#standard american english accent

[essskel]

the way that the american and British accents of the witcher games english dub are almost completely arbitrary between characters and nationalities and don’t make sense if you try to logic it out is really funny and i’m not even mad about it because Triss sounds like she’s from Ohio and that tracks. I say this as a midwesterner

[xietydhd]

This might be niche, but there is nothing quite like the pain of hearing someone talk about your dedicated field of study and get the facts so, so, so wrong,,, like please,,,,you arent right at all,,,,please no,,,you just regurgitated something you read somewhere on the internet and its not right

[lord-squiggletits]

Been reading a book about the development of the English language that includes chapters related to English languages/dialects and their impact with class. Thinking about how much people freaked out and made it a meme/joke that Prime Wars Overlord had a US Southern/"cowboy" accent. About 🤏 this close to deciding to write all of my stories going forward with all characters speaking Texas-accented English as the default instead of Standard English going forward bc I'm annoyed about my accent family being treated like a joke and/or used as a sign that horrible things deserve to happen to them

[lipstickontheglass1985]

might get eaten for this but honestly i find it kind of suprising how similar in general british vs american english actually are to each other? like yeah sure the accents can be very distinct depending on the specific region and there are some words which differ completely depending on the variant (like i dunno lift vs elevator pavement vs sidewalk etc) and a bunch of slang terms which only occure in one of the variants (though, again, seems like they are more region dependent rather than american vs british english thing) but as a whole its like. if you are, say, a child who has been taught english by a bunch of purists who are insistent on only teaching the british variant as correct, and then once you grow up enough for unrestricted internet access go online onto english speaking spaces which are predominately american, you won't really struggle with understanding them if your "british" english was alright in the first place. like there is a difference but its far from enough to cause any sort of gap in comprehension. and i find this personally fascinating cause supposedly those two variants have been developing an ocean apart from each other for like three centuries

[radlearning]

learning english by yourself will give you the most fucked up accent. i say half the words in a british accent the other half like a valley girl and if i ever say "oh no" you can read it as "oh naur" cause i got that from h2o just add water

[shitty-check-please-aus]

the library doesn’t have the audiobook of the 13th book in the series I’ve been listening to, so I’m reading the ebook version instead, and I’m learning that I’m very bad at guessing spellings of words based on pronunciation alone

[mishkakagehishka]

Hmmm. Sick of my accent again.

[freddieandersen]

thanks to that post I’m now playing all my hozier lps at 45rpm and some of the songs gain new dimensions when you can imagine Dolly in them

[moinsbienquekaworu]

Reding through the accent post tags and apparently Ohio has the most "neutral" American accent? I said East Coast cause prior to the like. 60s or whatever radio and tv casters were trained to speak with a midatlantic accent, which is an accent thats a mix between British and American English

Anyway. Yes even Americans have an accent is the point im getting at here!

Love you! Have a lovely rest of your day!!

I know! It's wild to me that a percentage of people are native americans and don't personally think they have an accent because english is one of the most obvious languages where you always have an accent! I'm not a language expert and there probably are other languages like that but english just doesn't seem to have a Standard because even if you ignore the small regional differences then you still have american vs british going on!

French has a Standard, and you can talk all day about what that says and why this accent is standard and classism and whatnot, but there is one Recognised Accent that is the one taught to learners as the Standard and the Default, and whether you have an accent or not depends on how much your personal accent is like that standard (a friend told me the standard is the accent of Tours and I believe her?)

But in english there are at least two standards! Like learners are either taught british english or american english but they're two different varieties with attached accents. And in those two there's the standard american, the southern american, the standard british, cockney, etc etc whatever, plus everything else like the aussie accent that people always ignore. But there's two standards! So to me it's completely bewildering because you can evaluate how much of an accent you have based on one of these standards but there's two of them! Even if you're american and you rarely hear anything but american accents you have to be Aware of the other standards for the language!

I am incapable of conceiving a worldview in which a native english speaker doesn't think they have an accent, is the conclusion.

[tutubola-moved-on]

headcanon time (actually this is all from months ago but pretend it's not)

thinking back to the farm dialect posts from like years ago lol wouldnt it be cute if they went around the human world speaking like idk fucking new york english (since they're basically in new york) but then when they go home and it's just them they switch back to their actual dialect and it's like the unmatched feeling of going home after spending the whole day speaking in a foreign language and finally being able to speak your language

[windor-truffle]

Tales of Graces but everyone has accents based on their country of origin. Most of the cast now sounds like they're straight out of the Xenoblade franchise. Malik is vaguely Russian. Pascal shouts onomatopoeias in French. I think I need this actually.

[neosatsuma]

Let's talk phonics!

Every English vowel can make two basic sounds: what's called a short sound, and a long sound. Take the letter E, for example. A short E can be found in the words met, bet, and set. A long E can be found in the words meet, seat, and treat. (You might notice the two vowels in a row in these words; double vowels in English almost always make the vowel sound long!)

In standard American English, "coffee" is pronounced with a short O sound, such as in the words dog, log, and cough. The IPA symbol for this vowel sound is ɒ. An easy way to spell this sound without using IPA is "ah" -- as in when the doctor asks you to stick out your tongue and "say 'aahh!'"

This is not to be confused with the short A sound, as in the words apple, cat, and axe. The IPA symbol for this vowel sound is æ. An easy way to spell this sound without using IPA is simply "a" (with no "h" after it).

Accents will slightly (or largely) alter our vowel sounds and how we might think to spell them; "coffee" sounds different with a British accent than an American one. But now that we know how to talk about vowel sounds, let's rephrase:

Does "ko-fi" sound identical to "coffee" (typically, for Americans: a short O followed by a long E)?

Or does it rhyme with lo-fi (typically, for Americans: a long O followed by a long I)?

