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| How difficult is it to understand an American accent? |
| Not difficult at all |
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79% |
[ 55 ] |
| Not that difficult |
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4% |
[ 3 ] |
| Fairly difficult |
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4% |
[ 3 ] |
| Quite difficult |
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2% |
[ 2 ] |
| Very difficult |
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8% |
[ 6 ] |
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| Total Votes : 69 |
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DrOctagon
Joined: 11 Jun 2008
Location: Chicago
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 Posted: Fri Apr 24, 2009 11:53 pm Post subject: |
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Mmmmm... Popeye's chicken. So good. I can just taste the chicken and biscuits right now.
BTW, I can understand everything the people in that video are saying. The accents aren't very strong. Just normal African American English, besides the news lady. |
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roknroll
Joined: 29 Dec 2007
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| Posted: Sat Apr 25, 2009 12:13 am Post subject: |
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| aboxofchocolates wrote: |
| Underwaterbob wrote: |
| Sleepy in Seoul wrote: |
| Underwaterbob wrote: |
| While we're at it: South Africans seem to have the most diverse accents. I've heard all the way from near indecipherable to incredibly legible from the same country. |
I'm extremely impressed that you can hear a legible accent. |
Yeah, my vocabulary failed me. I was being quaint. |
Quaint means odd. You were just being wrong. |
It would've been correct for a lip-reader....  |
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Rory_Calhoun27
Joined: 14 Feb 2009
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| Posted: Tue Apr 28, 2009 6:13 pm Post subject: |
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My first year at a hagwon, I went to a bar owned by an Irishmen.... no problem conversing with him, or the English, or the South Africans, or even other Americans.... even the odd Australian that poppped in.
One new Zealander I could understand, no problems, but the other one? forget about it. Not sure if it was the accent though, or the alcohol he was drinking. But apparantly he had a lot to say, and nodding my head seemed to be enough to keep up my end. The conversation lasted about 20 minutes, but I use "conversation" in the most liberal sense. I'm still not quite sure what the topic of conversation was. |
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gangwonbound
Joined: 27 Apr 2009
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| Posted: Tue Apr 28, 2009 6:22 pm Post subject: |
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| American is easy to understand unless you are retarded or the accent is from the south when really it isn't english/american...Just a bunch of slurring |
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Underwaterbob
Joined: 08 Jan 2005
Location: In Cognito
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| Posted: Tue Apr 28, 2009 7:03 pm Post subject: |
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| aboxofchocolates wrote: |
| Underwaterbob wrote: |
| Sleepy in Seoul wrote: |
| Underwaterbob wrote: |
| While we're at it: South Africans seem to have the most diverse accents. I've heard all the way from near indecipherable to incredibly legible from the same country. |
I'm extremely impressed that you can hear a legible accent. |
Yeah, my vocabulary failed me. I was being quaint. |
Quaint means odd. You were just being wrong. |
Yes'm! Heil vocab nazi!
I was thinking that saying "near indecipherable to incredibly decipherable" would've just sounded odd (or quaint if you will). Failing to come up with a suitable synonym for decipherable, I settled for legible. I suppose "understandable" would have been a better choice. |
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sjrm
Joined: 27 Jul 2005
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| Posted: Tue Apr 28, 2009 7:35 pm Post subject: |
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| DrOctagon wrote: |
I've only had a problem with a few Southern African Americans. It takes a little while to get used to buy your ears/brain adjusts. At first it sounded like this:
Aye, shigala bom bom bang bang don dur mane den! |
Sounds like you were in Louisiana? |
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chris_J2
Joined: 17 Apr 2006
Location: From Brisbane, Au.
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| Posted: Tue Apr 28, 2009 8:05 pm Post subject: American English |
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| Quote: |
| Yes'm! Heil vocab nazi |
Vee have vays of making you talk, ya! |
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DrOctagon
Joined: 11 Jun 2008
Location: Chicago
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| Posted: Tue Apr 28, 2009 8:05 pm Post subject: |
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| No, I was working in a grocery warehouse in Chicago. Many of the fork lift drivers were old African Americans who moved from the South, mainly Mississippi. |
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Geckoman
Joined: 07 Jun 2007
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| Posted: Thu Nov 19, 2009 12:19 am Post subject: |
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I've met Amerians who said they didn't have an accent. 
