people, and then I have to keep saying: "I beg your pardon?" It actually took me quite some time to get used to it....

I personally prefer northern AE. (comparing to other accents in USA) I've always thought it's very pleasant and friendly. (not that others aren't good....just a personal taste thing....)


----------



## ampurdan

I went to see "Brokeback Mountain" last week in a non-dubbed version... And I found that I couldn't understand a single word of the language spoken by those cowboys... Specially the fair one, who hardly moved his lips to talk... I guess this is the accent of the very interior America. I haven't been so thankful to subtitles since I saw Snatch: "Pigs and Diamonds".


----------



## la reine victoria

Mayagirl said:
			
		

> Hi everybody!
> I've been having a great time reading this thread.  I've always wondered what people from other countries *really* thought of the sound of English...specifically American English. I've always been enamored with the sound of BE (I always hoped I could move to Britain someday just in the hope that I might pick up the accent ). I remember once telling someone from England how much I loved their accent. Of course they were really polite and said they loved hearing mine too.  But, since I knew they were just saying it to be nice, it got me thinking: does anybody out there (i.e. from countries/cultures outside of America) really find listening to speakers of American English to be pleasant????
> Just wondering...


 
Hello Mayagirl,

What a lovely compliment to the Brits. Thank you. 

If ever you were to move to England your illusions might well be shattered. We have such a diversity of regional differences, as you do in the US, you would be hard pressed to understand some of the accents!

'Pure' English, or 'the King's English' as we used to say (now falling out of fashion), I agree, can sound very pleasant to the American ear. I've heard tales of American employers eager to hire an English person, almost as a status symbol. English nannies and butlers are apparentlly in great demand. The former to try and instil some BE into their little charges, the latter to impress.

The English spoken by the 'upper classes' can be very annoying to the average Brit. There are variations in 'upper class' English too. Some are really OTT. The use of 'one' instead of 'I'. The pronunciation of 'off' as 'awf', and 'cross' as 'crawss'. Example: 'Clear awf, you are making one frightfully crawss,' or 'One has one's crawss to bear.' The use of the word 'we' (known as the 'Royal we') to replace the singular 'I'. Queen Victoria's famous 'We are not amused' instead of 'I am not amused'. She actually only ever used this phrase once - she had an incredible sense of humour for a female Victorian, a Sovereign at that! - Sorry, have to jump to her defence as I am such an aficianado. But I digress. Margaret Thatcher announced to the world 'We are a grandmother!' But I digress again . . . . .

The London 'cockney' accent can be pure torture to some Brits' ears. I was brought up surrrounded by it but my parents and school made sure I never spoke it. (I must admit, when I visit London, I have a sneaky fondness for it which I put down to nostalgia).

To get to your question, Mayagirl, I have known quite a few Americans whose accents have been pleasing to me. However, some I find totally unbearable and a gross abuse of 'pure' English. I recently heard, in a televison documentary, an American female say, 'Ya, I'm feelin' really noshus' for 'Yes, I'm feeling really nauseous.'

I'm sure this is purely a regional thing, the same as in the UK. So, provided I can understand what's being said, I'm generally OK with AE, but with some reservations.


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## sonix

Okeyyyy

As a Spaniard I can tell you that English sounds different if it comes from a hooligan or an educated British person, the former sounding very primitive like caveman talking, and the latter sounding very pretentious if it's posh English, or very refined if it's just a standard sort of BBC English, you know what I mean.

I hope that helps you a bit mate. 

Ah! forgot to mention that American English tends to sound always as if the person is always chewing gum or something like that, quite funny but a bit tiring really   lol


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## jimreilly

ampurdan said:
			
		

> I went to see "Brokeback Mountain" last week in a non-dubbed version... And I found that I couldn't understand a single word of the language spoken by those cowboys... Specially the fair one, who hardly moved his lips to talk... I guess this is the accent of the very interior America. I haven't been so thankful to subtitles since I saw Snatch: "Pigs and Diamonds".


