161 réponses à ce sujet

[por favor]

I'm curious...what do people outside of the U.S. think of American accents? Of course there are a million different kinds of American accents out there, so feel free to discuss whichever ones you feel most opinionated about.

What I'm most curious about, however, is the Standard American accent. I sound almost exactly like this:
www.youtube.com/watch

Does it sound odd to you? Annoying? 

Discuss. 

P.S. Please start your posts off with where you're from.

[sympathy4saren]

Your voice sounds like Jessica Alba? Or just your accent? I'm an American from Pennsylvania, but just curious

[Stanley Woo]

I've toyed with the "Standard American" accent, and being a Chinese-Canadian (who's also pedantic and wants to be right all the time), I find it difficult to manage. I'm simply not used to opening up my vowels so much, except when I'm singing, which is neat.

I suppose I'm accustomed to the American accent because I'm exposed to it all the time. My singing group had a workshop last week, and we got to talking about the American accent. The guy leading the workshop remarked how impressed he was that we all pronounced "sorrow" the same way (sore-row) and how Americans have trouble pronouncing it that way, pronouncing it sahr-row, with a more open ah sound. He told us that his wife was instructed by her singing group (in L.A.) to pronounce it sahr-row to match everyone else. That'd be weird to a Canadian, but I hear it's the same for voice actors. To get work for larger companies, you have to be able to at least simulate an "American" accent.

Here's actress Amy Walker demonstrating various accents.

[Chuvvy]

So, Woo sings. Interesting.

[Druss99]

Mmmmm Jessica Alba.....wait....what?

Oh accents. We get so much American tv here that American accents are just...common. It still gets a bit disconcerting when having face to face interactions with Americans though(especially tourists) but its more because they tend to be overly enthusiastic which comes across as fake. They might not be being fake but it comes across that way to me and a few others that I've spoken to about it, its hard to explain.

[Swordfishtrombone]

I think that the "standard" American accent is perhaps the version of English people internationally (at least speaking for myself) have been exposed to the most, so it just seems pretty normal. Perhaps the average Canadian accent is even more "neutral" to my ear.

I don't have trouble understanding different most Enlish accents, but having tried to share the awesomeness of RedStateUpdate with my friends, and almost everybody has difficulty understanding what they're saying.

[language warning]

Modifié par Stanley Woo, 23 juin 2011 - 09:22 .

[Boiny Bunny]

As an Australian (light accented at that), I'm not really a fan of the American accent personally. I'm more a fan of accents from the UK region.

I will say though, for any given accent, the thicker/heavier it is, the less I like it.

[AshedMan]

Stanley Woo wrote...

I've toyed with the "Standard American" accent, and being a Chinese-Canadian (who's also pedantic and wants to be right all the time), I find it difficult to manage. I'm simply not used to opening up my vowels so much, except when I'm singing, which is neat.

I suppose I'm accustomed to the American accent because I'm exposed to it all the time. My singing group had a workshop last week, and we got to talking about the American accent. The guy leading the workshop remarked how impressed he was that we all pronounced "sorrow" the same way (sore-row) and how Americans have trouble pronouncing it that way, pronouncing it sahr-row, with a more open ah sound. He told us that his wife was instructed by her singing group (in L.A.) to pronounce it sahr-row to match everyone else. That'd be weird to a Canadian, but I hear it's the same for voice actors. To get work for larger companies, you have to be able to at least simulate an "American" accent.

Here's actress Amy Walker demonstrating various accents.

Using your example of sorrow, I believe Americans pronounce it sahr-row, as you put it, because words with double consonants most likely have the short vowel sound (at least when we're adding endings to words).  Let's take the word "hop".  Hopping has the double consonant "pp" and we read it with short vowel sound.  "Hope" changes to hoping, with a single consonant p and is pronounced with the long vowel o sound.  So a word like sorrow seems to more naturally fit into the short vowel sound category.  That's just my take on it.

What was most interesting about the Amy Walker video, is that the one voice that sounds like it has the least impactful accent was her Seattle voice.  And when I looked up her biography, she is indeed from the Seattle area, as am I.  

Modifié par AshedMan, 23 juin 2011 - 10:35 .

[Druss99]

Montezuma IV wrote...

Druss99 wrote...

Mmmmm Jessica Alba.....wait....what?

Oh accents. We get so much American tv here that American accents are just...common. It still gets a bit disconcerting when having face to face interactions with Americans though(especially tourists) but its more because they tend to be overly enthusiastic which comes across as fake. They might not be being fake but it comes across that way to me and a few others that I've spoken to about it, its hard to explain.

Haha, I've been told that before, actually. When I was in London they thought I was being sarcastic when I was actually just being polite in the American way. They though it was funny, though :#3

I can't quite put my finger on why it is. My mate was in America for a few months last year and it nearly drove him mental. He didn't know what way to take people at all.

I just watched that Amy Walker video and she is going to haunt my dreams....she is kinda terrifying. Her Belfast accent is pretty awful, the real one is much more annoying than that. Scottish was a bit off too, it was a bit too coherent.

Modifié par Druss99, 23 juin 2011 - 10:48 .

[KenKenpachi]

Stanley Woo wrote...

I've toyed with the "Standard American" accent, and being a Chinese-Canadian (who's also pedantic and wants to be right all the time), I find it difficult to manage. I'm simply not used to opening up my vowels so much, except when I'm singing, which is neat.