All Americans have an accent.
Everyone in the world has an accent. |
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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Thu Nov 19, 2009 1:29 am Post subject: Re: Accent |
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| chris_J2 wrote: |
http://www.gotoquiz.com/what_american_accent_do_you_have
I tried this quiz a couple of times, & ended up around 90% of the time, with either a Mid land, &/or, a North-east accent. Occasionally, a 'South' accent. Here are the 7 groupings:
The Northeast
The Inland North (midland)
The South
Philadelphia
The West
Boston
North Central
"You have a Midland accent" is just another way of saying "you don't have an accent." You probably are from the Midland (Pennsylvania, southern Ohio, southern Indiana, southern Illinois, and Missouri) but then for all we know you could be from Florida or Charleston or one of those big southern cities like Atlanta or Dallas. You have a good voice for TV and radio."
"Your Result: The Northeast
Judging by how you talk you are probably from north Jersey, New York City, Connecticut or Rhode Island. Chances are, if you are from New York City (and not those other places) people would probably be able to tell if they actually heard you speak."
Not even close! I'm from Australia. |
This test pegged me perfectly: Inland North.
| Quote: |
Your Result: The Inland North
You may think you speak "Standard English straight out of the dictionary" but when you step away from the Great Lakes you get asked annoying questions like "Are you from Wisconsin?" or "Are you from Chicago?" Chances are you call carbonated drinks "pop." |
That aside, why did someone bump up such an old thread?  |
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mistermasan
Joined: 20 Sep 2007
Location: 10+ yrs on Dave's ESL cafe
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| Posted: Thu Nov 19, 2009 4:13 am Post subject: |
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i cannot understand most of the folks in my american hometown. they only speak spanish. alot changes in 10 years.
back in bootcamp we had a guy from rural vermont . we couldn't understand what he said for a bout a week or two. we wondered how a guy who only speaks french could be let into the US armed forces. then one day...presto...we could understand everything he said. |
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bry0000000
Joined: 30 Jul 2009
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| Posted: Thu Nov 19, 2009 5:54 am Post subject: |
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| PigeonFart wrote: |
When it comes to accents, the simple advice is to change the way you speak when you're speaking to people from "elsewhere" (other country/province/city)...just speak clearly and enunciate properly. Leave your natural accent and dialect for your old school friends and people you grew up with.
I get annoyed when some people claim that they don't have an accent....everyone does. Statements like "i dont think i have an accent" tend to be said by people from a particular region of the English speaking world....which shall remain nameless. [An understandable phenomenon though, given its insular focus and low level of passport possession]
These are the very people who i can geograpically place the SECOND they open their mouth (because to my ears they have such a profound accent). It's all relative. What arrogance to claim that your accent is neutral and accentless. |
I don't have an accent. |
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Privateer
Joined: 31 Aug 2005
Location: Easy Street.
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| Posted: Thu Nov 19, 2009 6:33 am Post subject: |
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| I can recall one and only one moment when I was floored by an American accent. It was when an American friend used the word 'taunt'. He pronounced it something like 'tant', and I had no idea what he was saying. |
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peppermint
Joined: 13 May 2003
Location: traversing the minefields of caddishness.
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| Posted: Thu Nov 19, 2009 7:05 am Post subject: |
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| Muskoka's Own wrote: |
I don't think you can say "The American accent" because there are so many. Canada (again other than Newfies and the Quebecois) has a mostly uniform accent. |
No, they don't, you just don't have a very fine ear. If you're from Muskoka, you definitely have a slightly different accent than someone from Toronto- probably more nasal |
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ardis
Joined: 20 Apr 2006
Location: Seoul
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| Posted: Thu Nov 19, 2009 2:37 pm Post subject: |
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| Geckoman wrote: |
I've met Amerians who said they didn't have an accent.
All Americans have an accent.
Everyone in the world has an accent. |
They probably just mean the type of accent that all the news anchors from the USA have--very non-descriptive. |
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