The kind of inarticulateness you saw in the movie has a long and honorable tradition in America, and is not just associated with the "interior". There is the old stereotype of the New Englander, for example, who answers your questions with as few words as possible. Sometimes Southerners are portrayed this way. In Minnesota we have the bachelor Norwegian farmer stereotype who may be equally parsimonious with language and even with (as the character in the movie) movement of his mouth when he speaks. And of course, the western cowboy, as well as military men. There are reasons why the "Marlboro man" doesn't talk.

Usually these stereotypes involve rural people and most (not all) of them are male. There is often some kind of implication of "real" masculinity (rural, physical rather than verbal, lacking artificial" school education) versus something more artificial (urban, verbal formally educated).

I imagine this kind of thing is not unique to the USA but it sure takes some interesting forms here, and the movie uses these stereotypes to make its points about masculinity, love, and being gay.


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## BasedowLives

> However, some I find totally unbearable and a gross abuse of 'pure' English.



oooh, i'm so glad you put that in quotes.


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## ampurdan

jimreilly said:
			
		

> The kind of inarticulateness you saw in the movie has a long and honorable tradition in America, and is not just associated with the "interior". There is the old stereotype of the New Englander, for example, who answers your questions with as few words as possible. Sometimes Southerners are portrayed this way. In Minnesota we have the bachelor Norwegian farmer stereotype who may be equally parsimonious with language and even with (as the character in the movie) movement of his mouth when he speaks. And of course, the western cowboy, as well as military men. There are reasons why the "Marlboro man" doesn't talk.
> 
> Usually these stereotypes involve rural people and most (not all) of them are male. There is often some kind of implication of "real" masculinity (rural, physical rather than verbal, lacking artificial" school education) versus something more artificial (urban, verbal formally educated).
> 
> I imagine this kind of thing is not unique to the USA but it sure takes some interesting forms here, and the movie uses these stereotypes to make its points about masculinity, love, and being gay.


 

What you say makes plenty of sense. I think that was the very image they wanted to convey in this film. I'm not sure that masculinity and muteness are so related to one another in my country... Anyway, this would be a topic for another thread. However, it's not just that they don't speak too much, but when they did, they contracted sentences in one only triphtongue...


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## blancalaw

In the USA there are a number of dialects such as the Southern, Boston, and African American (black) dialects. To me the southern dialect sounds like the person is talking slow (even though the person isn't retarded it can sound like that). The Boston accent tends to forget their R's on the end of the sentences (Where do I pak my ca?) The black accent sounds like they are rapping as they talk because they put a lot of rhythm in what they say.

The British accent sounds like Royalty to me. The Australian accent sounds like they are excited about everything. The Indian accent sounds like they are struggling to learn English because they pronounce the words so differently than I do.


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## BasedowLives

> The Australian accent sounds like they are excited about everything.



i think steve irwin might have had a hand in that...


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## blancalaw

Not just Steve, but every Australian I have talked to always seem like they are so excited to talk to you just by the intonation of their voice.  Now I wonder if to them we sound like _we _are so disinterested in talking to _them_ only by the intonation of our voice.


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## Blackleaf

I've also often wondered what English sounds like to people who can't speak the language.  Reading this thread was quite interesting.


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## Blackleaf

cirrus said:
			
		

> This should probably be a different thread. I am not surprised you can't understand. It comes from a group of languages called brythonic. It is in effect what was spoken here before the Romans came and then the Angles, Saxons, Danes and Normans and whoever else happened to be passing.


 
I read somewhere that the accents of Northern England - like mine - are closely related to those in Scandinavia, except Scouse, which was influenced by Irish incomers. That's because the Vikings once ruled Northern England and it was known as Danelaw. Draw a line from the Wash across to the Bristol Channel and virtually everything above it was the Danelaw and the accents were influenced by the Scandinavians. Research has shown that the Geordie accent has been hugely influenced by Norwegian.

