Re: listen to this awful American accent... and why?

cvilla — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 22:30:00 GMT

Just some additional comments. CalifJim wrote: First of all, I didn't think it was awful. (I mostly listened, not watching.) The following are some observations. It think that depends on your taste. For some people it's awful; for others it's not. CalifJim wrote: 1. The stress pattern is slightly off. Slightly too much rising pitch at the ends of phrases, or perhaps a little too much lengthening (slowing down) there. Yep, that's true. Also, it seems that his intonation is flat on very long sentences, like on "When I was a baby my daddy wanted to take me to another..." You also need to take into account that the way he rises pitch is sort of weird. CalifJim wrote:

Re: American accent

kooyeen — Fri, 02 Mar 2007 22:09:05 GMT

Hi Jeffrey, it depends what you need help with. Is it the vowel sounds that you don't know how to pronounce? Or you know how to pronounce a single word but you can't join different words together in a sentence? Much depends on your native language, also. Often Asians have trouble pronouncing r's, but for most Europeans that's not a big problem. I read a book on American accent not long ago, to try to reduce my foreign accent, and it really helped me a lot. But, depending on your particular problems, it might not be the right book for you. So let us know what your problems are in particular, then we will see. Americans speak fast? Well, let's say that the more I listen to Americans speak, the more they speak slowly. In other words, to us...

Re: Speaking Teaching Books

kooyeen — Sat, 10 Feb 2007 02:06:40 GMT

Hi, yes, there are books that deal with stress, intonation, and pronunciation. I've read "American Accent Training" by Ann Cook. There's really a lot of stuff in that book (and on the 5 CDs). I haven't tried any other books anyway, so I can only tell you about that one. It treats American English, not British English or any other variety. Generally speaking, it's a really good book and I would recommend it. Some points (just my opinion): She (Ann Cook) makes you notice almost all the features of English that you've never noticed (stress, intonation, liaisons, word reductions, contractions, vowels, tapped t... ) Five CDs for audio lessons (she reads most of what's in the book, so you can listen while reading). Plus, she speaks very...

Re: American Eng. features in the UK

kooyeen — Fri, 19 Jan 2007 22:46:28 GMT

Anonymous wrote: The American pronunciation of “o” in your next example wouldn’t be found in any regional accent of British English that I can call to mind immediately, though there is considerable variation in the pronunciation of this sound – for example, in Scotland, Liverpool and the West Country. Similarly, there are variations in the pronunciation of the “talk, walk, call” vowel and the “no, so, low” diphthong from region to region – but none that I can think of that are close enough to the American pronunciation to be considered the same. The tap/flap is quite a distinctive feature of American English. It’s not in the standard British English inventory, but you might hear it in some Irish accents. I've heard...

Re: American Eng. features in the UK

anonymous — Wed, 17 Jan 2007 09:20:09 GMT

It’s rather hard to work out quite what you are looking for here. Some of these features – as Marvin A was pointing out – are not specifically American English pronunciation, but the allophonic variation that occurs in connected speech. That is, the pronunciation of some sounds is influenced by the sounds around them because of the way you have to move your lips, tongue, velum and so forth to get from one sound to another. Thus, your first four examples show the impact of the following “y” /j/ sound, and this is not specific to either a British or American accent. The American pronunciation of “o” in your next example wouldn’t be found in any regional accent of British English that I can call to mind immediately, though there is...

Re: listen to this awful American accent... and why?

califjim — Mon, 15 Jan 2007 00:30:05 GMT

since I'm learning American English, I wanted to know why that standard American Accent was awful First of all, I didn't think it was awful. (I mostly listened, not watching.) The following are some observations. 1. The stress pattern is slightly off. Slightly too much rising pitch at the ends of phrases, or perhaps a little too much lengthening (slowing down) there. 2. The word junctures are occasionally unidiomatic. The use of too at the end of one sentence was not phrased right. The use of today at the beginning of another had the same little problem. In my opinion, it should have been todayI almost as one word rather than with the pause after today and then I . 3. The lax vowels, especially the stressed ones, were...

Re: listen to this awful American accent... and why?

anonymous — Sat, 13 Jan 2007 19:21:53 GMT

Well this conversation is ancient, but maybe you get a tickler when someone replies adn will find this. The guy's accent is crap. I'm Canadian but I'm from Toronto where our accent is *almost* standard American (or what we called in the film business Mid-west Flat) and I can tell you a few specifically crappy things about it. I'll focus on the first couple of sentences, there is more than enough wrong with it. Also I agree with the commenter who said it sounded vaguely Russian. "Standard American English. Hello my name is Paul and, the reason why I'm recording this video is to show you the way I talk. I will tell you a little story too." Apart from the specific pronunciation problems, the rhythm is off. That's a very...

