# How American accents are viewed in other languages **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 3, 2010, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-american-accents-are-viewed-in-other-languages/541821 "2010-06-03T19:31:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![WOOKINPANUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wookinpanub/32/132_2.png) [@WOOKINPANUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WOOKINPANUB)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2015, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-american-accents-are-viewed-in-other-languages/541821/81 "2015-08-18T16:38:32Z")
> [@velomont](#): > > I’m Canadian and the above describes my impression. IRL, and I’ve worked with a lot of Americans, at minimum there’s a detectable drawl. > > I once asked a Brit to imitate my Canadian accent and her imitation sounded like a cheesy imitation of a southern US accent. Ditto. When my British acquaintances imitate Americans the default is southern/ Texan. I guess it’s sort of the same as a lot of Americans who, if asked to approximate an English accent would come up with some version of RP. My friends and I have discussed this many times. One characteristic they all mention is that Americans speak slowly. Also, our hard \*r \*sounds are very noticeable to they’re ears. ---
**Author:** ![Orwell](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/dfb087/32.png) [@Orwell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Orwell)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2015, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-american-accents-are-viewed-in-other-languages/541821/82 "2015-08-18T17:05:22Z")
> [@Sinisterniik](#): > > Wow! Surprising! One [article](http://wcco.com/goodquestion/singers.accent.singing.2.1456258.html) says that not only do the Beatles sound American but Susan Boyle too! > > I still don’t get how people can’t hear that difference… Well I understand it -I guess it’s hard for me to imagine _not_ noticing the accent. It clearly varies from singer to singer. I can definitely hear the British accent in many Beatles songs, though not nearly as much as similar-era singers such as Peter Noone (Herman’s Hermits) - who I think clearly had to be emphasizing his accent, and not only on Henery The Eighth - or some of the Mersey groups. I can tell Mick Jagger is British. But not so much so for Rod Stewart, Eric Clapton, Robert Plant, etc. Or with Bono or Keith Urban, for that matter, with their accents. For an old and obscure anecdote, I’m sure, I remember watching the Merv Griffin show when I was a kid, and he had a British singer on, whom I can’t remember. But I remember after the performance, Merv making the comment that British accents have to be a put-on, an affectation, because British singers sound American. He joked that if you woke a Brit up in the middle of the night with a phone call, they would forget their accent and answer the phone with (American-sounding) “Hello, who is this?”, and then correct themselves and say 'Ello, 'oo ees dis?" in a strong accent. ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2015, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-american-accents-are-viewed-in-other-languages/541821/83 "2015-08-18T18:55:27Z")
> [@Shot\_From\_Guns](#): > > Depends on the Americans. Back when I watched \*Frasier \*a billion years ago, I can recall one episode where a joke revolved around someone (Ros?) swooning over how sophisticated Daphne’s brother’s accent sounded, which IIRC was Cockney or something similarly associated with the working class. The joke wouldn’t have been funny if the audience couldn’t have been expected to recognize and distinguish the particular dialect. Just in case you check back in: Daphne was from Manchester, so her brother’s accent was pretty much Scouser. ---
**Author:** ![Melaradark](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ecd19e/32.png) [@Melaradark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melaradark)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2015, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-american-accents-are-viewed-in-other-languages/541821/84 "2015-08-18T23:00:32Z")
> [@](#): > > I grew up on the West Coast of the US and speak with what I consider a typical ‘tv’ accent (in other words, none). About ten years ago I moved into a working class neighborhood North of Boston where many of the locals had pronounced accents. The kids next door thought I was British. I was born and grew up in Washington State. My best friend was born on the East Coast but moved all over the place, including Idaho and California, before ending up back on the East Coast, Pennsylvania area, at the end of high school. My fiancee is Australian. She’s from NSW’s, just north of Sydney, and was born and raised there as well. From my three years with her, I’ve started to be able to differentiate the various Australian accents. For example, her accent sounds softer and more refined than the typical ‘Aussie Hollywood’ accents we usually get in media over here: Steve Irwin, Crocodile Dundee, etc. Closer to a British accent with the occasional Aussie drawl thrown in on certain words. I asked her after we’d been together a while about her perception of my accent and the accents of Americans in general. She told me that to her, I sounded more ‘real American’…that is, my Washingtonian West Coast accent was the accent she most associated as being an American one from movies and tv, as mentioned in the quote above. She can differentiate things like a Texas accent, a southern accent and a New York accent, but to her, that’s what they are, a TEXAS accent as opposed to an _American_ one, if that makes sense. She could also easily differentiate between my accent and my best friend’s accent, though to me we sound identical save on only one single word- both. She pronounces it boh-th and I tend to pronounce it as if there’s a hidden WL in it- ‘bowl-th’. And yes, she and (according to her) many Australians find the American accent quite enticing and exotic 🙂 She loves listening to me talk as much as I love listening to her talk. I’m traveling to Australia in October so it’ll be interesting to see the reception/recognition of my accent that comes, if any. ---
