The wonderful thread on accents, idioms and dialects.

I open this to discuss one of my turns.

Accents.

Which are your favourite ones? Which are not? Which are yours?

Well, I live in Wisconsin, so my accent would be American Midwestern (generally considered the "default" in American media). My family and I generally lack the stereotypical nasally component ("Wiskeeeaanson" notwithstanding, although I consciously avoid saying it that way), although I do know others in whom that is more pronounced.

As for my favorites, I do enjoy the Scottish and Welsh accents. One of my history professors was Welsh, and a lot of us developed man-crushes on his voice.

edited 3rd Jun '14 10:57:55 AM by BrainSewage

I've tried imitating the most authentic Irish accent I can find. It'd be the characters on Father Ted, which I think is an actually Irish show.

My Norwegian dialect is a "posh" Bergensian, because of my first kindergarten. My English accent has been described as somewhere between French and German, though.

I have to admit,I have a knack for pickin' 'em up. My default accent is a Southeastern US accent. Of course I made a conscious effort to drown my original accent on account of it being the lowest common denominator of American accents.

Back when I was first learning Spanish,I had just returned from Italy, so everything I said in Spanish took on a bit of an Italian lilt.

And when I came back from Britain, it took me a week to get the native accent back....that was a sad day.

As for favorites, Scottish, New York, Dixie, New Zealand and some African accents all sound great to my ears.

And I have no idea where if any my accent would be if I spoke German.

I'm not very good at perceiving the difference between English accents when heard, and when written I have basic notions of when I'm reading an American or a British, but I still would be misleading when it comes from aussies or Canadians.

Nonetheless, my experience with Americans its that their speaking patterns always seemed to me with a snarky vibes that I didn't perceived in the brits, who tend to be as deadpan as possible, but dunno if it is just me

Also, spellcheck may be useful but mostly it makes my English more odd than it would be desirable

#2: I'm from Michigan, so I sound pretty similar to you. Probably even more nasal since Asperger Syndrome has given me a somewhat high nasal voice. My aunt's lived in Michigan all her life, but she's picked up some odd Southernisms like "warsh".

I love Aussie accents. Always enjoy hearing Keith Urban getting interviewed.

And yaaaa, dat Yooper/upper Midwest accent is one of da funniest t'ings I ever heard, eh? Yaaa, you betcha. (Seriously, I was at a grocery store in Marquette, Michigan, and my cashier sounded like she walked off the set of Fargo.)

I got no idea what my natural accent is. Time spent in both Jersey and the south have made it into something strange, I know that much.

Also accents are fun to do, that stuff was my speciality when I was involved in theatre

I actually have a recording of myself reading a passage: http://vocaroo.com/i/s1mwsfuyWZdd I live in Atlanta. Yes, I know, I don't sound like Larry the Cable Guy like everyone seems to think Southerners sound like (Atlanta is mostly transplants so you'll find that people have fairly standard American accents with only slight Southern twang). My favorite accent is the Irish accent.

I'm from the Northeast of Scotland, so you probably wouldn't recognise the accent. The only actor who springs to mind as being from my neck of the woods is a guy called Kevin McKidd who used a few words from our dialect as Lord MacGuffin in Brave. Even then, he comes from a town 60 miles away, which is a long way in our terms; go that far the other way and you're out of the Northeast and into Tayside, which is like a whole different country.

As a result of a bit of travelling, my parents' background, mixing with folk and particularly the army's influence, people from my own part of the world tell me I sound posh, like I'm from Edinburgh or even (shudder) English, but folk from elsewhere in Scotland can easily identify my accent.

I have a plain old San Franciscan accent. Or so I believe. Apparently I sound English. I do talk a bit faster than average, have a rising inflection, and try to have clear pronunciation, but I don't know if that's enough.

I also know a guy with a downplayed but distinct New York accent. Whenever he asks "How ya doin'?" I have to stop myself from grinning.

I just sound straight-up, plain vanilla midwestern. My parents both had Texan accents, but consciously suppressed them during their college years because they were ashamed of their twang and thought it made them sound like hicks. I still use y'all and the like.

So basically the inverse of myself, I started off with a very generic accent [as the average San Francisco accent is,if you could call it an accent], then I moved over to the most rural part of Virginia you could get...that changed things.

Fast? I can see their point (whoever told you that), then again the South is the land of a slower way of speaking. But I never considered the Bay Area accent particularly fast. It's slower compared to most Northern cities (such as Chicago or Philly or New York).

The accent that everyone thinks is the "irish accent" is this really made up, exaggerated accent that I have never actually heard in person. The thing is that there is no Irish accent at all. Our accents change literally from village to village and you can most likely tell where someone is from due to their accent. The contrast can be massive, even for people that have never been to Ireland. Seriously, listen to a Dublin accent then a Belfast accent and compare them, they are completely different despite being around 150km apart. I'm pretty bad when it comes to mumbling but it doesn't effect me when I talk to locals as I'm sure that everyone in my area can communicate through a series of grunts and "ah"s

edited 10th Jun '14 12:47:24 PM by Ferret

Usually spaniards talk english with an Irish accent for a reason

I dunno what my accent may be when talking in english, though

Irish and Spanish people have very close links. There is a huge gene connection between Ireland and North Western Spain.

Same all over the British Isles - anybody who's heard me talk will know that most of my family are from one specific area of Wales and that it's merged a little with the Kensington and Chelsea accent, which has produced an accent that can be described as a Welsh Southern Belle in a way.

Sounds like a very cool combination. :)

I was born and raised in Northern Spain, where accent is notably quirky, mostly because of archaisms and odd syntax.

When I had to move south because of my dads work,I was frequently mocked for it, because the place I had to live at the time was (and still is) a notorious snobby conservative hive (Think on a Spanish version of Texas for a parallelism) so my natural accent was synonim for them of a brutish, illiterate individual.

Also, my appearance didnt help, I guess.

The point is my parents didnt ever quite losed it but, over the years, and since Im studying in Madrid, I sound mostly as a regular plains castillian, if a bit quirky.

But when Im back at my hometown, I revert back egregiously to my original speech patterns spent just a couple of days.

I tried Going Native, but as time went by and I realised I am, and will ever be, a Fish out of Water, I started to miss and became prouder of my old north.

Its a sad story.

edited 10th Jun '14 2:46:51 PM by MrsRatched

Usually when im watching or listening to something in Spanish, I expect to hear a Mexican accent, so im usually thrown off a bit when I hear a Spanish accent.

Also, oddly enough, I don't have an accent when speaking English, but I have been told I sound really white when speaking Spanish. *sigh*

Americans tend to speak spanish with mexicanc accents, which sounds rather corny to spanish ears.

Reversely, spanish accent is regarded as very harsh in most latin america

Makes sense,considering Mexico is the closest. That or Cuba

My accent tends to slide back and forth from a generic Western Isles one to a generic Irish one. That my immediate ancestry is of these two places has a lot to do with it, I'm sure.

I enjoy most English accents, for various reasons (sounds classy/fun/relaxed/badass...) but perhaps surprisingly I hate the French-dude-speaking-English's accent. Especially in fiction, where the actor/dubber usually isn't French and forces it in a way that sounds completely unnatural to my ears.