American accents?

I am American but my husband and one of our former co-workers were both English and I noticed that independant of each other both of their 'American accent' imitations sounded like bad John Wayne impressions.

to all you English types and others:

Not all Americans have NY accents, kthx.

OH MY GAWD! Not all NewYawkers have NewYawk accents.

Some of us have Texas accents, y'all.

American accents are the same as Canadian ones, in that the countries are so big that there are several distinct dialects.

I once got a call from a South African girl I'd met on IRC. We were talking about whatever, but I was living in Texas at the time, and she was a little dissappointed at my lack of a Texan accent (I'm a northerner). So I got a Texan friend of mine on the line.

I'm not sure what it "sounded like" to her, but it sure sounded like sexual attraction to me.

...and to all you Americans, London is a city, not a country. we're not all from London.

I want to live somewhere where people find my completely normal (slightly Chicago) "American accent" to be sexy as hell.

Our diphthongs and our [r]s. Listen to game show hosts and the people on early morning television.

[Edited on Oct 31, 2005 by Jeff_Fries]

I've always wondered if a midwestern accent sounds the same to a southerner as a Minnesota accent sounds to a midwesterner, and so on. Whether it's just a function of relative lattitudes or there's something else involved. I'm from Indiana and always considered myself to have a pretty neutral accent, but my cousins from up north say I sound southern.

I used to teach ESL and the general answer to this question seemed to be "weird."

American "r"'s just sound bizarre to speakers of many other languages -- they're like a mix between a vowel and a consonant and very difficult to learn to pronounce. Plus, we have this weird (to them) habit of swallowing vowels. Speaking American English is all about getting the rhythm right -- for example, if you say "I'm going to go get something to drink" people will actually pronounce something along the lines of "immonna get somethinna drink".

Well. You get my point. I'm kind of inebriated & it's not helping my phonetic aanlsis skills.

i got a way down south accent from south florida so i can only imagine

that's exactly how i speak. and its weird because i can actually type out how i speak and you won't be able to understand what it says unless you read it aloud.

I'm an American, but I know it sounds like honking, or braying. And I know I do it.

Since America is so big I think there are all kind of accents. I've lived in the S.F. Bay Area my whole life and I'm sure that I would sound quite different from someone who grew up in the South or NYC or whatever.

Newscaster are often felt to be soul-less bastardizations of Americana in these parts, or maybe that's just me.

Since there's no official standard for American english, they're usually considered the unofficial standard. There's even a special name for it that I forget.

[Edited on Nov 01, 2005 by Jeff_Fries]

They sound like TV of course.

[Edited on Nov 01, 2005 by bedukay]

And hi, Coi btw what does your accent sound like?

This thread is conspicuously missing anyone from outside of North America.

See?!?

Nah man I just pretend to be from upstate, NY.

Yeah I agree, there are certain parts in America that some people sound different, like in Texas or New York their are certain accents, and in Canada in some parts people sound different too. like New Brunswick or Newfoundland. Apparently to most Americans I sound very Canadian, but to most Canadians I sound very British/Scotish like, mever been to those places but I grew up with family who had accents maybe i adopted it or something.

ooo lala.

I always considered the Fargo accent a more localized Dokota one myself but that was just an intuition I had based on the characters in the surrounding communities in the film and no real world, well anything.

Ignore the ooo lala if you wish. I checked your dating profile too late. After I had engaged in the online flirting of doomination. Well that and I'm a dude!

[Edited on Nov 01, 2005 by bedukay]

Because of television and films the American accent sounds more natural to me than the accents of some people who live in the same country.

In particular I'm thinking the North Wales Welsh accent. I'm from South Wales and most Welsh language television is made there. So you very rarely hear a deep North Welsh accent ever. So it sounds very alien when you do hear it.