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Unknown English Accent | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| tracker465 Senior Member United States Joined 5350 days ago 355 posts - 496 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Dutch | Message 9 of 15 30 June 2010 at 7:09pm | IP Logged | ||
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@Dortsujin: That link is interesting, and I have heard about a few of those cases myself, such as the recent one involving the Croatian as well as the one involving the a woman who woke up with a thick accent. As far as I can remember though, I haven't had any head injuries through playing sports, car crashes, etc. It is all so strange.
@justberta: I don't want to trick anyone, I think that that is just a misconception on the matter. As in my original post, I still am trying to place the accent, want to know what it sounds most like. I just didn't say that I was the speaker for the reason that I think it would have swayed the imaginations of people, and I just wanted to here an opinion about the overall accent. I know there are quite a few linguists on here, and as a native speaker of American English, I didn't want people to look at my profile, listen to the speech and then say "Oh, I hear a bit of the American "E" sound and he doesn't roll his R's, similar to how an American speaks". I just wanted to hear honest thoughts on to what the accent sounded like, should someone run into that kind of accent randomly on the street. Nothing sucks more than having an accent and not even being able to understand why you have it, and what sort of accent it is, hence why I wanted to place it. It is interesting that you say how you like modifying and speaking your various tongues with various accents. I am personally bad with accents, however, and do not worry about them one way or the other usually. I try my best in German, Dutch, Bulgarian, whatever to speak as a native speaker pronounces the words, but I also realize that it sometimes can be hard to do so, so then I worry more about just making myself understood. I don't have the skill to make my German, for instance, sound like that of a Polish speaker or something. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Teango Triglot Winner TAC 2010 & 2012 Senior Member United States teango.wordpress.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5554 days ago 2210 posts - 3734 votes Speaks: English*, German, Russian Studies: Hawaiian, French, Toki Pona | Message 10 of 15 30 June 2010 at 9:24pm | IP Logged | ||
Mrhenrik is absolutely right, and here's the link: The Speech Accent Archive (George Mason University, Virginia) @tracker465 You sound American to me. However there are indeed some pretty unusual and inconsistent variations throughout your audio sample. It's difficult to pinpoint where you're from because intonation and flow is fairly broken in the clip (which I imagine is down to other reasons at the time). The US is also an enormous place, with lots of different accents and variations, and I must admit that all I know is sadly through films and friends. However, here goes... First of all, you don't sound clearly Southern or West Coast, and as your consonants and words seem a bit clipped in the example, I'd venture the guess that you've lived in a colder climate for a good while. And as some of your vowels sound a little more English in places, I'd place this nearer the border with Canada at a push. The variability in this clip and the occasional odd Dutch sound suggests that you've traveled further afield, or at least you've intermingled with plenty of other accents to some extent, perhaps spending some slightly longer periods in Scandinavian or Germanic speaking countries or surrounded by native speakers of these countries. Another thing I noticed is that you tend to almost completely miss out some of the smaller words, like "of" and "a", which is very curious and normally a non-native speaker's strategy. This reinforces the idea that you spend or have spent considerable time surrounded by non-native English speakers. I'm probably way off-track here of course, but thought it might be helpful to have a go at guessing anyway. I've always liked this type of game. :) Perhaps you could upload another sample sometime? Edited by Teango on 30 June 2010 at 9:32pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
 LauraM Pro Member United States Joined 5350 days ago 77 posts - 97 votes Studies: German Personal Language Map | Message 11 of 15 01 July 2010 at 9:06am | IP Logged | ||
LOL, I can think of a GAZILLION things that suck more than that, but.... Yeah, I would love to hear a second clip with more talking without breaks... 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| socks Triglot Newbie IndiaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5263 days ago 26 posts - 28 votes Speaks: English, Telugu, Hindi* Studies: French | Message 12 of 15 03 July 2010 at 10:18pm | IP Logged | ||
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^ Agreed.
I also agree with the person who said that it was stupid. Personally, I can't imagine anyone wanting to have a blatantly American accent unless they work in a call center, but w/e. Your accent doesn't sound European at all. What was that woman on? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| tracker465 Senior Member United States Joined 5350 days ago 355 posts - 496 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Dutch | Message 13 of 15 04 July 2010 at 2:58am | IP Logged | ||
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I personally find Teango's response pretty interesting, and I'll post a few more clips later, when I get around to making them. I also would lean towards the possibility that over the years my pronunciation of certain words has changed or been influenced a bit, first by learning German, then Dutch and Spanish. I am curious as to which sounds Teango finds to be a bit more Dutch? On the other hand, I have been receiving comments about my accent for years before I even started studying a foreign language (except for Latin), so I am not really sure that this would have influenced me at all. I do find Teango's analysis to be interesting though. I did spend some time in Europe (Germany mostly), and have grown up in the North Eastern United States, though not too close to Canada (Pennslyvania).
@LauraM: Perhaps it is not so bad to have an accent, but it has caused me some (minor) problems in the past, such as the time someone tried to get in a fight with me in NYC over the accent and where I was from ;) @Socks: I have never met an American who set out with the idea of "sounding American" but I have also never ran into an Australian who tried to sound "Australian" either. Unless one is an actor/tress or something, I believe that the average person just speaks how he or she speaks. On my travels, I have had many people from around the world commenting on my accent and asking where I was from, since my accent did not sound American to them. Some of the critics included a Romanian waiter, a Brazilian student, the British girl, an American girl in NYC who dated a German guy, a Spanish professor from Columbia, and a few native English speakers from the Carribbean and Africa. With this number of comments, as well as dozens of comments from American customers while working at a tour center giftshop/bookstore for a few years, I think that it counts for something. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| socks Triglot Newbie IndiaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5263 days ago 26 posts - 28 votes Speaks: English, Telugu, Hindi* Studies: French | Message 14 of 15 04 July 2010 at 10:19pm | IP Logged | ||
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Hmm, it doesn't sound like anything that would attract so much attention, but maybe you
could record some more audio samples? I'm tempted to say that you're making too much of it... but maybe it means a lot to you to be seen as American without being asked. I don't really have any advice, although I know that people who want help with a certain accent usually have to resort to studying it in a class of some sort (for actors, call centre representatives, and so on). 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| tracker465 Senior Member United States Joined 5350 days ago 355 posts - 496 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Dutch | Message 15 of 15 05 July 2010 at 12:08am | IP Logged | ||
I was just curious about it, that's all. When so many people inquire about it, one just begins to wonder him or herself. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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