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2015, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-american-accents-are-viewed-in-other-languages/541821/85 "2015-08-18T23:05:18Z")
> [@Sinisterniik](#): > > Which begs the question -can my fellow Americans correctly identify the Gieco Gecko’s accent without Googling it? Sounds like an Aussie/NZ to me. Maybe more NZ than Aussie. ---
**Author:** ![thelurkinghorror](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2015, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-american-accents-are-viewed-in-other-languages/541821/86 "2015-08-18T23:30:03Z")
> [@Melaradark](#): > > My fiancee is Australian. She’s from NSW’s, just north of Sydney, and was born and raised there as well. I just heard a Sydneysider friend’s “drunk accent.” It sounded almost Scouse to me (but still very drunk). > [@](#): > > I tend to pronounce it as if there’s a hidden WL in it- ‘bowl-th’. IANALinguist, but sounds kind of like a “[dark l](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alveolar_lateral_approximant#Velarized_alveolar_lateral_approximant)”? > [@](#): > > I’m traveling to Australia in October so it’ll be interesting to see the reception/recognition of my accent that comes, if any. I don’t know if it’ll can you laid, but probably not the best idea, all things considered! ---
**Author:** ![Melaradark](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ecd19e/32.png) [@Melaradark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melaradark)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2015, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-american-accents-are-viewed-in-other-languages/541821/87 "2015-08-21T22:47:25Z")
Ooh, interesting on that ‘dark L’, I’ll have to read more about it. As for the getting laid thing…uh, no. Not looking for it to get me laid 😃 Well, by anyone other than the fiancee that is 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2015, 5:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-american-accents-are-viewed-in-other-languages/541821/88 "2015-08-30T05:22:11Z")
> [@AllFreedomUnlessDefyingScience](#): > > 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. If you know a foreign language well enough you’ll begin to notice some slight but definite regional differences in pronunciation. I can’t usually place a German-language regional accent with much precision, but I can certainly hear that Austrian Standard German is pronounced a bit differently from what I typically hear on German radio stations. Similarly the accent of many from the former East Germany is different again. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2015, 6:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-american-accents-are-viewed-in-other-languages/541821/89 "2015-08-30T06:07:05Z")
> [@thelurkinghorror](#): > > IANALinguist, but sounds kind of like a “[dark l](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alveolar_lateral_approximant#Velarized_alveolar_lateral_approximant)”? Neither am I a linguist, but I believe I can shed some light on this; it pretty much is a dark /l/. In most if not all American accents, /u:/ and /o:/ are considerably less diphthongized than they are in most British accents. With /o:/ in particular, it was explained in one of my linguistics textbooks that the RP version of “both” might be analyzed as /bə-uth/, while in most American accents it’s more like /bo-uth/. This means that, as the vowel sound starts, the tongue is positioned further back in the mouth than it is in RP. As the pronunciation of the vowel proceeds, one must move the tip of the tongue towards the back of the front teeth where it will articulate the terminal /θ/ sound. In the process of doing this, the sides of tongue may, in passing, come very near to where the dark /l/ is pronounced. Hence, the /l/ sound sort of appears, as if by magic. In referring to British accents, I believe this also is true of all non-North American accents. The other overseas dialects are more recent in origin than American English, having started when the diphthongization process in the old country had progressed further. IIRC all English language dialects have the dark /l/, but the magically appearing /l/ in both happens only in American. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2015, 6:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-american-accents-are-viewed-in-other-languages/541821/90 "2015-08-30T06:13:43Z")
> [@Mk\_VII](#): > > It is/was [1960s] common for British rock singers to sing with an American/Mid Atlantic accent, or what they conceived to be one. There are numerous exceptions to the rule, however. _Viz._ Mick Jagger. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2015, 6:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-american-accents-are-viewed-in-other-languages/541821/91 "2015-08-30T06:20:32Z")
> [@Terr](#): > > > [@](#): > > > > Which begs the question -can my fellow Americans correctly identify the Gieco Gecko’s accent without Googling it? > > Sounds like an Aussie/NZ to me. Maybe more NZ than Aussie. I do recall one of the commercials where somebody asks him if he is, in fact, Australian, and he says no, actually he’s…and it’s exactly there that the commercial ends. ---
