Accents

[cheese]

What are your favourites?

(Inspired by RubberDucky451's youtube video. Good lord.)

 

[Toad]

Australian accents turn me on.

Asian accents turn me off!

 

[RubberDucky451]

What are your favourites?

(Inspired by RubberDucky451's youtube video. Good lord.)

I have an accent? I thought everyone just did?

Russian,British,Australian, i like em' all. Although i do sometimes giggle when someone speaks in an Indian accent.

 

[Ermine]

British accents of all sorts are my favorite. Especially cockney. I find it amusing. I also find French accents funny, though they're tedious to listen to.

 

[cheese]

RubberDucky451:
You have a particular type of American accent that I find very enjoyable. Nice voice as well - mixture of energy and calm.

I actually really like American accents, though they'll tell you earnestly they have none. (So do Aussies - hah.) Everyone sounds a particular way, and most of us can be organised into larger groups, usually defined by geographical bounds. Just to clarify what I mean - everyone has an accent, in the sense I'm using.

 

[shoeless]

of course everyone has an accent. everyone except you.

at least that's how it seems. you could be the only aussie in a group of typical americans, and you'll still say they're the ones with the accent. (at least when it comes to native english speakers.)

anyway, i like southern accents -- i dunno why, i grew up in the south my whole life practically and always hated them until recently -- but i also like french, russian, english, new zealand, irish (oh god irish!), etc. as well. the only accents i particularly don't like is german, which is a shame since i live in germany. though it could be the same phenomenon as the southern accent thing.

i also love boston accents. i'm probably the only person in the free world who does. new york, though, not as much... which is stupid since that's where i plan on moving after high school...

 

[cheese]

of course everyone has an accent. everyone except you.

at least that's how it seems. you could be the only aussie in a group of typical americans, and you'll still say they're the ones with the accent. (at least when it comes to native english speakers.)

Agreed. There are some people who have accents that are very difficult to classify because of the range of influences though. Those are the only types I would consider the "no accent" label for, because they don't belong to a larger category. It's still more interesting to list every influence though, as far as possible. Reminds me of Higgins in My Fair Lady picking out every place Pickering has lived in simply by listening to his accent.

 

[cheese]

RubberDucky:

http://intpforum.com/showthread.php?p=136358#post136358

So it's a Californian accent! I remember stumbling across them before and really liking them.

bananaphallus:
That sounds like the story behind your username. Keywords.

*edit
I read you as British, actually. Where in America are you from?

 

[cheese]

That whole fragglewauzin' fiasco may have played a role in the conception of my username, but none that I was aware of at the time/my subconscious did it.

Here's my address:

*edited to remove quoted address*

[woops]

Here's a picture of where I went to HS (please note the very modest and tastefully done enormous golden dome) :

First - is that really your address?

Second - I do admire taste!

Actually, perhaps it's a result of where I've been brought up, but that dome doesn't bug me too much at all. In fact, I rather like it. How did you know I have bad taste, and why did you choose to point it out on my own goddamn thread? Are you Satan? Didn't you like little Jimmy?

 

[Van]

I love every accent! I like listening to them and figuring out how they say things differently. The downside of that is that I now know how terrible my own pronunciation is.

 

[RubberDucky451]

RubberDucky:

http://intpforum.com/showthread.php?p=136358#post136358

So it's a Californian accent! I remember stumbling across them before and really liking them.

bananaphallus:
That sounds like the story behind your username. Keywords.

*edit
I read you as British, actually. Where in America are you from?

Yeah i guess i do have a Californian accent. Strangely enough, I've had other people mention that i sound like I'm from California. Ugh, now I'm gonna be obsessively examining every accent i hear

 

[Cavallier]

@ Cheese: Your right. I would earnestly tell you I have no accent but that's a bit silly since everyone does have an accent compared to everyone else. Still...according to many USA residents the Northwest part of my country doesn't have an accent compared to the rest of my country. After living in the south for a while I discovered that Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, and Tennessee all have different accents discernible to the initiated ear. Texas isn't the south so I didn't mention it!

But you can't tell the difference between somebody from Idaho, Washington, Oregon, or most parts of California. I still haven't figured out why.

Anyway, I love a thick Scottish brogue though I can't understand a thing they say. I also really like Irish though Irish gets a bit nasally after a while. French cracks me up and rolling sashaying Italian is beautiful.

 

[Ulysses]

Scottish and Swedish accents are quite interesting. I've got a Northern British accent myself.

 

[preilemus]

I really enjoy hearing people speak who have a yooper accent (think of the character Pickles from Metalocalypse, or most of the people in the movie Fargo). It tickles my fancy, you might say.

I also really like the way Caboose from Red vs. Blue speaks, but I'm not sure if that's actually an accent, or just something quite specific to the person who voiced him.