Re: Defining American English

marvin a. — Tue, 26 Dec 2006 19:27:39 GMT

So what's your definition of American English (or North American English, as some prefer)? I would probably define it mostly by its phonology. It would be pretty hard to define. Or why not just say, any dialect of English spoken in North America? Is there a standard for American English? Not really. It's defined many different ways, and no one seems to agree. In it's broadest definition it's simply any dialect of North American English that contains no stigmatized features. William Labov defines in his Phonological Atlas of North American English as being Western US, Midland, and Western and Central Canadian English. Wikipedia has a (controversial) article on "General American" which states that "The General American accent...

Re: how to pronounce 'sp', 'st' and 'sk' in the middle of the word?

kooyeen — Mon, 11 Dec 2006 19:34:55 GMT

Hi, this is interesting, it reminds me of something I read in a book for improving pronunciation (the famous "American Accent Training"). The title of the paragraph is "Spoon or Sboon?" She (the author) say: "Say spoon. Now say sboon. Hear how they sound the same?" This is similar to your p/b problem. Anyway, I disagree, spoon and sboon sound similar to me, but not the same, and people say spoon, not sboon. She go on saying: "Hear how they sound the same? This is why I'd like you to always convert the preposition to to duh when you are speaking, no matter what comes before it (voiced or unvoiced sound)." I have to disagree again. I don't think to becomes duh after unvoiced consonants. Examples: "Way duh go!" (ok, vowel sound), "I...

Re: which accent?

marvin a. — Fri, 08 Dec 2006 17:52:06 GMT

To tell you the truth, I've never heard any foreigner (unless they learned English when they were very young, or had lived in an English speaking country for at least a decade, and had extensive, and personalized accent coaching) ever be able to pull off either an American or British accent. "British English" and "American English" consist of 3 parts--accent, spelling, and lexicon. As for accent: when people learn an American accent, they learn what is known as "General American"--an accent based on a generalized Midwestern accent, spoken in the 1950's Narrowly definied, this accent is only spoken by very old speakers (80 year olds) in the Midwestern and Western portions of the US, and in a couple of 90 year olds in Canada. Broadly...

Re: listen to this awful American accent... and why?

englishuser — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 14:13:42 GMT

Hi The Golden Man, You wrote: His pronunciation of 'today' for instance, places too much stress on the first syllable. He says "too-day," when that first vowel should be a schwa. Of course, some people pronounce 'today' /tu'deI/. Englishuser

Re: listen to this awful American accent... and why?

the golden mean — Mon, 13 Nov 2006 03:03:03 GMT

I think the problem with his Standard American Accent is two fold- one, his native accent sneaks through a few times in the consonants as a few have pointed out. Secondly, and I think this is the deal breaker, he has some problems with stress and intonation. Part of the problem is he's reading from a script, and I kind of suspect he memorized some of the sounds along with the script without paying as much attention to the rhythm of his speech. His pronunciation of 'today' for instance, places too much stress on the first syllable. He says "too-day," when that first vowel should be a schwa. It's not terrible, but it won't sound natural to a native speaker's ears. Try to listen to it again, keeping in mind about how English...

Re: is "perfect accent" attainable?

anonymous — Mon, 06 Feb 2006 14:33:52 GMT

It really depends on your native language. If your native language has many of the same sounds as English, it may be possible to attain a speech pattern that is very close to American accent. If, however, your native language lacks most of the English vowel sounds, like Spanish or Italian, it will be much more difficult. Also, most Americans find a slight foreign accent prestigious and attractive so as long as you have correct pronunciation and no communication problems, you may want to keep accent!

Re: Have a question about British accent.

tallulah tam — Tue, 08 Nov 2005 14:45:59 GMT

When I came to live in the States I joined a singing group. Not a band, more a choral society. I was told when we were singing Shenandoah not to sing "water" with an English accent, it was meant to be sung with an American pronunciation where the "a" in water rhymes more with our English pronunciation of pa and ma. Strangely, in both the American and English dictionary it gives the pronunciation as waw -ter. but their version comes out very differently. The American language does not possess the vowel sounds of the English version of watch or water. I think if you listen carefully you will hear the American accent when they are singing. Incidentally, I think you DO have an accent! The way you say "Corri" and "mate" I can almost hear it.

