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Don't know if this makes any headway on the "American accent", but I watched a small group of Japanese tourists patiently wait while their designated translator asked an American some questions. After the person answered and left, the tourists watched him go and then they began to laugh and each made distinctly "mocking" noises, which I took to be their general idea of how the American speaker sounded to them.
The noises contained a lot of deep "uh" sounds: buh, duh, wuh, etc., and were delivered at a fairly slow rate. I wasn't offended, but thought it interesting.
I think they were asking what his "favorite color" might have been... :wink:
ature has its way of warning a person away from danger: The distinct black and white coloration on a skunk, the chilling buzz of a rattlesanke, a redneck handing you his beer and saying "Watch this!"
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Quote:You Americans cant spell either. Its colour and favourite etc... Note the u. Since I've been programming I dropped the u's and it looks untidy on letters, official emails and such in any non-American country.
Aye, they say.. If I'm right, you can blame Noah Webster on that.. He changed all that stuff for some silly reason... I find it a stupid action, now there are two versions of those spellings which I'm sure can get confusing, and I have a hard enough time spelling as it is.. 
I like Colour and all those others better, heh, seems to fit better.. :wink: .. in truth, I like England itself better, you guys got cooler cars..  .. :roll:
Kevin ( x.t.r.GRAPHICS)
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American English has no need for the u's in certain words. So go color your favorite armor and like it. 
I'd knock on wood, but my desk is particle board.
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We all recognize accents from the big cities in the USA. However, I think that the most predominant accent all over the USA is what I call the Country accent. This is what "country folk" speak. You can hear just about the same accent in a small town in upsate New York as you can hear in a small town in the San Joaquin Valley in California, or in the middle of Nebraska, or in parts of Texas.
Just take a car and go about 100 miles outside of most US big cities, and turn on the car radio. What do you hear? Country music. Then listen to the announcer. He speaks just like country folk. These people speak the real, down home, American. They may not be the majority in terms of total population, but they're all over the place, God bless 'em.
They say things like:
Y'all come back, hear
Laugh, I thought I'd die
I'm so tired I feel like I've been ironing all day with a cold iron
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Us city dwellers say those things too, just with a more urbane accent
Actually you'll find that those Country stations are often run from a central office somewhere are then mass distributed across the county. What you are hearing is often the voice of someone from Tennessee.
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Quote:I know this is probably sort of a silly question, but I've always wondered, what does an "American" accent sound like to people who don't hear it much?
When you say 'hot dog' we hear 'hart darg'
'Marry merry Mary' sounds like 'Mary Mary Mary'
I actually had to fake a US accent when I worked in Ocean City (MD) briefly at a.. uh.. convenience store.. because people didnt understand.
Me:".. and a dollar-forty change"
Dullard: "Huuuh? Are you from Australia?"
Me:"No. I meant.. darllah-fordy"
Dullard:"and lemme gedda marbrolites barx and 7-4-2 darbarx, darstraight"
Me:"Huh?"
In a world without walls and doors, who needs Windows and Gates?
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I have a pretty good British accent double,...
Aussey too, Me lil bro thought I was Steave Irwin (aka Crocodile Hunter) one day..
But American, old country is most likley what you'll here from me, as it was called above.. ,. unless I'm feeling cheerful and could care less, you never place what country I was from.. he he! :rotfl:
Kevin ( x.t.r.GRAPHICS)
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Quote:Rokkuman Wrote:I know this is probably sort of a silly question, but I've always wondered, what does an "American" accent sound like to people who don't hear it much?
When you say 'hot dog' we hear 'hart darg'
'Marry merry Mary' sounds like 'Mary Mary Mary'......
The "marry merry Mary" is true. About 90% of Americans will say "mary mary mary". However, in New York, you can clearly distinguish the pronunciation of these 3 words, and a few other places.
BTW, the above 3 words are only a part of list of about 20 words which can pinpoint Americans to within 50 miles of where they're from. The list comes from a old book called "The Story of Language" by Mario Pei. If you can get a copy, I really recommend it. I'll look up the list of words and post it soon.
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 Hows that fair? "marry merry mary" is a tounge twister, I prononce very well, and this is screwing me up.. not a good test if you ask me.. :wink: Or do you mean the words apart from each other, not all at once? :lol:
Kevin ( x.t.r.GRAPHICS)
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Quote: Hows that fair? "marry merry mary" is a tounge twister, I prononce very well, and this is screwing me up.. not a good test if you ask me.. :wink: Or do you mean the words apart from each other, not all at once? :lol:
Ok. Most Americans will pronounce as follows:
1) John is going to MARRY Susan. The say MARRY sounding like MERRY, with no hint of the "a" vowel.
2) MERRY Christmas. Here they pronounce it correctly, that is, MERRY.
3) Peter arrived with MARY. They say MARY sounding like MERRY again.
The result is, for most Americans, that the three words are all pronounced like MERRY, and most of them never notice.
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