I suppose I'm accustomed to the American accent because I'm exposed to it all the time. My singing group had a workshop last week, and we got to talking about the American accent. The guy leading the workshop remarked how impressed he was that we all pronounced "sorrow" the same way (sore-row) and how Americans have trouble pronouncing it that way, pronouncing it sahr-row, with a more open ah sound. He told us that his wife was instructed by her singing group (in L.A.) to pronounce it sahr-row to match everyone else. That'd be weird to a Canadian, but I hear it's the same for voice actors. To get work for larger companies, you have to be able to at least simulate an "American" accent.

Here's actress Amy Walker demonstrating various accents.

Serriously? wow everyone in my area says it like sore-row. Well minus a few blacks from up north. Then again might be as our regional dialect is closer to English English (lulz) than the more typical US style.  Which would be hillarious as Teachers and crap from out of the area says its wrong and tries to beat the dialect and accent out of us, till they give up and just want to get paid.

[Ryllen Laerth Kriel]

The good old U.S. has many accents since it was settled by so many peoples in different regions. Just take the South East for example. There are big differences between alot of regions, even in the same state. Tennessee is a long but thin state going from delta flatland in the west to hills and valleys in the middle to mountains, all sounding slightly different. Florida is of course filled mostly with exiled Cubans or Northern retirees. Carolineans sound different than Virginians and people from Alabama and Mississippi sound a bit differnt too. It's a mess but a fun one.

And there is really no "right" way to pronounce the English language considering how it picks and borrows from so many historical influences. Hopefully we can keep it from evolving too much further though, so we can look back two hundred years from now and not need a translator to interpret our records.

[darth_lopez]

i think i can safely say Michigan, Ohio, and most other places i've been, excluding the Southern states (cross the mason dixon on the map) say sar-row if i knew how to type in the IPA i'd transcribe it but i don't for us it sounds like sar-row thought not sahr-row unless the h is silent.

and despite us having like 12 (possibly an exageration i think it's on the money though) accents i'm pretty sure the typically stereoptyped "Standard American English" hails from the Mid-West Region (Michigan and Ohio + many of the states in between to Minnesota i think).

edit: we also sound alot like jessica albas pronounciations very minor differences if any

Modifié par darth_lopez, 24 juin 2011 - 08:41 .

[GodWood]

I find it a tad annoying myself.

[Deathwurm]

Stanley Woo wrote...

I've toyed with the "Standard American" accent, and being a Chinese-Canadian (who's also pedantic and wants to be right all the time), I find it difficult to manage. I'm simply not used to opening up my vowels so much, except when I'm singing, which is neat.

Do you mean "Standard American" in the style sense...the one that's taught? I had a terrific Speach teacher in Acting school & she taught us that American Standard taught for Performance really doesn't exist anywhere in the States...

Also, Singing is centered in a different part of the brain than speaking, so you can have two seperate ways of sounding that don't cross over from one action to the other.

Modifié par Deathwurm, 24 juin 2011 - 09:34 .

[Rawke]

Whenever I actually speak English (which doesn't happen that often except in school) I try to stick to a British accent. It's the accent you learn in school here (it's usually either that or American English). But since I'm not a native speaker, I feel like it's hard for me to stick to that accent because I watch a lot of American tv shows and movies. It influences the way you speak (if English is not your mother tongue).

And there is really no "right" way to pronounce the English language
considering how it picks and borrows from so many historical
influences. Hopefully we can keep it from evolving too much further
though, so we can look back two hundred years from now and not need a
translator to interpret our records.

I actually wrote a dissertation about that. And I doubt it'll stay as it is. English has always been a language that borrows from other languages. Not necessarily from related Germanic languages (how many words do you know that have a German or Dutch origin?). There are words you'd think are English but in fact are borrowed or derived from a totally foreign language.

[por favor]

sympathy4saren wrote...

Your voice sounds like Jessica Alba? Or just your accent? I'm an American from Pennsylvania, but just curious

Voice and accent. Meaning if you put our voices side-by-side, we'd sound almost identical.

[Kaiser Arian XVII]

There is some major accents I think. North-East Normal American, Latin, Country (many varieties) and few more.

[por favor]

Stanley Woo wrote...

I've toyed with the "Standard American" accent, and being a Chinese-Canadian (who's also pedantic and wants to be right all the time), I find it difficult to manage. I'm simply not used to opening up my vowels so much, except when I'm singing, which is neat.

I suppose I'm accustomed to the American accent because I'm exposed to it all the time. My singing group had a workshop last week, and we got to talking about the American accent. The guy leading the workshop remarked how impressed he was that we all pronounced "sorrow" the same way (sore-row) and how Americans have trouble pronouncing it that way, pronouncing it sahr-row, with a more open ah sound. He told us that his wife was instructed by her singing group (in L.A.) to pronounce it sahr-row to match everyone else. That'd be weird to a Canadian, but I hear it's the same for voice actors. To get work for larger companies, you have to be able to at least simulate an "American" accent.

Here's actress Amy Walker demonstrating various accents.

It's so odd how Canada is so close to America and shares the same main language, yet the people pronounce their words so different. I've noticed that a lot of Canadians tend to say "sore-row" as well as "soor-ry" (sorry.) Americans pronounce it completely different by saying "sahr-ry." I've also noticed how they say "aboot" (about) instead of "ah-bout" like Americans do.

The way they pronounce their words used to annoy me, but I've come to find it rather cute. There's nothing more adorable than a Canadian telling you "I'm sorry." You almost have to forgive them...