Re: a foreigner's question on British pronunciation

matthew huntbach — Wed, 15 Jun 2005 08:39:13 GMT

I've heard (say, in some British songs) the following pronunciation: the vowel in "got" was pronounced in a sort of ... where a similar thing could happen, say "pot", "stop", etc. I mean I didn't notice it in Blur's singer's speech/singing. It just seems to be one of those things - pop songs are sung in an American accent. Perhaps it's because pop music originated from the USA, or because it's considered to be more glamorous to sing in an American accent, or because somehow the American accent fits the sound of pop music better. It's such a convention that people barely notice it and it seems to be done unconsciously. On the whole the British people seem to be remarkably tolerant...

Re: Dams and The

ian noble — Sat, 14 Aug 2004 09:12:16 GMT

Rubbish (meant nicely, but). Shades of my old Eng Lit ... gem, but doesn't fit the scansion. Nothing more, nothing less. Okay, now what about this issue of the pronunciation? Ross implied that the "Lancasheer" pronunciation which Lennon unquestionably uses is ... thought some BrE person here said that some BrEs actually do use a 'sheer' pronunciation for certain -shire place names. Over-analysis. The underlying vowel is a short ee. The last note is extended in the line, so the last syllable has to be held too. That pulls it from the (normally very short) "shir" into "sheer". Pronunciation has nothing to do with it. I'd welcome a suggesting as to how Lennon might have sung it otherwise,...

Re: pronunciation of 'shoulder' and 'l'

jim heckman — Thu, 12 Aug 2004 03:56:39 GMT

On 11-Aug-2004, Mxsmanic (Email Removed) wrote in message (Email Removed): It is not true for English in Los Angeles, where ... same phonetic length; the difference is almost entirely in quality. I agree; I've noticed the same thing in American English, which makes the incorrect phonetic transcriptions used in so many English coursebooks even more misleading. Agreed, if such coursebooks claim to be representing American pronunciation. Apparently length is indeed an inherent part of vowel phonemes in several important British dialects, where /i/ ~ (i:) is in fact longer than /I/ ~ (I). Like other vowels, both do vary in length depending on the surrounding segments, though. Yes, but it's irrelevant to meaning. Depends on what you...

Re: pronunciation of 'shoulder' and 'l'

jim heckman — Wed, 11 Aug 2004 10:01:30 GMT

On 10-Aug-2004, Mxsmanic (Email Removed) wrote in message (Email Removed): The length of vowels in English is not phonemic; that is, you can be understood whether you pronounce vowels long ... In English, /i/ is usually long and /I/ is usually short, but they are recognizable not matter what their length. It is not true for English in Los Angeles, where tsj says he is, that "/i/ is usually long and /I/ is usually short"; nor is that so for most American accents, I'm pretty sure. /i/ and /I/ here have very nearly the same phonetic length; the difference is almost entirely in quality. Like other vowels, both do vary in length depending on the surrounding segments, though. A famous example is the relative length before final...

Re: Spelling sounds in English

areff — Mon, 19 Jul 2004 01:54:16 GMT

How many Americans are aware that the "long 'o'"of Received Pronunciation is different from the American "long 'o'"? Some American accents have a "long 'o'" that is similar to the "long 'o'" of RP. How 'bout Philadelphia/South Jersey? There's also the question of the Esperanto "a": It can be the "ah" of "are," /A/, or the sound /a/, ... the beginning of the diphthongs "eye, /aI/, and "ow," /aU/. (Again, I don't know whether this agrees with the Fundamento.) What do you mean "/a/ ... does not exist in American English"? How would you notate the "father" vowel of Eastern New England accents?...

Re: Pronouncing "semi"

pat durkin — Wed, 14 Jul 2004 20:11:16 GMT

I wonder whether he's a BrE, say, who is hearing some particular American accent's /E/ realization as an /i/. PIPs, for example, will say "semi" in a way that might sound like "simmy" or "simm-eye" to PINPs. I wonder if there are any speakers of a variety of BrE who has created an initialism for the phenom of "effing" in place of "iffing". The thought occured to me while watching the PM speaking to the House of Commons this morning (or PM in the pm, in London). It was the Speaker who consistently used the "Ef" pronunciation. Is he from Scotland or somewhere near there? Does that vowel shift occur with other following consonants, or is it limited, as Richard's appears...