Or does it sound like something else?

[kiss-dumbbunnies]

they visited australia to pay nate a visit for his birthday :)

extra text details under cut

nate, kess, and benjie have been good buddies since they were kids! nate had to move back to the ol' aussieland pretty early in their lives. they still usually kept in touch online, though!

apparently, nate and benjie had a bit of a falling out that kess was unaware of, and they hadn't spoken in quite some time. they seem to have reconciled, though...

they decided they'd all pitch in to pay for some tickets, and kick him out of his house for a few hours to prepare a super surprise party for his birthday!! :)

they had a lot of fun. he told them all about his wonderful [sic] adventures during his time in the outback. avery had no clue what he was saying half the time as she'd never once in her life encountered a man who could speak "english" without speaking english at all the whole time. she was awestruck. it was mesmerizing. devon didn't care because the girls were paying more attention to nate than himself. but he tried to be polite the whole time.

benjie and nate seem to be at least on good terms again. they had fun. avery had never seen so many different techniques for spider-killing and marsupial-clobbering. she vowed that the only time she would ever return to this country would be to study under his wing and/or marry him.

benjie and devon were sent to go get the tickets for the ride home while the girls stayed back and chilled with nate for a bit. it had only then dawned upon them that, caught up in their excitement of the idea of visiting a foreign land, they had completely forgotten that they had to pay for tickets to their destination AND the ride back. not only that, they had no local currency with them and no idea how to access their bank accounts without their cards. avery also probably forgot her passport somewhere in the bush. whoops! go figure!! haha!!! what will these crazy critters do to get themselves out of THIS sticky wicket??!!

[fandomaddictwut]

I’ve seen some people complaining about Channing Tatum/his accent in Deadpool & Wolverine, and I just want to set a few things straight.

Channing has been on the docket to play Gambit since 2005, but each and every time, the character was cut from the script, he had a prior contract, or the director kept getting replaced until the project was scrapped 4 years later with the Fox/Disney merger.

He has family in Louisiana and grew up in the bayous (albeit in rural Alabama). This character has meant something to him since CHILDHOOD when it comes to representation in media.

Gambit doesn’t speak SAE (Standard American English). He’s a street urchin from Acadia/New Orleans. He grew up speaking Cajun (a mix of Southern American, Canadian French, and España Spanish grammar applied to a mostly English vocabulary) and Louisiana French (an offshoot of Canadian French from Acadians).

Every person I’ve seen online who ACTUALLY GREW UP around people who speak Cajun, Creole, and/or Louisiana French has said that his accent is SPOT ON, maybe even a little too clear.

All this to say: if you can’t understand Gambit in Deadpool & Wolverine, you’re not supposed to. That’s the bit: unless you’re used to those dialects and accents, you’re shit outta luck trying to parse it out without help. Hell, even Rogue, who grew up in the South, doesn’t know what he’s saying half the time.

[xcziel]

kinda bummed anew that i only understand english

watching vocal coaches from other countries especially sk and japan react to who's english lyrics with detailed breakdowns of how he is singing in english is blowing my mind even without strong understanding

it's so fascinating to look from the view of someone seeing the language and pronunciation as practical or aesthetic *choices* within a song

[writers-potion]

Writing Character Accents in Fiction

Hey there, thanks for the question! I speak English as a second language; most English speakers I encounter aren’t native (yes, including fictional people); thus, this is a concern I’ve explored personally when I write. 

I think the core principle regarding accent writing is this: it shouldn’t be distracting. 

For the same reasons why Stephen King prescribes the basic dialogue tag “said” rather than fancier alternatives like “whispered”, “shouted” or “screeched”, dialogue must be first and foremost easy to read. It must flow like a real conversation – the pace and tone are a lot more important than how specific words are being pronounced by the character. 

Focus on what effect the accent has:

Using adjectives to describe their voice in general. Different types of English (American, British, Australian, etc.) will give off a different vibe, also partly dependent on how your character speaks in general:

Lilting: Having a smooth rise and falling quality; sing-song like. Welsh accent is often described as singing. 

Posh: from a high social class. This is the term generally used to describe the upper-class British accent.

Nasal: this happens when the sound goes through somebody’s nose when they’re speaking. North American accents are more nasal than, say, British pronunciations. 

Brash: harsh, loud, indicative of sounding a little rude. 

Slur: speaking indistinctly; words merging into one another.

Using metaphors.

Her voice was cotton and fluffy clouds. 

When he spoke, the ‘r’s scratched the insides of his throat. 

Mentioning their accent with a brief example(s). 

“Would you like to drink some wine?” she said, though her Indian accent gave extra vibration to her ‘w’s and ‘r’s, making the words sound more like ‘vould you like to drrrink some vine’.

“I want some chocolate.” His syllables were choppy and ‘l’s rather flat, saying ‘cho-ko-lit’. 

Some Tips:

Don’t phonically spell out everything. Perhaps give a few examples in the beginning, but stick to standard English spellings. 

Pay attention to word choice, slang, and colloquialisms. 

An Australian person would say “tram”, not “trolley; “runners” instead of “sneakers”

A Canadian may refer to a “fire hall” – what Americans call a firehouse or fire station

If your character comes from a non-Enligsh background:

Use vocabulary from other languages. 

“What time was the exam, ah? Two o’clock? Jiayou!” → putting “ah” or “la” at the end of sentences + Jiayou means “break a leg” in Singlish. 

“I can’t believe that 4-year-olds have their own SNS accounts now.” → “SNS” is short for “social networking service”, a term used to refer to social media in Korea. This would a subtle difference – even though it isn’t technically Korean at all!

Transpose grammar from different languages. 

For example, in French, plural nouns take plural adjectives (whereas in English, you would speak of ‘white cars’, not ‘whites cars’).

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