Southern England was still ruled by the Anglo-Saxons, and Southern English accents have been mostly influenced by the Anglo-Saxons. When I was in Italy, my Italian friend, who can speak English, says that she thinks Southern English accents sound more "German" than those in the North.


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## Aldin

In Bosnia I learn British English,and I prefer the pure English,I think that American English is easier,but British is ''posh''.To me English is the most beautiful language.


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## maxiogee

Aldin said:
			
		

> To me English is the most beautiful language.



Hi Aldin,
You'll find most people here on the English Only forum  will agree with you.


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## dalek

Blackleaf said:
			
		

> That's because the Vikings once ruled Northern England and it was known as Danelaw. Draw a line from the Wash across to the Bristol Channel and virtually everything above it was the Danelaw and the accents were influenced by the Scandinavians.


Actually, that's not very accurate. From the Thames to the Mersey would be a much better description. Take a look at this map: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:England-878ad.jpg



			
				Blackleaf said:
			
		

> Southern England was still ruled by the Anglo-Saxons, and Southern English accents have been mostly influenced by the Anglo-Saxons. When I was in Italy, my Italian friend, who can speak English, says that she thinks Southern English accents sound more "German" than those in the North.


I don't agree with that either. The vowel sounds in German are much closer to the ones used in Northern English. "Learn German" books published in the UK usually describe the German vowel sounds using Northern English ones as examples (at least in my experience).


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## maxiogee

dalek said:
			
		

> The vowel sounds in German are much closer to the ones used in Northern English.



 I've seen everything now! 
A dalek is telling us how to pronounce English    

eee - nun - see - ate!


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## Jacob

clipper said:
			
		

> And to show solidarity with those learning english, we too have problems understanding each other. I was in New York few years ago and went to a 7/11 or something similar and had to ask 5 times for a lighter until I was understood. Of course I was asking for a "lightah" and not a "lyderrr" as I eventual figured out, and immitating the accent I was understood straight away.



This reminds me of a time when I was at summer camp. One of the counselors was from Australia and he said something which to me sounded like "Do you need a lodge?". I had no clue what he was talking about because there was no reason why I would need a lodge. It turned out that he was asking me if I needed a large t-shirt for tie dying.


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## meltem

I find it very showy/stylish and the people who speak it seem to me very self confident and free, don't care much about anything.


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## Random1

I am from upsate New York, and the first time I heard that we were nasal was from one of my spanish teachers, who spoke like us  (I think her first language was italian, then english, then spanish and french. She was by far the most fluent spanish teacher i have had that was not from a spanish speaking country). Now that I think about it I probably am very nasal. I hate the southern american accent and how it is slow and sounds so un intelligent. I have trouble understanding some accents in England, but others are clear and very understandable. I have spoken to a few people from Manchester and understand them fine, but they deffinatly don't speak like BBC broadcasters. Their voice sounds almost like it is higher pitched, but I like it. I cannot understand a single word from another person who said he was from Rochester London. He spoke so slured and did not articulate any word he said. Talking online he didn't say anything that an american wouldnt say. The canadians I have heard sound like me, except they occasionaly add an -eh at the end of their sentaces. 

I am learning spanish and everything flows together, which is why it can be spoken so fast. I think from some one from Spain english would sound very chopy. For spanish (i know we are only talking about english here) i can tell a Mexican speaker from a Spanish speaker, even though i am not fluent.


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## Brioche

blancalaw said:
			
		

> Not just Steve, but every Australian I have talked to always seem like they are so excited to talk to you just by the intonation of their voice. Now I wonder if to them we sound like _we _are so disinterested in talking to _them_ only by the intonation of our voice.


 
You need to meet more Australians!

Steve Irwin's accent is an affectation - it's part of his act - as is his frenetic behaviour.
He is not typical of Australian speech patterns.

If you want to hear "normal" Australians, you can try this site
http://abc.net.au/streaming/

Try *Radio National* since it has a lot of spoken documentary-type programming, or *NewsRadio*.