Re: Father different twist

michael west — Mon, 28 Jun 2004 02:31:49 GMT

To me American pronunciations of "cot" generally sound either a ... of an American accent has something close to my "cat". I have a typical American accent. When you listen to my pronunciation of "caught" which is the same as my pronunciation of "cot" in my recording at http://www.alt-usage-english.org/archive/bc both2.wav , do you really think anyone would say "cat" that way? It seems to me, from reading this group, that people, unless they have been trained to do otherwise, tend to "hear" foreign vowels as being "closer to" a vowel that they themselves use than it actually is. By "foreign" I mean foreign to their own dialect, English or otherwise. They...

Re: Father different twist

areff — Mon, 28 Jun 2004 01:25:33 GMT

To me American pronunciations of "cot" generally sound either a ... of an American accent has something close to my "cat". I have a typical American accent. When you listen to my pronunciation of "caught" which is the same as my pronunciation of "cot" in my recording at http://www.alt-usage-english.org/archive/bc both2.wav , do you really think anyone would say "cat" that way? I'm not altogether sure you do have a "typical" American accent, but then I'm not sure if there is such a thing (and even if there is, I'm not sure what Jonathan Jordan thinks of as a typical American accent). One feature of your accent that, in particular, I find atypical is your relatively...

Re: Father different twist

jonathan jordan — Fri, 25 Jun 2004 17:16:06 GMT

I started a new thread, because my question is not quite the same as what is under discussion in the ... a sound that, to us non-Americans, seems closer to 'a', so I started thinking about the letters 'a, o, u'. It's been frequently mentioned here that Americans (eastern New England excepted, of course) tend to use their "cot" vowel for (a) vowels in other languages. I found it hard to find contrasting words - I wanted 'cart, cot,cut', but of course this would make no ... question is, what exactly is the difference between the Standard American pronunciations of 'bomb' and 'bum'? Is it just vowellength? Are you saying that a typical American pronunciation of "cot" etc....

Re: Australian vowels - "zoo"

larry g — Wed, 07 Apr 2004 00:51:24 GMT

Larry G infrared: I was watching "the Croc Hunter" the other day and ... care to tackle an IPA, or other, representationof that one? I see you're not getting any responses from Australians in this thread. The problem is that our own pronunciation sounds ... is Sue, how do you do". There might be a little bit of a glide in there, something like (zV"Uw). Yeah, that kind of represents it. I can say this much: I would feel deeply insulted if anyone thought I spoke like Steve Irwin. Hehe, sorry. I know what you mean. I think it's kind of interesting. But, I understand whenever I hear someone attempting to do an American accent, and it comes out sounding rural Texan. The reason I'm fascinated with it is that I...

Re: Northern and Southern English

chameleon — Tue, 24 Feb 2004 03:28:14 GMT

Southern American english varies widely in difficulty to comprehend. The deep south accents (Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi) are more difficult for me to understand when people speak. Then again, I live in Texas, so I am exposed to horrible drawling all the time (though my accent is not very obvious, as verified by third parties ). The nature of the southern accent is difficult to explain. It is characterized by slow speech which distorts some syllables and avoidance of sharp pronunciation. Sounds normally pronounced on the tip of the tongue in standard American english are usually avoided unless they begin a word. Examples: gowyn => going pardner => partner (the "t" sound has been softened by replacement with "d") Vowels...

Re: Long A or Short A Vowel Sound?

apurbva chandra senray — Fri, 13 Feb 2004 15:24:36 GMT

Thanks for your feedback. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I speak like national personalities such as Tom Browkaw, Katie Couric, Jane Pauley and Diane Sawyer. This might come as a surprise to you, but all these people don't necessarily have exactly the same accent. Whatever their dialect is, mine is very much the same. Dialect and accent are not necessarily the same thing. They probably do speak in the same dialect when giving news reports. There is, I think, a Standard American dialect. However, there probabaly isn't a Standard American accent. Is their a name for their accents? Hello, Fontana? (i.e., a standard broacasting/network dialect of some kind?) Anyhow, to me, they all sound very much alike. I personally...

Re: Long A or Short A Vowel Sound?

meg anne — Fri, 13 Feb 2004 04:19:13 GMT

I have no regional accent that I'm aware of - ... believe it's a regional thing that's causing me this dispute. It's not quite as simple as that. There isn't one, uniform general American accent. There's plenty of room for variation, even if you don't have a specifically regional accent. Thanks for your feedback. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I speak like national personalities such as Tom Browkaw, Katie Couric, Jane Pauley and Diane Sawyer. Whatever their dialect is, mine is very much the same. Is their a name for their accents? (i.e., a standard broacasting/network dialect of some kind?) Anyhow, to me, they all sound very much alike. I personally think of this as just plain American - no...

