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What's your own accent like?

Started by Lisa Jesusandmarychain, October 03, 2021, 02:26:51 PM

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Ferris

Quote from: QDRPHNC on October 04, 2021, 03:25:39 PM
People from Northern Ireland think I sound Canadian, Canadians either don't hear any accent, or think I'm Irish or Scottish, or think I'm mispronouncing words for fun.

QDRPHNC is very definitely NI, not sure what loopy Canadians you're hanging out with to miss it.

QDRPHNC

That's nice to hear, I think it would make me sad if I lost the accent completely.

Ferris

Canadians seem to be quite bad at clocking accents. I've had Irish, American, Newfoundland, Scottish; all sorts of terrible accusations levelled at me I've the years.

QDRPHNC

Yeah, they're all over the map. NI throws them off I think, in the same way a Newfie accent sounds weird to me. It's sort of almost Scottish and also not at all.

Bernice

Quote from: Kankurette on October 04, 2021, 03:26:37 PM
Btw if badaids or any other Everton fans are reading this, you might remember Roberto Martinez had a bit of a Scouse/Lancastrian twang, I guess cos he's lived in the UK for years.

I love a foreigner picking up a regional twang, really want to do it myself. I speak good Spanish but it's very standard, never lived anywhere long enough to commit to picking up their idiosyncrasies. There's a Russian footy journalist, Sasha Goryunov, who's a big Liverpool fan and has Scouse edges to his accent. Lovely stuff.

derek stitt

Really gruff Forest of Dean accent that sounds overly aggressive and sarcastic for some reason. Can speak the dialect too.

timebug

Our local accent is very noticeable when anyone from around here is interviewed on the telly. I have managed to lose mine, or most of it, through a series of jobs where speaking clearly(usually on the phone) was essential. I never tried consciously to 'lose it; it just crept up on me; to the point where, in one job, a local was talking to me,and asked 'where are you from,then, I can't place your accent'

Gulftastic

Leeds through and through. My vowels are flat, the word 'bath'' has no 'R' in it, and the definite article is somewhat vague.

Mild West Midlands (Wolverhampton/Black Country, not Birmingham) so also flat vowels (it's laff not larff) but completely lacking in charm. The sound of someone hoovering in the next room.

Twit 2

Neutral/RP, with the occasional horrifying Norfolk twang.

AllisonSays

I used to have such a thick (rural) Northern Irish accent when I first left home that even though I had only moved to another part of Ireland people couldn't understand a word I was saying, it was embarrassing.

Especially since living in southern England for a while - and doing jobs that require me to be understood when I'm speaking - my accent has softened so much that it's only perceptible to people as some kind of regional difference from RP, they usually think I'm Scottish.

Quote from: Twit 2 on October 05, 2021, 09:17:53 AM
Neutral/RP, with the occasional horrifying Norfolk twang.

Quote from: thenoise on October 03, 2021, 08:06:50 PM
Neutral. A bit like Adam Buxton, complete with lapsing into various silly accents for no apparent reason (probably bored with the overwhelming neutrality of my own voice).

How can you have a 'neutral' accent? Is this like American people who think they 'don't have an accent'?

I'm guessing you both have some kind of English accent?

Quote from: AllisonSays on October 05, 2021, 09:53:42 AM
Especially since living in southern England for a while - and doing jobs that require me to be understood when I'm speaking - my accent has softened so much that it's only perceptible to people as some kind of regional difference from RP, they usually think I'm Scottish.

Yep, this has happened to me too. Living in South Wales now, I think the ear for non-English accents is a little better, but when I lived in Birmingham I remember a student once saying to me "I'm not really sure what you're talking about, but I could listen to your accent all day. Y'know, Scottish or whatever".

Twit 2

Quote from: Clatty McCutcheon on October 05, 2021, 10:06:39 AM
I'm guessing you both have some kind of English accent?

Well yes it is technically an accent, but non-regional. People don't know where I'm from unless I tell them, and even then I don't have that accent. South of England, I suppose? I pronounce everything pretty much according to the IPA.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Received_Pronunciation

Blue Jam

Quote from: Kankurette on October 04, 2021, 12:13:19 PMMark Hughes is from Ruabon which is in Wrexham, this is what he sounds like.

