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weirdmom Posted Fri 20 Jul, 2007 9:50 PM |
So here a question: what do you think of American accents?
When I was 16 I was an exchange student in Germany and everyone went seemingly out of their way to tell me how much they hated American accents, they were so ugly, blah blah blah. I felt like I perhaps should become mute and encourage my entire country to follow suit.
(sidenote: Did this stop them from watching American shows? Listening to American music? No.)
Anyway, fast forward to about 2 years ago when I was in London. Two guys told me they thought American accents were "sophisticated." I laughed and was pretty sure they were just saying that since one of them was hitting on me at the time. But it got me curious so the rest of the trip I asked various people what they thought and I mainly heard that they liked some of them but not all of them. Just curious to hear what the boardies here think. |
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AbsolutPurple Posted Fri 20 Jul, 2007 9:57 PM |
sophisticated ???
LOL |
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weirdmom Posted Fri 20 Jul, 2007 9:58 PM |
| I know. I cracked up. But someone else who wasn't hitting on me said something similar. I was shocked. To each his own, right? |
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Hanne Posted Fri 20 Jul, 2007 10:01 PM |
To me, it's almost surreal actually speaking to people with an American accent. Basically, only people on TV have those accents. I know it sounds stupid but TV is my main source for listening to American English, hence the association when I hear it real life.
I can't say that it's ugly though; it kinda depends which accent we're talking about. It's not like they have the same local accents in New Hampshire and Louisiana.
By the way, when I studied English at business school, we were told to choose an accent. They didn't care whether it was British, American, Australian or whatever, as long as we spoke the same kind of English all the time and not just some kind of general English. I remember thinking that this was silly but then again, you can't learn a language properly if you can't learn to speak it. |
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AbsolutPurple Posted Fri 20 Jul, 2007 10:03 PM |
i aim to speak british english
and sing like Chrissie Hynde |
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Tracey982 Posted Fri 20 Jul, 2007 10:03 PM |
| I love the American accent. My nephew makes me laugh because certain words he uses he says them as Americans would say such as Toona (Tuna), or Toosday (Tuesday), or trash (rubbish), just wee words like that. He is 8 years old from Aberdeen and he is so used to watching American based programmes/cartoons so he's used to it, it's sweet! |
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AbsolutPurple Posted Fri 20 Jul, 2007 10:07 PM |
Tracey982 wrote: I love the American accent. My nephew makes me laugh because certain words he uses he says them as Americans would say such as Toona (Tuna), or Toosday (Tuesday), or trash (rubbish), just wee words like that. He is 8 years old from Aberdeen and he is so used to watching American based programmes/cartoons so he's used to it, it's sweet!
very classy indeed |
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ricv64 Posted Fri 20 Jul, 2007 10:35 PM |
| We talk slow and bland in California , maZn |
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Lucile Posted Fri 20 Jul, 2007 10:42 PM |
| As an English teacher and a linguist I'm really interested in all kinds of accents and phonetics in general (that's the subject if my doctoral thesis - I'm a geek, I know!). I have to admit though that when I was younger I used to dislike the American accent but I guess that it was because of the teacher I had at the time who had this very strong, nasal accent which made her sound like a walking caricature. She tried her best but it was so exaggerated that it sounded fake. Even if I still have a slight preference for British accents now, I like American accents just fine. |
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Hanne Posted Fri 20 Jul, 2007 10:47 PM |
Lucile wrote: As an English teacher and a linguist I'm really interested in all kinds of accents and phonetics in general (that's the subject if my doctoral thesis - I'm a geek, I know!). I have to admit though that when I was younger I used to dislike the American accent but I guess that it was because of the teacher I had at the time who had this very strong, nasal accent which made her sound like a walking caricature. She tried her best but it was so exaggerated that it sounded fake. Even if I still have a slight preference for British accents now, I like American accents just fine.
The subject of your thesis sounds incredibly interesting to a fellow geek like me :o) |
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Lucile Posted Fri 20 Jul, 2007 10:51 PM |
Hanne wrote: The subject of your thesis sounds incredibly interesting to a fellow geek like me :o)
The full title is "the relationships between the semantics and pronunciation of HAVE from the point of view of grammaticalization". How geeky is that?! ;) |
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ricv64 Posted Fri 20 Jul, 2007 10:53 PM |
Lucile wrote: I have to admit though that when I was younger I used to dislike the American accent but I guess that it was because of the teacher I had at the time who had this very strong, nasal accent which made her sound like a walking caricature. .
Say What ? must of been trying a Michigander |
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Hanne Posted Fri 20 Jul, 2007 10:57 PM |
Lucile wrote:
The full title is "the relationships between the semantics and pronunciation of HAVE from the point of view of grammaticalization". How geeky is that?! ;)
Well it's a relevant subject within the field of linguistics and therefore interesting lol
I had a grammar professor at uni who would probably love this. I've never met a man who knew as many details about English as he did. For instance he spent an entire class trying to explain to us all the various uses of 'the' just to emphasize his theory that 'the' is the most difficult word in the English language.
When you say semantics, it just reminds me of modal verbs cos that's what I had to write about in one of my exams. It was about epistemic and deontic modality. Gees I can't believe I remember! |
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weirdmom Posted Fri 20 Jul, 2007 11:02 PM |
Lucile wrote: As an English teacher and a linguist I'm really interested in all kinds of accents and phonetics in general (that's the subject if my doctoral thesis - I'm a geek, I know!). I have to admit though that when I was younger I used to dislike the American accent but I guess that it was because of the teacher I had at the time who had this very strong, nasal accent which made her sound like a walking caricature. She tried her best but it was so exaggerated that it sounded fake. Even if I still have a slight preference for British accents now, I like American accents just fine.
That sounds pretty interesting to me as well. |
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SamuraiSandy Posted Fri 20 Jul, 2007 11:44 PM |
ricv64 wrote: We talk slow and bland in California , maZn
Haha...
we all know about the Texas Twang! I've definitely developed a little twang over the years...
I think it's kind of funny to hear ppl imitate the American
accent, 'cause so many ppl do it with a twang... |
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