Re: Long A or Short A Vowel Sound?

apurbva chandra senray — Thu, 12 Feb 2004 20:54:45 GMT

I have no regional accent that I'm aware of - I talk just like they do on television and in ... vowel sound within the words in question, so I can't believe it's a regional thing that's causing me this dispute. It's not quite as simple as that. There isn't one, uniform general American accent. There's plenty of room for variation, even if you don't have a specifically regional accent. Despite all the feedback I've gotten to the contrary, I still firmly believe that it's the long a sound. I've tried hard to be convinced otherwise, but I just can't be swayed on this. I think you're approaching this the wrong way. You say it one way; I and many others you've consulted say it another...

Re: anytime

jonathan jordan — Mon, 12 Jan 2004 10:26:52 GMT

Well, of course, pure IPA is far too powerful for a dictionary,except to distinguish dialect. A decent phonemic notation would suffice. For instance, there's an extra low back phoneme in RP that I never know when to pronounce, since it overlaps with /a/, Most British varieties, including RP, do indeed have two phonemes where most American accents appear to have one. Using the notation used by those British dictionaries which do use IPA, we have: /A./ in "cot", "bother", "swan", also usually in "dog", "cloth", "long", "orange", where many American accents have /O/. /A:/ in "palm", "father", "cart", plus some more words, like...

Re: New page on the AUE site: Pronunciation of newsgroup contributors'

r f — Thu, 23 Oct 2003 16:29:15 GMT

And, in some dialects (including a dwindling subset of the ... follow the vowel that whole "can't"/"pass"/"bath" sort of class. I'm tentatively describing that as "tense a" rather than "ah": it seems to be (*roughly*) the same set of words in which American accents that have a split short-a system have their tense /& ^/. By Jove, I think you're right! Well, or at least it's a proper subset of that /&^/ class. That's weird, and calls to mind (FWIW) R.J. Valentine's baffling perception of my (supposedly Jamaican) pronunciation of "man" in the "catamaran" recording. Let's note that R.J. Valentine seemed to regard this perceived accent...

Re: Trying to place an accent

aaron j. dinkin — Tue, 12 Aug 2003 18:15:56 GMT

I suppose you merge "cot" and "caught". Yes. Is the pronunciation that is different from mine, similar to the vowel in British RP "bald" (where "bald" and "bold" rhyme), and which one? "Bald" and "bold" are not the same in RP. RP "bald" is, however, the same as the "bold" of some American accents, such as my own. -Aaron J. Dinkin Dr. Whom

Search results for 'tag:Vowels tag:Pronunciation tag:American Accents' matching tags 'Vowels', 'Pronunciation', and 'American Accents'

Re: General AM Eng-pronunciation of talk, caught and bought

Re: Has anyone tried out AJ.Hoge"s course-EFFORTLESS ENGLISH.If so,How was it?

How do I say this?

Re: Can anyone give me the phonetic guide for American English

Re: How about my accent?

Re: listen to this awful American accent... and why?

Re: American accent

Re: Speaking Teaching Books

Re: American Eng. features in the UK

Re: American Eng. features in the UK

Re: listen to this awful American accent... and why?

Re: listen to this awful American accent... and why?

Re: Defining American English

Re: how to pronounce 'sp', 'st' and 'sk' in the middle of the word?

Re: which accent?

Re: listen to this awful American accent... and why?

Re: listen to this awful American accent... and why?

Re: is "perfect accent" attainable?

Re: Have a question about British accent.

Re: a foreigner's question on British pronunciation

Re: Dams and The

Re: pronunciation of 'shoulder' and 'l'

Re: pronunciation of 'shoulder' and 'l'

Re: Spelling sounds in English

Re: Pronouncing "semi"

Re: Father different twist

Re: Father different twist

Re: Father different twist

Re: Australian vowels - "zoo"

Re: Northern and Southern English

Re: Long A or Short A Vowel Sound?

Re: Long A or Short A Vowel Sound?

Re: Long A or Short A Vowel Sound?

Re: anytime

Re: New page on the AUE site: Pronunciation of newsgroup contributors'

Re: Trying to place an accent