Random US accents question......

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@PM

@PM

The Lazing Dutchman
Aug 8, 2008
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Apart from a day in Gibraltar I've never visited any English-speaking country, so my knowledge of British, Irish, American and Canadian accents is based solely on television shows and movies. But then it depends on how true to their accent people are. You can probably rule out a lot of movies. But still, I can hear Mary Cooper from the Big Bang Theory is from Texas, and sometimes Sheldon as well. On the other hand I don't hear it so much in the people in Fast'n'Loud, they're just "American" to me. I can pick out some Canadian accents (I discovered "The Liquidator" is Canadian because of his accent). I just listened to a Newfoundland accent on youtube but to me it sounds different from Irish (at least different from Eddie Jordan or Michael Gambon).

To me American/Canadian accents differ less than England-English differs from Scotland-English. But maybe that's just me :)

Even in a small country like the Netherlands there are big differences. I don't know if anyone here is familiar with the show "The Incredible Dr. Pol"? He's Dutch, but lives in Michigan. His son Charles therefore doesn't speak Dutch, but he wanted to learn it when his uncle (Dr. Pol's brother) had planned to visit them in Michigan. At one point during that episode, uncle says something in Dutch, to which Charles (who has by then a basic understanding of the language) comments "yeah... I didn't catch that". Well, me neither... That's because the Pol family is from a different part of the country than I am, and I have a hard time understanding people from that region as well (I have an uncle who lives there, 90% of the time I have no idea what he's saying, and you can only ask one to repeat what he said so many times before they get annoyed, so I just mumble something that could be yes or no at hopefully appropriate moments).
 
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summer_sky

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@PM said:
...
Even in a small country like the Netherlands there are big differences. I don't know if anyone here is familiar with the show "The Incredible Dr. Pol"? He's Dutch, but lives in Michigan. His son Charles therefore doesn't speak Dutch, but he wanted to learn it when his uncle (Dr. Pol's brother) had planned to visit them in Michigan. At one point during that episode, uncle says something in Dutch, to which Charles (who has by then a basic understanding of the language) comments "yeah... I didn't catch that". Well, me neither... That's because the Pol family is from a different part of the country than I am, and I have a hard time understanding people from that region as well (I have an uncle who lives there, 90% of the time I have no idea what he's saying, and you can only ask one to repeat what he said so many times before they get annoyed, so I just mumble something that could be yes or no at hopefully appropriate moments).
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Does your uncle live in the region of Groningen?

I have friends in Utrecht and, in the past, had a friend near Groningen. I do not speak Dutch (difficult language!!), however, I could detect some difference in their speech patterns.
 
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blunthead

blunthead

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DiO'Bolic said:
I enjoy watching Swamp People. Not being from the South, I'm glad they include subtitles. :)

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Are subtitles really necessary (I haven't watched the show)? I'm not surprised (there are crime shows where subtitles are required). For about the first two weeks living in Louisiana I understood only about 50% of what people were saying. I had to pretend.
 
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DiO'Bolic

DiO'Bolic

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blunthead said:
Are subtitles really necessary (I haven't watched the show)? I'm not surprised (there are crime shows where subtitles are required). For about the first two weeks living in Louisiana I understood only about 50% of what people were saying. I had to pretend.
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Most of the time I can understand everything being said. At times they include the subtitles, but I still can understand what they say. But on occasion... I'm glad they do include the subtitles.
 
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Dana Jean

Dana Jean

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blunthead said:
Are subtitles really necessary (I haven't watched the show)? I'm not surprised (there are crime shows where subtitles are required). For about the first two weeks living in Louisiana I understood only about 50% of what people were saying. I had to pretend.
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I don't watch this show, but I do know that for me, yes, I have to use subtitles occasionally due to my hearing deficit. If someone has a particular thick accent, I have to use that.

For instance, I tried to watch a Housewives of Cheshire. Holy crap, I could barely understand any of them!
 
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swiftdog2.0

swiftdog2.0

I tell you one and one makes three...
Mar 16, 2010
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The Boston accent has never really been captured well on TV or film. Most actors that try it butcher it. Best not to try it at all.

In reality, most people who grew up and continue to live in and around Boston drop the "r" from most words that have them. So "car" will some like "caah" or "Dorchester" will sound like "Dawchestaah". Random vowels often times get dropped as well. "R"s get added in weird places. It' bizzare. Or "bizzaah" in the local vernacular. You'd think with all the colleges and wicked pissah school systems in Massachusetts people would learn to speak better!

When people I work with via phone find out I grew up in the Boston area they never believe me. I made an effort to lose the accent as I didn't want to sound like a sheep! It wasn't hahd. Just read a lot and learned the propper pronunciations of words.

