What (American) English sounds like to non-English speaking people

[Maximilianus]

Sorry about the busted link, everyone. It was working before. So many thanks to Max for the replacement!

Thanks for the link Max. That's hilarious!

No probs!

Well those of us what knows 'ow to talk proper gets the same problem, mate.

It's a relief

If you heard this, what would you make of it?

"Toim's oi toid 'noit?"

"Bah Lem'n."

Please feel free to ask for a translation, and then I'll tell you what part of the country it comes from.

I'm afraid I can't tell. I seem to detect some French elements there but not sure... Cajun maybe? Just risking a wild guess

To illustrate my point here's the late great Rod Steiger getting it wrong

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9l6vcoPtaU

So it's totally true, with all and evidence!

And I also possess a lovely little pamphlet entitled, "Let's Talk Strine" which explains how to translate Aussie speak. I'll have to dig this out and quote some examples, other than, "Emma chisset?" (what is the price of this item?)

Dig it out, please! That'd be super!

[Maximilianus]

Emma chisset = How much is it ... English ain't stopping no time soon

[hannah_arendt]

m
That's "General American", whih is what many non-natives are taught.

I got Boston, which I do not speak, but non- New Englanders might not understand the differences.

The way of pronouncing I am being taught has nothing to do with the way natives speak. It seems me that the most important thingat my department is descriptive grammar

[Hawkman]

I'm afraid you're not even close Max, in fact you're on the wrong continent it translates as:

"What time is high tide tonight?"

"About eleven."

and is likely to be heard being uttered by a less educated member of the population in the vicinity of Southampton (in the UK), but you might hear something similar in the Southern coastal regions of the Westcountry

Not sure where Let's Talk Strine is languishing at the moment, but when I find it I'll let you know.

[PeterL]

The way of pronouncing I am being taught has nothing to do with the way natives speak. It seems me that the most important thingat my department is descriptive grammar

The regional differences in pronunciation are from differing vowel sounds, which is meaningless if one does not speak a language regularly. You can be sure that your Polish vowels are different from American vowels, but there probably are slightly different vowels in other parts of Poland.

[Calidore]

I got 100% Inland North. "You may think you speak "Standard English straight out of the dictionary" but when you step away from the Great Lakes you get asked annoying questions like "Are you from Wisconsin?" or "Are you from Chicago?" Chances are you call carbonated drinks "pop.""

I can't say I get asked annoying questions, but I am from Chicago, and I do say "pop," so good job to the quiz designer.

Looks like I'll be sitting around at home today (stormy weather and a sore knee from a yoga fail Tuesday), so if I can find my microphone, I'll try Juniper's accent challenge.

[Emil Miller]

Here's what W.S.Maugham, a man who spent a good deal of time in the USA, had to say about their manner of speaking:

"The Americans, who are the most efficient people on the earth, have carried this device [the use of "ready-made phrases"] to such a height of perfection and have invented so wide a range of pithy and hackneyed phrases that they can carry on an amusing and animated conversation without giving a moment's reflection to what they are saying and so leave their minds free to consider the more important matters of big business and fornication."

[PeterL]

Here's what W.S.Maugham, a man who spent a good deal of time in the USA, had to say about their manner of speaking:

"The Americans, who are the most efficient people on the earth, have carried this device [the use of "ready-made phrases"] to such a height of perfection and have invented so wide a range of pithy and hackneyed phrases that they can carry on an amusing and animated conversation without giving a moment's reflection to what they are saying and so leave their minds free to consider the more important matters of big business and fornication."

It would seem that he didn't know mach about American speech.

[Calidore]

It would seem that he didn't know mach about American speech.

On the contrary, I think it is indeed possible for two or more people to carry on a conversation consisting of nothing but catchphrases and cliches. And he wrote that well before the prolific catchphrase-generator we call the Internet.

[Emil Miller]

It would seem that he didn't know mach about American speech.

Hardly likely considering that he had a homosexual relationship with an American for 30 years and had frequent contact with Americans over a similar length of time.

[AuntShecky]

Some experts of the opinion that after nearly a century of broadcasting--commercial radio is over 90 years old, by the bye--that regional differences in the American language are disappearing. Not true! At least not yet. That's because most children -- who have the structure of the entire English language in their heads by age five(!) learn to talk primarily from their mothers, fathers, and their siblings, with reinforcements of the prevailing regional accent acquired on the school playground.

