6 ms·
> a heavy American accent Any non-Americans want to chime in on what is a heavy American accent? I’m imagining heavy southern accent, but maybe this is somethi
by irrational 5y ago
> a heavy American accent
Any non-Americans want to chime in on what is a heavy American accent? I’m imagining heavy southern accent, but maybe this is something that can only be heard by non-Americans?
- laurieg 5y agoRhoticity (the r sound in words like butter). https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhoticity_in_English https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhoticity_in_English
- pindab0ter 5y agoImagine a British accent. Now imagine that that is what’s normal; everyone in your country speaks it. Suddenly American sounds very different. Specifically in my limited experience stuff like pronouncing t’s like d’s and soft back-in-the-throat r’s. “Budder” vs. “buttah”, for example. American vowels tend to sound larger as well in my experience.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- youeseh 5y agoMost accents that aren't your neutral evening news accent sound "heavy".
- TeMPOraL 5y agoIt's like your mouth was full of water - in contrast to British Received Pronunciation, which is like a mouth full of down feather. Also compare to "Hollywood Soviet English", which is like a dry mouth, but the tongue is filled with helium so it floats up, and then 'r' sounds like this: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/ce/Alveolar_trill.ogg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/ce/Alveolar....
- creddit 5y agoI have absolutely zero ability to take your descriptions and convert them into an understanding of what you're trying to convey. Like what could this possibly mean??? > ...which is like a mouth full of down feather.
- TeMPOraL 5y agoPillow filling. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Down_feather https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Down_feather This means speaking soft, muffled words - roughly the way you'd sound if you had your mouth full of something soft. Like feather. Or food. Not a perfect analogy, but hey, works as a hash for an accent, at least among the people I know locally.
- edwinyzh 5y agoBut to me they are good analogies! And I laughed!
- WA 5y agoFor me as a German, the people in this video speak a heavy American accent: https://youtu.be/c9kI_rAFuKA?t=72 https://youtu.be/c9kI_rAFuKA?t=72
- TulliusCicero 5y agoWell, that's a specific regional American accent, in the US called a Southern accent. Probably the only strong/widespread regional accent really left in the states (you could also argue for AAVE/ebonics but it's not regional in the same way). It's a bit like saying that someone from rural Bavaria who speaks with a strong Bavarian accent has a heavy German accent while speaking German.
- WA 5y agoYes, but I'd bet that the Bavarian accent in particular is considered by foreigners as "heavy German". Bavarian culture (Oktoberfest) is considered "typical German".
- TulliusCicero 5y agoThat may be, but they'd be wrong.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- dwb 5y agoI would read that as an accent that isn’t a softer New England accent, but also not one that non-Americans would so easily place more specifically (Southern, New York, maybe one or two others?)
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- rriepe 5y agoYou can hear a European perspective on it in the song Prisencolinensinainciusol: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VsmF9m_Nt8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VsmF9m_Nt8
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- sammorrowdrums 5y agoI'd say most people hear divergence from their local accent, and consider theirs to be (at least subconsciously) a normal accent. This results in English people hearing my accent as a bit Irish, and Irish people hearing the English parts. Neither acknowledge fully the shared parts. In truth, I am a bit of both. So I'd say a strong American accent to an Australian is the most divergent one, not one that somebody in US might consider strong. Living in upstate New York I also frequently heard "oh, you have an accent" to which I always tried to explain "so do you", and several times I got the response that their accent was either neutral or closer to generic English. It is amazing the subjective differences in how people experience accents, and how they feel about their own.
- ema 5y agoThere was a month or so after I moved back to Germany from the Netherlands where my own accent when speaking German was super noticeable to me. Otherwise I don't even hear my own accent when speaking English even though it is undeniable there when I listen to recordings of me.
- Agentlien 5y agoI'm born and raised in Göteborg (Gothenburg), Sweden. My parents are originally from Karlskoga, 270km NE from here. Göteborg has a very distinct accent and I always get told by others that I have a very bland Swedish with no hint of that accent. But one time I was at a wedding in Karlskoga and talked to someone I hadn't met before. I opened my mouth and managed to get half a sentence out before he interrupted with "Oh! You're from Göteborg!"