EDIT: forgot to add Swedish. my best friends' mom has a heavy accent and I can't get enough of it.

 

[Dormouse]

I actually really love accentlessness... Though it's terribly rare. I just adore it when someone can manage to speak without the hint of a lisp or missing consonent, when every word is pronounced correctly and articulated clearly... Yum.

 

[Jaico]

Personally, I really like British accents - they just sound...refined (non-Cockney accents, that is). Californian accents are also pretty cute in a girl, but in a guy...eh...

Oddly enough, people think that my speech impediment is actually a British accent...something I don't correct them on .

 

[Taprobane]

Refined?! Have you heard a scouser talk?

Personally I'm from Oxford, so of course I don't have an accent.

 

[saffyangelis]

Oxford = no accent? Lies!

Oxford accents are soo funny XD They sound so posh.

But I'm from south yorkshire, so I have no accent (Kidding).

Actually, I tend to find any accent amusing, but I'm easily amused. I don't have any particular favourites though.

 

[Lithorn]

My New York friends tell me that I have a bit of a Chicago accent. Apparently the Chicago "a" is very distinctive, and I'm incapable of pronouncing "Albany" correctly. Minnesotan accents crack me up. Not quite mid-western but not quite Canadian.

 

[sagewolf]

Agreed. There are some people who have accents that are very difficult to classify because of the range of influences though. Those are the only types I would consider the "no accent" label for, because they don't belong to a larger category. It's still more interesting to list every influence though, as far as possible. Reminds me of Higgins in My Fair Lady picking out every place Pickering has lived in simply by listening to his accent.

^Hahah, there's me. I've lived in Baltimore, Belfast, and Ireland,and after all of it, my Irish teachers told me I had a slight twang left over as an accent. Most Americans tell me I don't have one at all, and I try hard to avoid the more egregious mispronunciations of any of the locales I've lived in. I know a guy, too, who's from somewhere of other in Europe, and learned English as perfectly as it is humanly possible to do. I thought he had some sort of odd English accent when I first met him, and for a long time I couldn't get it around my head that he wasnt a native speaker. I've never heard better diction from anyone.

 

[Traianus]

I would have to say Brasilian. Brasilian Portuguese is so much nicer sounding than Portuguese Portuguese :P.

 

[Logos]

I would honestly say that i don't have an accent mainly because i was always moving around because my dad was in the marine corps, i do slur words because my mind tend to goe faster than my mouth. Does that count?

 

[Darby]

I'm not too particular on accents, although I wish I had an Irish one.

What I hate is my speech impediment, all my R's sound kinda like W's and it gets worse when I smile. I can't tell unless I hear myself through a microphone or something, but whenever I hear it I want to strangle myself.

 

[Geminii]

Mid-Atlantic's OK. It's the kind of accent I might ask an accent coach to help me achieve, given time and opportunity.

While I don't mind my own BBC-influenced Australian in its native habitat, I tend to keep my yap shut overseas as I recalibrate on the nearby average and (to my own ears) sound like I should be riding a kangaroo down the street, throwing Vegemite and poisonous wildlife at passing motorists.

 

[The Frood]

@ Cheese: Your right. I would earnestly tell you I have no accent but that's a bit silly since everyone does have an accent compared to everyone else. Still...according to many USA residents the Northwest part of my country doesn't have an accent compared to the rest of my country.

Yeah, I'm from Washington state (USA) and we don't have any really distinct (or interesting) accent. We have the the Cot/Caught merger (I have a lot trouble figuring out how they could sound different but that is it.

I like most accents from the British Isles, and Australian accents.

 

[cheese]

I really like Puffy's accent (posted on the youtube thread).

 

[Decaf]

@ Cheese: Your right. I would earnestly tell you I have no accent but that's a bit silly since everyone does have an accent compared to everyone else. Still...according to many USA residents the Northwest part of my country doesn't have an accent compared to the rest of my country. After living in the south for a while I discovered that Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, and Tennessee all have different accents discernible to the initiated ear. Texas isn't the south so I didn't mention it!

But you can't tell the difference between somebody from Idaho, Washington, Oregon, or most parts of California. I still haven't figured out why.

How the NW became "accentless" is actually kind of interesting. Did you know it was deliberate? When radio was becoming nationalized the media companies involved decided it would be beneficial to use the same accent. I assume because people in New York would much rather listen to someone with a New York accent than one from Louisiana (it was important to not make a national program cater to the "North" or "South"). The initial choice was the accent from Chicago area (not "Da Bears", but not far off). Unfortunately that accent proved too easy to place, so they picked the NW, which as of yet didn't have much national exposure dialect-wise. Without your average east-coaster being able to identify the region, they were free to ignore the fact that the accent was different from their own. And we were robbed of all the interesting aspects of having a distinct way of speaking. National televised news programs just made it worse.