Way back in linguistics class (so many decades ago that I've lost count) we were taught simple formulae by which we could, like Prof. Henry Higgins, tell where a person hailed from. For instance, when you say "dog" and "log", do they rhyme? In my state alone, there are huge variations in the pronunciations of various words, the short "a" vowel, for instance, flattening the farther west one travels. Speakers in the Northern parts of the state have a bit of a Canadian lilt in their speech, and those of us on the counties bordering Massachusetts have some of their well-known characteristics, especially in the pronunciation of "r," making it sound vaguely like an "ah" or dropping it entirely when it ends a word and adding an "r" when the word ends in a vowel. For instance, the word "law" sounds like "lore" when somebody from Boston says it.

New York City has thousands of different phonemes, such as the famous "Bronx" and "Brooklyn" accents and the inimitable speech idiosyncracies that come from "Long Guyland." Just across the river, Jerseyites sound different from New Yorkers, and you don't even want to try to describe the accents from Pennsylvania. They have funny ways of saying "pin" and "pen" and so on. To this day I swear a local TV sports reporter hails from the Keystone State because his speech patterns show that he could never have come from anywhere else. For instance, several years back when a certain(now retired) NY Yankee was having throwing problems, the sportscaster had a unique way of saying the player's name. He pronounced "Chuck Knoblock" in a way that made him sound like Stan on "South Park."

There are few perfect speakers of English in this lovely land, yours fooly among those who miserably fall short. Not even our past Presidents have been as exemplary as we might have liked them to be. Hence, the oft-cited mispronunciation of "nuclear," which should be three syllables-- "NU-klee-IRR." (Frightening, no matter how you pronounce it.)

Even the aforementioned national broadcasters aren't perfect. I have yet heard anyone on the air say the words "calm," "luxury" or "February" right. Good thing I'm losing my hearing, because I don't know how much longer I can stand hearing somebody on TV pronounce the "t" in "often." We know enough that the "t" is silent in "listen" and "hasten," so why do we say "of-Ten"? Maybe it's a case of overcorrection, a misguided worry that it sounds like dropping the "-ng" off a participle, the way politicians do in order to seem folksy while campaigning.

Evidently Americans are self-conscious about their regional accents. Back in the late seventies and early eighties it was trendy for bosses to hire receptionists and secretaries with British accents, in the attempt to bring some class into the office. And recently there have developed cottage industries in which speech coaches try to help young executives on the career path "de-regionalize" their speaking patterns.

There are other verbal gaffes to which we Americans are susceptible. Our grammar is atrocious. (Cf. David Foster Wallace's essay on the topic in his essay collection, Consider the Lobster.)

Our biggest flaw, to me, is that we aren't expressive enough, as explained in Arthur Plotnik's fine little book, The Elements of Expression. For instance, a manager might describe one of his team members as "A great hitter, a great fielder, and a great human being." In a culture which prides itself on its "level-playing field" it's difficult to wrap our minds around expressive superlatives. That's why we describe everything we like as "awesome," and tell one another to "have a nice day."

[Hawkman]

One really ought to acknowledge that Americans don't speak English, they speak American

http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=-aufC...%3D-aufCfiS0AA

Phil Harris knew the score!

[MANICHAEAN]

My current boss is a “southern boy,” and has a likable way of expressing “New Orleans” as something akin to “Nu / Or / Lens.”
One expression to which I was obliged to get accustomed to in meetings with our American cousins was the word “route.”
Imagine if you will, a combined American (Exxon-Mobil), English, Japanese meeting in which the US spokesman asks:
“What is the rout?”
“I beg your pardon, I don’t understand.”
“Rout”
“How do you spell it?”
“Route.”
“Oh, you mean root.”
“No, that’s the base of a tree.”
“Yes correct, but we pronounce root and route the same.”
“Why?”
“Because that’s how we learnt it as children.”
“So what’s a rout?”
“It’s when you beat the enemy in battle and they run away.”

I will not even bother to go into the phrase “Keep your pecker up,” as we will be in deep, unchartered waters!!

[Maximilianus]

I'm afraid you're not even close Max, in fact you're on the wrong continent it translates as:

"What time is high tide tonight?"

"About eleven."

and is likely to be heard being uttered by a less educated member of the population in the vicinity of Southampton (in the UK), but you might hear something similar in the Southern coastal regions of the Westcountry

Now with the translation it makes sense. I've been reading the lines with inaccurate interpretation of sounds

Not sure where Let's Talk Strine is languishing at the moment, but when I find it I'll let you know.

Cool!

[Maximilianus]

I find this thread is especially educational. I've been studying the language for nearly 30 years, although for a shorter time in a really deep manner, and considering that no depth is really substantial given the fact that I live in a place where English-speaking natives do not abound. Thank you very much to all who have been posting these pieces of linguistic knowledge, particularly useful for a learner like me.