- dantondwa 5y agoSame experience for me. I am from the Venice area in Italy, which is famous for a very strong and somehow funny accent and dialect. However, my family is from central Italy. This resulted in me being considered having a Southern, definitely not local accent in Venice and me being considered Venetian by everyone else in Italy. Probably the truth is in the middle.
- naruhodo 5y agoSpeak through your nose and and lean heavily on the R sound wherever you find it. Peter Sellers called Americans "The Herns" [1]: > Various American characters with the surname Hern or Hearn, often used for narration, outrageous announcements or parody sales pitches. The Goons referred to Americans as "herns", possibly because saying "hern hern hern...." sounded American to them, possibly because Sellers once said that a decent American accent could be developed simply by saying it in between sentences. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_The_Goon_Show_cast_members_and_characters#Hern/Hearn https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_The_Goon_Show_cast_mem...
- oblio 5y agoAs a non-native English speaker I absolutely hate English accents where consonants absolutely disappear for no good reason. Personally I'd rather have Americans "lean heavily on the R" than act like the letter doesn't exist (rhotic vs non-rhotic). I think it's another factor why American English is more popular than British English (besides the huge economic factor, the US economy being 5x the UK one), since their pronunciation is clearer and more explicit.
- toyg 5y agoThe single most significant factor for the popularity of American accents is Hollywood.
- oblio 5y agoI'd include the US music industry in that. Songs are <<super>> important for learning a language, if you're constantly surrounded by songs of a certain language. Plus... American multinationals are somewhat close behind. If you want to get a good, well paying job at an American multinational, you have to speak English at least a bit, and you have to know it well if you want to move up the ladder.
- mnw21cam 5y agoPeople pronounce differently when singing vs speaking.
- exidy 5y agoFor me, if the speaker uses two syllables for "and", it's a strong American accent.
- toyg 5y agoTo me it's when water and wider are pronounced in a very similar way. Also, Americans abuse awesome.
- Rapzid 5y agoYou can't have too much awesome.
- irrational 5y agoI’m trying to understand what you mean here. How does one pronounce and with 2 syllables?
- eppsilon 5y ago"AY-und" Edit: another example: "door" => "DOH-ur"
- irrational 5y agoInteresting. I don't pronounce either of those that way. I wonder what region of the country uses these pronunciations?
- djur 5y agoThose are traits of some Southern and Appalachian accents.
- bitwize 5y agoReally rhotic r's, relaxed prosody, tongue flaps instead of a t berween vowels, indistinct schwas on unstressed syllables, etc. I also perceive Canadians to have "heavier" North American accents than Americans do. Some Canadians speak as if from the backs of their throats, with leaden vowels and really round r's. They also often overcorrect /a/ to /æ/ so "drama" becomes "dramma" (like the first two syllables of "Dramamine". And of course there was William Shatner's famous "sabotadge"...
- Agentlien 5y agoI'm Swedish and to me a heavy American accent means a clear rhotic r[0], slightly slurred speech, and a lot of volume. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhoticity_in_English https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhoticity_in_English
- RyJones 5y agoI got that a lot in Iceland[0] recently. I’d say something to a clerk, and they’d reply with “you’re an American!” Yes, how could you tell? You’re so loud! Thanks? [0]: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOgT48pM4GctCy-88GTDyyqyywMh1z4II https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOgT48pM4GctCy-88GTDyyqyy...
- irrational 5y agoI aware of this stereotype, so when I travel I purposefully try to talk just above a whisper.
- watt 5y agoWhen the speaker is creaking like a frog, speaking in that weird vocal fry register. It's very american way of speaking.
- jmrm 5y agoFor me, as an exaggeration to being understandable to an American, it could be this example from Regular Car Reviews (time: 02:20): https://youtu.be/oMDcIApBtL8?t=141 https://youtu.be/oMDcIApBtL8?t=141
- rbanffy 5y agoAmericans can identify accents from within the US. Any such accent would be identified by foreigners at least as American and probably as coming from a coast, the central US and the south.
- kodeninja 5y agoLike pronouncing "and" as "eeyaand".