Robbie Savage is also from Wrexham:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THYB_fTQf70

I hope I don't sound like this... ;)

Closest accent I've heard to my own is probably Dawn French's, with the way it's a tiny bit boomy with a Welsh "tenor" most non-Welsh people don't recognise as Welsh. I sound a lot more Northern though, and also a bit Scouse.

I've also been told I sound like a "posh northerner", and got called a "Nosh Portherner" for a while.

Quote from: Twit 2 on October 05, 2021, 01:38:17 PM
Well yes it is technically an accent, but non-regional. People don't know where I'm from unless I tell them, and even then I don't have that accent. South of England, I suppose? I pronounce everything pretty much according to the IPA.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Received_Pronunciation

It's not technically an accent, it is an accent. If you go to Dublin or Dundee and speak RP-type pronunciation, people are going to immediately note that you speak with a pretty strong English accent. They're not going to perceive your accent as neutral.  It might seem neutral to you because of the context; most people speak like that where you're from, but that doesn't make it neutral any more than my accent is neutral because I pronounce words the way that people in Glasgow/west of Scotland tend to pronounce them.

Twit 2

Quote from: Clatty McCutcheon on October 05, 2021, 01:57:09 PM
It's not technically an accent, it is an accent. If you go to Dublin...

Well of course it's an English accent that will be heard as such. I meant within England itself it's not like other accents because it's non-regional. Colloquially, many people would say (and have said to me) "you don't have an accent." But yes, that is itself an accent.

Quote from: Clatty McCutcheon on October 05, 2021, 01:57:09 PMThey're not going to perceive your accent as neutral.

It would be perceived as RP/non-regional English. Or "neutral". I'm using neutral to mean "non-regional".

Shoulders?-Stomach!

Quote from: Bernice on October 05, 2021, 05:31:31 AM
I love a foreigner picking up a regional twang, really want to do it myself. I speak good Spanish but it's very standard, never lived anywhere long enough to commit to picking up their idiosyncrasies. There's a Russian footy journalist, Sasha Goryunov, who's a big Liverpool fan and has Scouse edges to his accent. Lovely stuff.

Dietmar Hamaan had a good Scouse accent and local vernacular affected to the point of saying 'me' instead of 'my'. But then he went too far and started stealing cars and depending on the state for basic provisions instead of going out to work

Stoneage Dinosaurs

The southeast of England is a region, so it is technically a regional accent, and I'm not sure what the relevance of RP would be nowadays. There is very little in the way of variation in such a massive area though, I mean I'm willing to be corrected but I couldn't tell you what the difference between a Hertfordshire and a Kent accent would be.

Dex Sawash


Try it and just see what happens to your accent

Blue Jam

The Kent accent is one I recognise, having worked there a little bit and having had a colleague from there. Essex is pretty distinctive too. "Estuary English" is definitely a thing as well.

Quote from: Twit 2 on October 05, 2021, 02:01:18 PM
Well of course it's an English accent that will be heard as such. I meant within England itself it's not like other accents because it's non-regional.

It would be perceived as RP/non-regional English. Or "neutral". I'm using neutral to mean "non-regional".

There seem to be a whole set of very Anglocentric assumptions here.

You're using 'regional' only in the sense of regions of England.  'Non-regional English accent' might be a fair description, but 'non-regional accent' or 'neutral accent' definitely aren't.




Blue Jam

I remember reading something about how most Americans, when asked to do a British accent, will do either Cockney or Posh because they've heard them from British villains and British gangsters in films, while most British people when asked to do an American accent will do either New York, Valley Girl, Redneck or a kind of gangsta rap thing, and those taking it seriously will still usually end up doing a California accent because that's what we hear most often in US-made media.

How good are you at recognising American regional accents? Apart from the ones above I find I just associate Minnesota and the surrounding states with Terry Gilliam and everyone in Fargo. Virginia I think of as RuPaul and possibly what David Cross is doing as Ronnie Dobbs. Bit rubbish with the flyover states, to my shame.

