If you think about it, almost any foreign language can be seen as ‘sexy’ to English speakers, just based on it’s being exotic. Fetishes for French accents, Spanish, Russian, and others are common. But considering Americans are viewed pretty poorly in most other cultures (at least as people if not as achievers) is there any other culture where an American accent can sound ‘sexy’? What about in other English speaking nations, in the U.K , does an American accent always equal loud and obnoxious?
Among other English speakers sure, but I’ve also wondered just how much a non-English speaker can notice of a regional accent. I can’t detect any difference in regional accents in foreign languages at all myself, and I’m sure they are there.
When I was in London on business a few years ago, one of the young ladies in the office confided in me that her and her girlfriends/workmates thought I sounded like a movie star (in a complementary sort of way - she was very flirty).
This kind of thing will vary person to person, I’m sure. I have known a few English guys who found American “southern belle” accents fetching in a woman.
What a great question! I’ve often wondered this same thing. It’s easy to assume that most people find Americans overbearing and obnoxious, however I don’t know that this is necessarily agreed upon across the board. IMHO people find accents that are foreign or especially those that derive some pop reference (Americans sounding like movei stars) attractive.
Typically though I wanna say that if you’re not used to hearing that accent, and the person you’re speaking with is attractive, the accent will most definitely amplify that attraction, whether it’s a southern drawl or a northeastern twinge.
On the same hand, I find some accents excruciating to listen to. Mostly just Utahns. lol.
For what it’s worth, the British novelist Fredrick Forsyth wrote that Britons often find American accents “friendly”. In Anansi Boys British expat and American resident Neil Gaiman implied that American “street” accents are cool to British teens - I’m guessing thanks to the association with hip-hop.
When I’ve been in non-English speaking countries then people could not always tell that I was an American. It was obvious that I was foreign as soon as I opened my mouth (or as soon as they saw me when I was living in Japan!), but I’ve been taken for Canadian, English, French, and Russian. I studied German in school, but when I’ve visited German-speaking countries I did not feel I could reliably distinguish between the different spoken dialects even though they vary a lot. Part of that may be because I’m nowhere near fluent in German so it wasn’t always clear to me whether I didn’t understand something because it wasn’t High German or whether I didn’t understand it because it was too fast for me or contained too many unfamiliar words.
While traveling in Europe I’ve sometimes encountered East Asians who were relieved to hear my accent, because they found French or German-accented English totally incomprehensible. Even the various British, Irish, Australian, and New Zealander accents tend to be difficult for East Asians who’ve studied English, because North American English is favored in classrooms there.
When I lived in continental Europe for a while, a group of young Brits I was chatting with told me they loved my American accent - I sounded just like a character in a Quentin Tarantino movie.
I don’t know about American, but more than one Québécois has told me they find my accent in French “cute.” (By now it’s slight enough that people have stopped being certain that I’m anglophone and have begun to ask me if I’m from New Brunswick, which I am but not for that reason.)
I don’t think people can tell what English accent you have when you’re speaking another language. Maybe if they’re very familiar with English and its various accents? All I know is that the entire time I lived in Bulgaria, no one ever correctly guessed my nationality, and they frequently guessed nationalities that are not native English speaking. (I’ve been asked if I’m German, Austrian, Dutch, Russian, Ukrainian, and Macedonian. I was particularly tickled by the last three, because they implied that they thought I’m a native speaker of a Slavic language. Actually, being asked if I was Macedonian was pretty much the highlight of my Bulgarian-speaking career, because Macedonian and Bulgarian are essentially the same language.) I did get asked if I was English on several occasions (and once if I was Scottish), so I guess some people could tell English was my native language.
People seemed intrigued by my accent when I was visiting Wales a number of years ago. I got invited to random parties and had a really nice time. I think they were just amused that someone so obviously a foreigner was wandering around their little town.
Agree. Granted, I haven’t been abroad much, but I would be hard pressed to tell French from Québécois from Swiss from Belgian. I might be able to tell that something is different, but in the absence of telling words (octante vs. quatre-vingt etc.) I probably couldn’t pin it down. Of course it probably depends on the language as well, as Swiss German is ages away from German German, while many other dialects have mostly few slang discrepancies.
In most of the world, America is associated with wealth, power, and glamor. Even if you are not wealthy, powerful, or glamorous back home, some of those associations are going to stick to you when abroad. Whether this will lead a foreigner to tend to resent you more than he/she would otherwise, or find you attractive more than he/she would otherwise, probably depends on the individual foreigner. My guess is that if we are talking about how attractive foreign women are likely to find American men, it is likely to work in the man’s favor more often than not.
This reminds me of something that amused me. I have a photographer friend in Taiwan. We were at the studio where he worked, and I was trying to convince him to practice his English with me. He refused, because he thought he was bad at it (all the more reason to practice?). Instead, he got me to speak in English, and when I did, he practically had an orgasm. He said it sounded so elegant and pleasing to the ear. Kind of like the way Americans like French accents, I guess. Then his co-worker came by, so I had to humor them both by saying more things in English. When he heard me, his co-worker smiled and said something along the lines of, “Ahhhh, America. My favorite American cities are Los Angeles and Miami. Know why? Because the women there don’t wear very much.” I guess for him, the American accent evokes images of MTV Beach House or something. It’s… sexy?
It depends on the accent. Some american accents are cute on a girl and some aren’t. I’m not particularly fond of southern accents, I know it’s wrong but I associate them with low intelligence.
Have had moderate exposure to Brits and Americans at university and professionally, and there are quite a number of both in our university town. While American accents are quite distinguishable from standard English, I have never have heard any German express a preference as to which accent they consider more pleasant.
BTW I wouldn’t trust myself to determine whether someone speaking German with an English-language accent hails from the UK or the US.
When I lived in Turkey, my Turkish friends couldn’t distinguish an American accent from an Australian accent or what have you. And these Turks spoke English and had lived in Britain! People also thought I was Russian or German a lot.
Do you mean if we can tell your accent when you speak our language? It depends. I’d say I can generally tell which side of the Atlantic a person comes from (and a Glaswegian friend of mine is as unintelligible when he speaks Swedish as when he speaks English), but then again I mingle in English speaking expat circles a lot. I have no idea how good others are at it, though.
I was reading somewhere (it might have been on the plane coming back from Ireland) that the average Irish person can’t hear any significant difference between regional American accents. They hear virtually no difference between a Brooklyn accent and a Southern drawl.
I guess for him, the American accent evokes images of MTV Beach House or something. It’s… sexy?