However, that can go out the window if I'm drinking or get angry :)
 
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blunthead

blunthead

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swiftdog2.0 said:
The Boston accent has never really been captured well on TV or film. Most actors that try it butcher it. Best not to try it at all.

In reality, most people who grew up and continue to live in and around Boston drop the "r" from most words that have them. So "car" will some like "caah" or "Dorchester" will sound like "Dawchestaah". Random vowels often times get dropped as well. "R"s get added in weird places. It' bizzare. Or "bizzaah" in the local vernacular. You'd think with all the colleges and wicked pissah school systems in Massachusetts people would learn to speak better!

When people I work with via phone find out I grew up in the Boston area they never believe me. I made an effort to lose the accent as I didn't want to sound like a sheep! It wasn't hahd. Just read a lot and learned the propper pronunciations of words.

However, that can go out the window if I'm drinking or get angry :)
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Has anyone ever parked in your dooryard?
 
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@PM

@PM

The Lazing Dutchman
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summer_sky said:
Does your uncle live in the region of Groningen?

I have friends in Utrecht and, in the past, had a friend near Groningen. I do not speak Dutch (difficult language!!), however, I could detect some difference in their speech patterns.
Click to expand...

Yes he does, he lives in the province of Drenthe, just south of Groningen. The Pol family is also from Drenthe, although a different part, but for the speech it doesn't make much difference I think. Drenthe isn't THAT big ;) Also interesting: as you may know it's usually possible to detect where someone is from when his native language isn't English. A Frenchman, an Italian, a Spaniard, a Dutchman, you name them, they all have a distinctive and very recognizable accent when they English. But I find it hard to detect a Dutch accent in Dr. Pol. He does have a strong accent, don't get me wrong there, but it's not that quintessential Dutch accent. Whether it's because of the region where he's originally from or because he lived in the USA for such a long time (about 40 years, if I'm not mistaken), I don't know.

If you would hear me speaking (I'm from West-Friesland) you would find I sound more like your friends from Utrecht. Maybe you wouldn't even be able to tell the difference, but it is there.

Dutch can't be that difficult by the way, I speak it fluently ever since I was a little kid... ;)
 
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ghost19

ghost19

"Have I run too far to get home?"
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I may have posted this before, one thing that has always befuddled my wife. She's from Indiana via Maryland via Germany via Illinois....anyway, back when we first started going out, I'd ask her if she wanted a "coke"...coke being the working term for ANY kind soda type beverage here in the great state of Arkansas..lol. My wife would look at me and ask if I minded ordering her a Dr. Pepper or something like that. The first time she asked me what kind of "pop" I wanted, I looked at her like she'd grown a third eye..."Pop"? I asked, what the hell is a "POP"?...lol, I get it now, but back then it was pretty amusing..lol
 
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Dana Jean

Dana Jean

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ghost19 said:
I may have posted this before, one thing that has always befuddled my wife. She's from Indiana via Maryland via Germany via Illinois....anyway, back when we first started going out, I'd ask her if she wanted a "coke"...coke being the working term for ANY kind soda type beverage here in the great state of Arkansas..lol. My wife would look at me and ask if I minded ordering her a Dr. Pepper or something like that. The first time she asked me what kind of "pop" I wanted, I looked at her like she'd grown a third eye..."Pop"? I asked, what the hell is a "POP"?...lol, I get it now, but back then it was pretty amusing..lol
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Ahhh, Dr. Pepper. A lady with good taste.
 
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GNTLGNT

GNTLGNT

The idiot is IN
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ghost19 said:
I may have posted this before, one thing that has always befuddled my wife. She's from Indiana via Maryland via Germany via Illinois....anyway, back when we first started going out, I'd ask her if she wanted a "coke"...coke being the working term for ANY kind soda type beverage here in the great state of Arkansas..lol. My wife would look at me and ask if I minded ordering her a Dr. Pepper or something like that. The first time she asked me what kind of "pop" I wanted, I looked at her like she'd grown a third eye..."Pop"? I asked, what the hell is a "POP"?...lol, I get it now, but back then it was pretty amusing..lol
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...took me a while to get used to Southern friends of ours asking if we wanted a coe-cola...David Allen Coe????.....
 
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Grant87

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Being from Southern Illinois, there's a pretty discernible difference in accents from the southern half of the state and the northern part. I've met people from the Chicago area who say I have a slight "Southern" accent. Which I'm sure I do, although it's nothing like many others you'd come across from my area.

I've also met people from the Northeast who claimed I have a slight Southern accent as well. Turns out girls from that region found it attractive, so I was good with it ;-D
 
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