Do you understand different UK and US accents?

[Torsten]

Hi, below is a short recording by Edward Corp from London. What do you think of his his accent/dialect?
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[Alan]

Hi,

It smacks to me of what is known as Estuary English. It's nowhere near rich enough to be called Cockney!
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/estuary/whatis.htm

A
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[Torsten]

So, Ed has an Estuary accent. The following one might be interesting for Amy has Ed is talking to Raymond Romanos, who originally is from New England: Esturary vs. Connecticut accent
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[Yankee]

Hi Torsten

Yes, Raymond's accent does sound quite "normal" to me. He's from a part of Connecticut which is about an hour's drive northwest from where I am. (The part of Connecticut which is now my home is located on the coast, near the mouth of the Thames River, not far from New London. They don't call this neck of the woods "New England" for nothing.)

Amy

[Conchita]

Is it only me or has anyone else noticed that Raymond Romanos has picked up a bit of a German accent? Apart from the intonation, I heard one or two "and's" pronounced [ant].

It's probably inevitable after such a long stay. How about you, Amy, do your friends and relatives tell you your accent has changed?

[Yankee]

Hi Conchita

No, actually everyone asks me why I don't have an accent.

I'll listen to Raymond again and report back.

Amy

[Yankee]

Report:

Yes, I heard one "and" that definitely ended with a 't' sound. That was probably a German influence. Another thing I noticed was that he said "yeah, yeah" once (instead of a single 'yeah'), and that might also be a German influence. I often heard Germans saying "ja, ja."

He uses the word 'yeah' a lot (singly). That isn't necessarily German influencing his speech, but his exposure to German might be causing him to use 'yeah' more often than he used to.

Amy

[Jamie (K)]

[Yankee]

Hi Jamie

I'd be interested in what you consider an "Eastern accent" to be. I mean, I've noticed slight to major differences all over the northeast. The Boston and NYC areas have their own special sounds. Vermont is somewhat different from Connecticut, the Philadelphia/South Jersey area also has an identifiable sound, etc.

[Jamie (K)]

To me an indication that someone is from the East is that they drop the R after a vowel, before a consonant. Another indication is that when a word-final R comes before a vowel, it is placed firmly in the next syllable, rather than being ambisyllabic. There are other indications, such as the way [?] is pronounced, and the O that most Americans would pronounce as [a], along with the [au] diphthong, which in the East can come out as [?u]. There are other features I can't think of now. Not all of the Eastern accents have all the features, but when they cluster together in various configurations, it's pretty clear the person spent at least some of their life in the East.

I can tell immediately if someone grew up in Warren, Michigan, as opposed to Detroit, Grosse Pointe, or Marquette. I can also tell the difference between the speech of people from the city of Chicago as opposed to women from the north shore suburbs of Chicago. You probably would not discern these differences, but you would correctly identify them all as Midwesterners.

[Yankee]

Hi Jamie

Though I've never studied linguistics as you have, I've always had a pretty good ear for even small differences in pronunciation. My "pre-Germany" job experience involved frequent relocation, so that probably helped. I spent most of my childhood in the Philly area. When I first moved to Connecticut, people asked me where I was from. I'd tell them 'New Jersey' and the response was often something like "Ah, so you're from Joisey" -- in other words, with an imitation of a NYC accent, even though they'd just heard me pronounce 'Jersey' the "Philadelphia way" and not the "NYC way."

[stew.t.]

Hi

Add my two penths here I think both of the guys recorded have very clear accents.
I can make mention to Eds accent as most of my German friends who have met him think he speaks very clear.
As for Ray he also has a very clear pronunciation.
The challenge would be to find accents that are stronger, especially maybe guys doing regular job, i.e. construction as opposed to teachers. As I believe a lot of teachers modify or have lost some of their original accent because of the adjustments necessary to teach and be understood.
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[Tom]

Come to think of it, Torsten, neither do I understand Cockney accent, nor the TITLE of this thread! Perhaps something like "you" is missing!?

Tom

[Alan]

Hi,

I feel I must put this matter to bed. THE Cockney accent, for what it's worth, isn't bad English, isn't estuary English, isn't bad grammar - it is a rich variety of English that used to flourish in the East End of London but there are very few proponents alive who still speak 'genuine' Cockney. But whatever you do, don't label downright slovenly ungrammatical English 'cockney' because it quite simply aint.

A
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[stew.t.]

Hi guys

The thread asks if you understand accents:

Try this Northern Irish accent on youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFduog8W-3M

Do you understand the accent?

And a bit of humour added in for the mix.
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