 

[dbtng_thomas]

I'm still kind of catching up. Don't know if anyone posted this already. It's an actress doing 21 different English accents. She hits several areas of the USA, Australia, and several parts of Europe. I was impressed.

YouTube- 21 Accents

- dt

 

[Nevermind]

My favorites are Irish, Scottish, German, and various Scandinavian accents.

As for myself, I've always been told that I have a weird accent. Even a British girl I met in Stuttgart over the summer told me that I had an interesting accent that at times sounded English and other times American. I've been asked many times if I was born outside the U.S. and people in my Speech(public speaking) class thought I was German until I told them otherwise.
I've developed a theory as to why but it's probably boring, so unless anyone wants to know, I'll keep it to myself.

 

[shoeless]

i didn't particularly like the french or the german, actually, but the rest were pretty excellent i think.

hm. i wonder how people would pinpoint my "accent", like, what region in america you'd guess i'm from. (it's an interesting thought, since i'm really not from any particular region -- parents are from pennsylvania, but i was born in germany and lived half my life here and half my life in various southern states.)

 

[Nevermind]

i didn't particularly like the french or the german, actually, but the rest were pretty excellent i think.

hm. i wonder how people would pinpoint my "accent", like, what region in america you'd guess i'm from. (it's an interesting thought, since i'm really not from any particular region -- parents are from pennsylvania, but i was born in germany and lived half my life here and half my life in various southern states.)

If I heard you, I could try to place you. I'm no expert, but I'm pretty good with analyzing accents.

 

[shoeless]

If I heard you, I could try to place you. I'm no expert, but I'm pretty good with analyzing accents.

you could check out the youtube thread. i've got plenty of samples for you to analyze up there.

 

[Infinite Regress]

I've got an Australian accent, but noticed when working with some Americas here - I sound like a country bumpkin.
Plus it makes me cringe when people attempt to mimic it by doing a Steve Irwin accent.

It's like generalizing that all Americans sound like George Bush

 

[Nevermind]

you could check out the youtube thread. i've got plenty of samples for you to analyze up there.

I shall do that.

[edit] I watched a few and I'm stumped, haha. I wanna say I can recognize the effect of your unique circumstances on your accent, but I dunno if I would have noticed it if you hadn't previously mentioned it. I think most people would interpret it as a pretty standard American accent.

I have a good German friend who speaks English incredibly well, with almost no hint of a German accent, she could easily blend in in America. You sound kinda like her.

Anyway, your videos interest me. I may have to post a video response to one of them.

I've got an Australian accent, but noticed when working with some Americas here - I sound like a country bumpkin.
Plus it makes me cringe when people attempt to mimic it by doing a Steve Irwin accent.

It's like generalizing that all Americans sound like George Bush

I've never been to Australia, but even I recognize that there are several different Australian accents.

 

[tashi]

0Wow, I really did not notice that rubberducky had an accent.

I would agree with Taranious, Brazillian accents are by far my favorite, but perhaps I'm a bit biased, because portuguese was my first language. Brazillian Portuguese is much nicer sounding than the European variety

Apparently I have a very thick Minnesotan accent now =p

 

[phantome]

oh cool ^.^ glad to know people like Russian accents :P

 

[Nevermind]

0Wow, I really did not notice that rubberducky had an accent.

I would agree with Taranious, Brazillian accents are by far my favorite, but perhaps I'm a bit biased, because portuguese was my first language. Brazillian Portuguese is much nicer sounding than the European variety

Apparently I have a very thick Minnesotan accent now =p

I like the Minnesota accent, probably my favorite North American accent.

oh cool ^.^ glad to know people like Russian accents :P

Loads of people like Russian accents, they sound very cool.

 

[cheese]

The kid in the Star Trek movie has an awesome russian accent. Not sure if it's real, but it added to his character.

 

[Cavallier]

How the NW became "accentless" is actually kind of interesting. Did you know it was deliberate? When radio was becoming nationalized the media companies involved decided it would be beneficial to use the same accent. I assume because people in New York would much rather listen to someone with a New York accent than one from Louisiana (it was important to not make a national program cater to the "North" or "South"). The initial choice was the accent from Chicago area (not "Da Bears", but not far off). Unfortunately that accent proved too easy to place, so they picked the NW, which as of yet didn't have much national exposure dialect-wise. Without your average east-coaster being able to identify the region, they were free to ignore the fact that the accent was different from their own. And we were robbed of all the interesting aspects of having a distinct way of speaking. National televised news programs just made it worse.

Huh. I've always thought north westerners sounded like NPR correspondents. Now I know!

 

[Audentia]

Fav accents: (Mmmm!)

Texas, South Carolina, Australian, Irish.

Eastern Indian accents can make me giggle too, especially male.