**Author:** ![SanVito](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sanvito/32/2805_2.png) [@SanVito](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SanVito)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2015, 7:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-american-accents-are-viewed-in-other-languages/541821/92 "2015-08-30T07:30:55Z")
> [@Chefguy](#): > > Just in case you check back in: Daphne was from Manchester, so her brother’s accent was pretty much Scouser. You’re getting your North Western cities mixed up. Someone from Manchester speaks Mancunian, whereas someone from Liverpool (eg The Beatles) speaks Scouse. The two cities are close geographically, but the accents are very distinct from each other. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2015, 9:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-american-accents-are-viewed-in-other-languages/541821/93 "2015-08-30T09:43:17Z")
It’s even worse than that. The brother is played by Anthony LaPaglia. He was born in Australia in 1959, but he’s mostly lived in the U.S. since 1985. He decided that he needed to adopt an American accent for his movie and TV roles, so he picked one that I interpret as being an Italian-American New Yorker. Supposedly he now talks that way all the time, not just in movies and TV shows. According to a lot of discussion online, that accent he did in Frasier was a terrible version of a Mancunian accent. ---
**Author:** ![SanVito](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sanvito/32/2805_2.png) [@SanVito](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SanVito)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2015, 11:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-american-accents-are-viewed-in-other-languages/541821/94 "2015-08-30T11:18:05Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > It’s even worse than that. The brother is played by Anthony LaPaglia. He was born in Australia in 1959, but he’s mostly lived in the U.S. since 1985. He decided that he needed to adopt an American accent for his movie and TV roles, so he picked one that I interpret as being an Italian-American New Yorker. Supposedly he now talks that way all the time, not just in movies and TV shows. According to a lot of discussion online, that accent he did in Frasier was a terrible version of a Mancunian accent. To be fair, so was Daphne’s. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2015, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-american-accents-are-viewed-in-other-languages/541821/95 "2015-08-30T14:15:34Z")
Jane Leeves, who played Daphne, was born in southern England. Many people thought her Mancunian accent was poor. Interestingly, John Mahoney (who played Martin Crane) grew up in Manchester (although he was actually born in Blackpool). He’s lived in the U.S. since he was 19 though. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2015, 6:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-american-accents-are-viewed-in-other-languages/541821/96 "2015-08-31T06:40:35Z")
> [@Sinisterniik](#): > > Wow! Surprising! One [article](http://wcco.com/goodquestion/singers.accent.singing.2.1456258.html) says that not only do the Beatles sound American but Susan Boyle too! > > I still don’t get how people can’t hear that difference… Well I understand it -I guess it’s hard for me to imagine _not_ noticing the accent. More than once I heard or read about other Americans wondering why they couldn’t hear their accents when they sang. Although they did sound slightly different from us when singing, they didn’t sound any more different than, say, an upper Midwest urban accent sounds to someone from California. They certainly didn’t sound nearly as different as some of the more distinctive American accents like those from the deep South or certain parts of Boston and NYC, at least to those of us who didn’t grow up using those accents. (Keep in mind, I am referring only to their singing voices.) I was five when they first appeared on American television, which leads me to consider the fact that I probably had no idea, at the time, what a British English accent was. Later, as I became more geographically aware, I had a reasonably good aural image of British accents, but that didn’t seem to apply to how the Beatles sounded when they performed. They most certainly didn’t sound like they did when speaking. From asking my peers, it seems that quite a few of us mis-heard the line _She loves you yeah, yeah, yeah!_ as _She loves you yay, yay, yay!_ Come to think of it, were they really singing “yeah, yeah, yeah”? I’ve read where “yeh” is sometimes heard as the Scouse equivalent to “yeah”. I can see how “Yeh, yeh, yeh” might be more apt to come out sounding like “yay, yay, yay”. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2015, 6:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-american-accents-are-viewed-in-other-languages/541821/97 "2015-08-31T06:50:19Z")
> [@Sinisterniik](#): > > Wow! Surprising! One [article](http://wcco.com/goodquestion/singers.accent.singing.2.1456258.html) says that not only do the Beatles sound American but Susan Boyle too! > > I still don’t get how people can’t hear that difference… Well I understand it -I guess it’s hard for me to imagine _not_ noticing the accent. If you played me recordings from a mixed group of British and American sopranos and tenors, singing almost any kind of art song or operatic passage, I don’t think I could tell where any of them came from. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-american-accents-are-viewed-in-other-languages/541821.md?page=4)