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## selsa25

Mita said:
			
		

> With few words, this is what English sounds to me like:
> 
> British English: elegant, polite, pleasant, beautiful!...
> American English: sounds more informal, spontaneous, nice but not as nice as British English does.
> 
> 
> HOw funny is that !
> I have noticed lately that scandinavian and german have a tendency to speak with the american accent whereas spanish speaking countries would rather opt fro british english .
> 
> As a frenchie that lived in Ozzie land, I love australian accent and it is the mix of the two , jajajajajajaja
> 
> 
> Selsa


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## gato2

Las unicas veces que he estado en Inglaterra ha sido en Yorkshire y a mi me suena como si muchas veces se estuvieran lamentando de algo. Por ejemplo a veces cuando les oia comprar el billete en el autobus me daba la impresion de que por su tono parecia que sabian que el autobus iba a tener un accidente.


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## Blackleaf

ddddan said:
			
		

> I have to agree that the Irish lilt is my favourite English accent by far (might be influenced by my Irish heritage, who knows?)


 
The Northern Ireland accent is absolutely evil.  It's horrible.  The accent of the Republic Ireland is better.


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## maxiogee

Blackleaf said:
			
		

> The Northern Ireland accent is absolutely evil.  It's horrible.  The accent of the Republic Ireland is better.



To spare panjandrum the necessity, I will point out that *that* depends on where your ears were born and raised!

(I won't even stoop to mention that there is neither a "Northern Ireland" accent, nor a "Republic of Ireland" one. There are oodles on both sides of the border.)


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## Blackleaf

Heba said:
			
		

> I never heard Welsh, so I cannot personally judge.
> However, one of my professors have been to Britain and told me that Welsh sounds completely different from English


 
The English accent of Wales is strange.  It's like the Birmingham accent in the sense that people in Britain make fun of it.  The Welsh accent stretches vowels a huge length.  So a Welsh person saying "Is that better" sounds like they are saying "Is that beeeeh-ter?"  It's the same sound on the E, but hugely lengthened.  People who can't tell the difference between the English accents probably won't know what I mean, that's how I'll describe it.

When they say words that end in Y - such as "automatically" or "really" - they pronounce them as "automaticallee" and "reallee" and I've noticed that when they speak, it sounds as though they pronounce EVERY syllable, whereas some words other English-speaking people might miss a syllable to speak it quicker.


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## Blackleaf

The Irish also can't pronounce the "th" sound.

So when they say "three" is sounds just like "tree".


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## Blackleaf

maxiogee said:
			
		

> To spare panjandrum the necessity, I will point out that *that* depends on where your ears were born and raised!
> 
> (I won't even stoop to mention that there is neither a "Northern Ireland" accent, nor a "Republic of Ireland" one. There are oodles on both sides of the border.)


 
To me, all the people in Northern Ireland speak with the same accent.  But I don't like it.  It's not kind on the ears.


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## Blackleaf

hsam said:
			
		

> Then you turn on children's TV and you get this geordie (Liverpuddlian (!!)) and it just grates on the ears!!


 
When I was younger, I used to get confused between the Liverpool accent and an Irish accent.  When I heard people on TV speaking with a Liverpool accent, I used to think they were Irish.  But now I know the difference.

The two accents are related because of the huge influx of Irish to Liverpool in the 19th Century.


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## Blackleaf

I.C. said:
			
		

> Well, the one verifiable example of brummie accent that I have stored away for reference sounded jovial, but this may be due to the jovial nature of the speaker…
> 
> 
> MOD EDIT: The 2nd part of this post was a reply to an off-topic deleted post.


 
The Birmingham accent is probably the weirdest accent in Britain.

When they say things like "I know!", they pronounce "know" in exactly the same way as "now", so it comes out like "I now!".

"I know what it's like!" sounds like "I now what it's loike!"

They even pronouce "you" as "yow."

So they say "I will kill yow!"


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## maxiogee

Blackleaf said:
			
		

> The *Some* Irish also can't pronounce the "th" sound.
> 
> So when they *some of them* say "three" is *it* sounds just like "tree".


