In Dialects^x, Accents^x

When trying to learn a new accent listening to and imitating a native speaker is the most important and the fastest way to learn. When you were young you learnt a language by listening and then repeating the words while imitating the accent. However, as a child your ability for the ear to...

You know what? You're absolutely right. I live in Kanawha County, West Virginia, and obviously have somewhat of a southern accent (though not as thick as some), and I have to say that yes people absolutely look down in certain ways to people who speak this way... Although, sometimes I don't...

This has been said millions of times here before but (a) Scottish accents are among the most hardest accents to learn and sound convincing (Mel Gibson in Braveheart is a great example of a poorly portrayed accent) and (b) there are loads of regional variations. I come from the East Coast of...

Regardless of your accent, keep this in mind: Southern English isn't the only dialect that is strereotyped and misperceived; American English in general is strereotyped and misperceived.

Some people will even get a sort of neutral accent that has all of the unusual parts removed. The Western US accent was actually formed like that, because speakers from the North, Midlands, and South, all moved to the West, and their accents intermingled and the Western accent was sort of a...

Nope, a complete vowel merger means that you can neither produce nor perceive a difference between two or more vowels in a certain environment or all environments. In my dialect, the vowels vowels, so that I could transcribe them in IPA. I still have a great deal of trouble distinguishing...

Hmm. Sorry for the confusion. Now I'm a little confused too. I was saying two different things: 1) The "ay" in play, is pronounced differently in different dialects. Such as a monophthong or other variations. Some dialects (such as my own) pronounce "ay" differently depending on the...

Well, that phenomenon is very common in North America. Pronouncing /æ/ like that before /m/ and /n/ is also a feauture of Northern cities vowel shifted accents, where /æ/ is always pronounced like that, as well as many other dialects.

Kooyeen, I thought I remembered that when you took the American dialect test, you came out as a Westerner. You also said that you are normally cot . I've noticed that overall, it is a feature in my accent that almost no one comments on.