Accents

[maisfeeka]

What American accent do you have?
Created by Xavier on Memegen.net

Northern. Whether you have the world famous Inland North accent of the Great Lakes area, or the radio-friendly sound of upstate NY and western New England, your accent is what used to set the standard for American English pronunciation (not much anymore now that the Inland North sounds like it does).

If you are not from the North, you are probably one of the following:
(a) A Southerner who hates Southern accents and tries really hard to "talk right"; or
(b) A New Yorker or New Jerseyan who doesn't have the full accent

Take this quiz now - it's easy!

We're going to start with "cot" and "caught." When you say those words do they sound the same or different?

Same, no wait I mean different, maybe, a little bit different... Different Same

No surprise there.

Comments

[guinwhyte.livejournal.com]

It's bizarre sitting and trying to think of how one normally says things. I'm boringly Neutral (not identifiable as from one particular area) which makes some sense, as mom was from Washington, dad was from Georgia (but had neutralized his Southern accent long before I was born), and I grew up in Arizona.

[maisfeeka.livejournal.com]

It wasn't too hard for me, since I teach phonics at school, so knowing what all the sounds 'should' be and how I say them was pretty easy.

And after studying diction and dialects for theatre... I tend to almost have a very 'TV Anchor' accent - very standard English, almost slightly into British if I'm being careful about what I'm saying.

[nandamai]

I think I've taken this twice now, and both times it tells me I'm from NYC. "Not Connecticut, not New Jersey, New York City." Which is just odd.

Actually I think my knowledge of high-low, back-forward etc. vowels gets me in trouble, because I repeat the words and pay attention to where they form in my mouth, and maybe notice more subtle differences than other people would. Hmmm.

[maisfeeka.livejournal.com]

Too funny. Yeah, I'm very aware of what I say and how I say it. Serious diction courses will do that to you. ;)

[nandamai]

Phonetics courses, in my case. :)