How to distinguish between different English accents?

[lost_soul]

[Jamie (K)]

[Torsten]

Of course Jamie is right. CNN Europe employs staff from different countries so when you watch CNN Europe on a regular basis, you get exposed to a variety of Englishes.
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Test Of English for International Communication
TOEIC Preparation & TOEIC Vocabulary

[Jamie (K)]

Don't anybody forget that there are 572,346,214 different accents in the UK alone, so when you talk about "British English", you're talking about a lot of different accents.

There are fewer accents in North America, but many of them share features with standard British speech, such as the deletion of "R" before other consonants or the ends of words.

Here is a great site for listening to accents of the UK:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/voices/recordings/index.shtml

I like this guy:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/voices/recordings/individual/scotland-penicuik-hutchison-mose.shtml

Here is a page that describes various types of accents of the US and the UK.

http://www.ic.arizona.edu/%7Elsp/index.html

This site has accent recordings from almost everywhere:

http://web.ku.edu/idea/

Here's an excerpt from a game show in which NOBODY is really speaking with a standard US accent. The contestant (the singer Kellie Pickler) grew up in North Carolina, and the MC, Jeff Foxworthy, is from Georgia. Kellie's accent is much thicker than Jeff's.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEP7uti0PDw&feature=related

In case you think Kellie is faking ignorance, I can tell you that I worked with a woman once who was just as dumb about geography. I'm convinced it's all sincere.

[lost_soul]

[Yankee]

Hi Alex

I have a sneaking suspicion that Jamie's number was a simple typo. He probably meant to write 572,346,241.
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(Jamie's use of that number means "an incredible number of".)
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Amy
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ESL teacher, translator, and a native speaker of American English

[lost_soul]

Hi, Amy

Oh, Golly!
Yeah, everything falls into place now

[prezbucky]

ROFL Amy ("apple" comment)

[NinaZara]

It's hard for me to choose which accent is clearer or easier to listen to. I practically grew up learning British English, spoken by local teachers in Malaysia but I am also highly influenced by TV series from America. I don't think it's true that the theory of listeners of British English are only exposed to clearer version of BrE. I think it depends on the level of education of the person himself and the people's that he mingles with.

When I was small I love the British series "Mind your language", and of course Mr.Brown uses very good English, (obviously, since he is teaching English to foreigners in England in that series) but there was also examples of non-standard BrE (I think it was the janitor) in that series that I find hard to understand. Then again, if I were to listen to somebody from Texas with very heavy accent, I would have had the same problem.

Also, years ago I met a ship captain, an American who runs the ship of my father's company, my biggest impression was, listening to TV is not the same as listening to a real live person(Am I alone in this regard? I hope not). Maybe, at that time I was not exposed much to American accent, and maybe it was also because my father has always told me that the British pronunciation is clearer. Although he did mention about cockney English.

Then, as I was getting older I found myself listening to more American English, TV series,CNN etc. And after a while, for a moment, I thought BrE was hard to listen to (specifically BBC, I have no other sources of English here in Japan), turned out that the speaker of the particular BrE that I listened to was heavily accented with German tongue, I think, but I'm pretty sure it was not Italian, French, or Spanish.

No wonder!

So now I'm back to thinking BrE is clearer. Nevertheless, I cannot say which I understand better. It highly depends on the topic or whether I am listening or not.

[prezbucky]

Come on, Nina, how can you turn down our sexy R's?! (well, except for those... not... pronounced by Bostonians)

hehe

repeat after me por favor:

Carrrrrr

Barrrrrr

Starrrrr

Furrrrrr

Stirrrrrr

hehe

[NinaZara]

[Jamie (K)]

[NinaZara]

Hmm...but I like it. I think it's adorable. Tell me, is that particular accent considered bitchy in general, in your side of the pond that is?

[Jamie (K)]

[NinaZara]

Maybe, if I have that accent with Samantha's personality, it will be super fine.