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## magda84

hey all! I'm from Argentina and I've always loved the english accent! I wish I could speak like that! jaj, it's classy and sophisticated.. besides, I'm doing a french course.. beautiful language, I could spend hours listening to a french speaking!


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## emma42

Hi magda84, it's "a French *person*" . I hope you don't mind my saying.


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## moirag

Hey, blackleaf, you creased me up - thanks! The first time I ever heard a Bolton accent I just about fell off my chair. We´re all weird, and so are Brummies, but so are Geordies, Scousers, Glaswegians...
I´m a born and bred Geordie, from Newcastle, but there have always been, and still are , people from Newcastle that I simply can´t understand because of their accent!
I have read that the Geordie thing of the tone going up at the end of a sentence makes people think you´re not sure of what you´re saying.


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## Blackleaf

I always imagine us people in Lancashire as not even having an accent.  But maybe that's because I am so used to hearing it that it just doesn't sound like an accent to me, whereas all the people in the rest of Britain have accents.

In Lancashire, we make our vowel sounds "flat".  So when we say "go" or "yellow", the O sound in those words is pronounced "flat" rather than rounded.

It's amazing all the different accents there are throughout Britain.


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## Blackleaf

And there are the West Country accents - those accents spoken in the South West of England, like in Cornwall, Devon and Somerset. They are more rural, Olde Worlde accents that you normally associate with country bumpkins or pirates. They are "pirate accents" because they sound just like pirates sound in the movies - they say things like "Oooh arrrr!" I think that's because there were loads of sailors and pirates who came from the West Country. In the 70s, there was a song that made fun of the West Country accents. They sang "And I've got a brand new combined harvester and you can have the key" in a West Country accent. So they said "And oi've got a brahnd new comboined 'arrvester and you can have the key."


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## maxiogee

Blackleaf said:
			
		

> In the 70s, there was a song that made fun of the West Country accents.



Adge Cutler and The Wurzels were West Country - they weren't "making fun of", they were "profiting from"! There's a difference.


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## Chaska Ñawi

gato2 said:
			
		

> Las unicas veces que he estado en Inglaterra ha sido en Yorkshire y a mi me suena como si muchas veces se estuvieran lamentando de algo. Por ejemplo a veces cuando les oia comprar el billete en el autobus me daba la impresion de que por su tono parecia que sabian que el autobus iba a tener un accidente.



This is so funny that I'm going to translate it.

The only times that I've been in England, I was in Yorkshire, and to me it sounded as if they were often complaining about something.  For example, sometimes when I heard them buy their bus ticket, their tone of voice gave me the impression that they were certain that the bus was going to have an accident.

It does rather coincide with my memories of the somewhat fatalistic mindset of Yorkshire people.


----------



## hsam

Hi everyone,

Thankyou so much for the great replies, this is getting to be such a huge thread. I come back to it every weekend and read the posts and spend the week thinking about them it's great! 

I was really interested by gato2's impression of Yorkshire English and I agree with Chaska Ñawi that it was important to translate for everyone.

However;



			
				Chaska Ñawi said:
			
		

> This is so funny that I'm going to translate it.
> 
> The only times that I've been in England, I was in Yorkshire, and to me it sounded as if they were often complaining about something. For example, sometimes when I heard them buy their bus ticket, their tone of voice gave me the impression that they were certain that the bus was going to have an accident.
> 
> It does rather coincide with my memories of the somewhat fatalistic mindset of Yorkshire people.


 
I have always taken "lamentar de algo" (and definetely in this context) to mean "to lament, be sad/sorry about something". I'm sorry I added this as I'm not usually a very pernickety translator, but I think that gato2 was trying to convey a sense of depression and despair in their tone which I don't think is justified by the translation "complain". If this is wrong and I have made a fool out of myself and more importantly Chaska Ñawi please feel free not to post anymore on this thread because I am such a horrible person.  

If not keep those posts coming!

Regards, Hoz


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