Quote from: Blue Jam on October 05, 2021, 01:55:55 PM
Closest accent I've heard to my own is probably Dawn French's, with the way it's a tiny bit boomy with a Welsh "tenor" most non-Welsh people don't recognise as Welsh. I sound a lot more Northern though, and also a bit Scouse.

I've also been told I sound like a "posh northerner", and got called a "Nosh Portherner" for a while.

My dad was from Wrexham (Gresford actually (Llay actually)) but left as a young man so pretty much lost his accent. Despite living here for sixty years he never developed a Wolverhampton one (lucky him, eh?).

When we used to visit relatives in Bersham I was always surprised to hear that some of them sounded Welsh (sorry to be so generic) and others sounded almost Scouse-like to my uncultured ears.

Twit 2

#86
Quote from: Clatty McCutcheon on October 05, 2021, 02:13:31 PM
There seem to be a whole set of very Anglocentric assumptions here.

Yes, I'm assuming I sound English from England but from no discernible region of England and that a native English speaker (who was from the UK+Ireland especially) would think I sound like that too.

QuoteYou're using 'regional' only in the sense of regions of England. 

That's exactly how I qualified my statement, yes.

QuoteNon-regional English accent' might be a fair description

I wasn't trying to dispute the "English" part.

Quotebut 'non-regional accent' or 'neutral accent' definitely aren't.

Quote from: Twit 2 on October 05, 2021, 02:01:18 PM
It would be perceived as RP/non-regional English. Or "neutral". I'm using neutral to mean "non-regional".

I don't think I assume whatever it is you think I do, which is ironically an assumption itself. Is the problem the word "neutral?" It's not a slur. I don't intend it to mean "normal/desirable/most prevalent" or anything like that. At this point I don't even know what you're assuming I assume.

I'm saying: "I have an RP/non-regional/neutral English (spoken in the country England) accent" and you are for some reason taking issue with that. Isn't this all hinging on your interpretation of what I mean by neutral and/or you thinking when I say English I'm assuming that English as spoken in England is the only type, which of course I don't think? If I use "English" to speak about my accent English is both the nationality and the language.

Blue Jam

Quote from: Voltan (Man of Steel) on October 05, 2021, 02:46:52 PM
My dad was from Wrexham (Gresford actually (Llay actually)) but left as a young man so pretty much lost his accent. Despite living here for sixty years he never developed a Wolverhampton one (lucky him, eh?).

When we used to visit relatives in Bersham I was always surprised to hear that some of them sounded Welsh (sorry to be so generic) and others sounded almost Scouse-like to my uncultured ears.

I haven't been back to Wrexham since 2005 but when I hear Robbie Savage, Mark Hughes etc in these clips I'm surprised by how Welsh they sound- I always remember the Wrexham accent sounding much more North West English.

I've been in Scotland for ten years now (minus six months in Japan) but don't think I've picked up any hint of a Scottish accent at all. I may have gone native to some extent as a bit of Scots has slipped into my vocabulary, but not the accent.

Chollis

Quote from: Blue Jam on October 05, 2021, 02:13:27 PM
"Estuary English" is definitely a thing as well.

Definitely. "Standard English spoken with the accent of the southeast of England" apparently. You hear a lot of this around here (Cambridge) - like a London accent but just a bit posher. This lady does good examples of it. I've definitely done the same as Twit 2 in kinda describing myself as "no accent", but mine's probably Estuary. Could almost sound like RP at first but dropping way too many T's. Wa'er, not water. Then again, there's videos saying Jamie Oliver's is an Estuary accent, and that seems a lot more London/Cockney than what that lady is doing.

Blue Jam

Quote from: Chollis on October 05, 2021, 02:59:09 PM
Definitely. "Standard English spoken with the accent of the southeast of England" apparently. You hear a lot of this around here (Cambridge) - like a London accent but just a bit posher. This lady does good examples of it.

Yes, that sounds about right to me. I always thought Paul Merton's accent was typical of Estuary English.