The American accent

I went to Wal-Mart this morning to exchange the propane tank for my gas grill. While waiting in line at the cashier, I overheard the two women in front of me raving about the French accent of the guy working the cash register. "Oh, I just love to hear guys who talk with an accent," one of them gushed.

Really? Isn't that another way of saying "guys who didn't learn English pronunciation?" Would that same sexy guy take it the same way if these two women started saying things like "mercy boocups" and "excyoosy mwa?"

I've never understood how speaking English with a French accent is not taken the same way as speaking French with an American accent. Or Spanish. Or Italian. Or German.

Schwarzenegger is intriguing to listen to, but I bet if I said "Spracken zee dutchy, donkey shine?" it wouldn't get the same response. It's acceptable for the waiter at my favorite Mexican restaurant to explain the specials to me in an accent so thick that I have no clue what he's saying, but I would get sneered and sniffed at if I replied, "Byoonos Dee-ass, Mooey Beans." If fact, whenever Americans do attempt to speak Spanish there, the waiters correct their pronunciation.

How is that not the exact same thing?

 

as a youngster i thought the american accent was peculiar. but with so much exposure to american tv and the obsession with everything american , i no longer find it intersting.

people find foreign things interesting because people are drawn to it because of peculiarity or whatever. i personally hate the aussie accent. its rough and unrefined, especially the country accents. but if im in a crowd that arent so used to it ill add to my accent to accentuate my 'australian-ness'. people love it.

 

Lish,

Dude, I totally don't remember you having an accent. WTF, mate?

That and I gotta ask: Did I sound like a Yankee Redneck Cowboy?

 

what matters is that one respects the walmart warehouse workers' strike this coming friday.
don't shop there.

 

I think it's just difficult to break out of the phonological patterns of your own language when learning another (snowy already covered this point pretty well). And beyond that, even when a sound is ostensibly the same sound in two different languages there may be just slight differences in how they are articulated and even that can be enough to mark someone out as foreign.

We're used to hearing foreign speakers of English so maybe we are better equipped to understand those people, which is perhaps why there's less of a need/urge to correct them.

I remember one time I received a look of complete bafflement from a native speaker while attempting something in Greek and it was down to me using aspirated Ps and Ts (as I'm used to using in most positions as a speaker of English) instead of unaspirated. I guess the person I spoke to just could not match up those sounds I made to anything in his own inventory. And that's in a language where the difference isn't even crucial, but in another language (e.g. Thai) I might have been making a real fool of myself to boot. The other native Greek speakers I spoke to could understand me well enough, which I think maybe comes down to the frequency with which they encounter people with other accents or phonological features speaking their language. I later learned to produce those unaspirated consonants in the positions I wouldn't normally but that is difficult, and it isn't helped at all by the fact that the majority of people probably would not be able to explain that difference (just as you often can't rely on native speakers to clear up grammatical points for you beyond telling you what seems right and wrong to them).

FWIW, a Greek girl I was speaking to said my accent when speaking Greek was sexy so I guess that can go both ways. My natural accent is that of Scottish Standard English, and while lots of people "looove" that accent I've yet to hear anybody describe it as sexy unless it's a man speaking.

 

Plan9 , i didnt put on my heavy aussie accent for you because i didnt want you to call me 'cute' dude. If you were a chick, i'd totally put it on for you.

It's ok though, at least you dont sound like Lordeden. Those NC accents let off my redneck sirens like there's no tomorrow.

 

I apparently sound like a redneck hick, at least according to the people (kids) on XBL making fun of me after I slaughter them in Domination.
I don't really think of myself as a redneck, but being from East Texas and not having traveled a lot and therefore becoming exposed to other cultures and accents, I come across as a motherfucker from the deep woods.
Would definitely like to have a better accent. Irish, English, Scottish, maybe Austrian (g'day mate!)

/boy, yew shore have a purty moth
//likes moths

 

I wouldnt say there is any such thing as an "English accent" - just like there isnt an American one.

A guy from Alabama will talk a lot different from a guy from Boston.

Same as in England, a guy from Newcastle sounds a lot different to a guy from Bristol

_

In terms of accents I like, I do like Swedish girls, it sounds to me like a strange marriage of North London and Germanic - but then again a Swede would probably tell you someone from Skane sounds a lot different to someone from Stockholm...

 

This is exactly what I mean! I think I worded myself badly there. It's always men with Scottish accents that people describe as sexy, it never seems to be women, or at least I've never heard women being complimented that way. I don't know if that's maybe because it's kind of rugged-sounding or something, and who wants their women rugged, especially when you could have, say, an Italian? But I do still get a quite a bit of attention for my accent.

 

surely, you meant AUSTRALIAN.. surely you did.

 

I always feel as if the accent most attribute to Americans is Southern or Texan. A smidge of rendeck. It seems to be the perception that many have of this country that I've noticed.

It is fun to place someone geographically. I'm not the biggest fan of how people sound in Wisconsin, Minnesota or Illinois. I will admit that I melted listening to gentleman from Savannah.

Bostonians are definitely interesting.

I agree with@Lish when it comes to Aussie accents. I know there's a difference, but I feel the same with New Zealand accent.

 

Because for these women it had nothing to do with correct pronunciation. It had everything to do with vive la difference. If a young Bridget Bardot came on to you in English with a very heavy French accent would you be fussing over pronunciation? I don't think you would.



The only time poor English annoys me is when I'm trying to get resolution through a call center. Other than that, I fully excuse mispronunciation from those for whom English is a second language. At least they make the attempt which is more than I can say for most English speaking Americans.

 

I beg to differ!! First of all, for the record:


It ain't just her face and bod that drive me nuts. That accent is sexy as all fuck!

And while that might be a sufficient point right there, I can tell you that my first "serious" girlfriend was an exchange student from Scotland. She was redheaded, mercurial and hot-tempered, built like a Valkyrie, and (being from Inverness via Glasgow) had a Scots burr that could strip paint from wood when she was in a mood. And that accent drove me absolutely crazy. Hearing her talk could make me cross-eyed from horniness.

Scots accents can be just as sexy on a hot chick as on a hot guy-- more so, IMO, since I am not into guys.

 

Happy to be proven wrong on this point!
--- merged: Nov 18, 2012 at 9:16 PM ---
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