This is really aimed at those dopers who do voices and impressions. I’ve decided it’d be fun to develop an American accent (I’m a limey). No real reason, just a fancy. I’ve been practising but in spite of my best efforts I still sound like a Jamaican who’s had a stroke. Is there a way to learn how to do an American accent? Or is it just one of those things you can do or you can’t, like tongue rolling or something?
Get some country music an sing along with it. If you don’t blow your brains out first, you might be able to approximate a twang.
Oh.
I thought you were from the South, & were trying to improve yourself.
Instead, you are from the UK, & are trying to degrade yourself.
:dubious:
Carry on.
Please.
If a Southerner has ever altered his or her dialect in an attempt to sound more Northern, then he or she has most certainly failed to improve upon a very good thing.
Just don’t sing it backwards. If you do, you’ll find yourself surrounded by trucks, dawgs, old flames, etc, etc…
There are ways to learn just about any accent you want.
Yeah, the cultural disconnect of a Brit stating that he wants to sound like a Yankee in the OP, followed up by a suggestion that he learn to do so by listening to primarily Southern music, is deeply disturbing to me.
And Bosda, as much as I’ve seen you bitch about the South, I’d have thought you’d have left by now.
I’m assuming you’re wondering what it is that makes American English distinct from British English, no? In other words, there are certain ways we alter our speech pattern when we’re trying (very lamely, I might add) to sound British. We would generally change the sounds of the “a” in "can’t " to make it come out “cont” and soften or eliminate the “r” sound in words, so “never” becomes “neva” and “words” sounds more like “woods”. I know there are technical terms for these, but I’m no linguist (though I can be cunning) so someone who knows about these things can elaborate.
Basically, overenunciate "r"s, speak slower and draw syllables out longer. But please, please, don’t use Pres. Bush as your model.
I’ve tryin’ to count the negatives a figure out if ya’ll are dissin’ us…
Don’t say “ectually”, say “ax u awl lee”. 
If you can do a royal standard and keep your nose a little more closed than usual, you’ll be 90% of the way there. Just remember to raise your voice at the end of questions and you’ll be 95%.
Fear not. I wouldn’t trade my “y’all” for anything. My Southern accent once earned me 7 free pints of Guinness in a Edinburgh pub.
This is good news. I might could find my way over there now.
The biggest mistake most Brits make when trying to “talk American” to to put two or three rs into every word.
Best bet is to listen to Americans and just have at it: there are so many dialects (Boston, Texan, “Bawl’mer,” “Warner Brothers Brooklyn,” a dozen varieties of Southern, L.A., Midwestern . . ).
Yeah, that’s weird. I’ve encountered Brits and Scots who practically paid my bar tab to talk to them, especially if I threw in a bunch of y’alls and yonders. I could’ve done some dialogue from the Beverly Hillbillies and it would have suited them just fine. While it was flattering at first, I felt like some kind of Mr. Bojangles after a while.
Stranger still, once I was at a party at a friend from Austria’s house (in DC). His parents were visiting, and they didn’t speak English all that well, but some. I talked with them a while, and they later told my friend that I was the only one they could understand. Must have been the s-l-o-w drawl.
Sorry…my “yeah, that’s weird” comment was in respone to The Swan’s post…carry on…
Maybe you should first learn to talk like a Welshman or Bristolman, I think both those dialects sound a little more like American English. I didn’t know Cary Grant was English until I was told.
At any rate, here are some specific pointers I can think of right now.
(1) Learn to not pronounce the extraneous ‘r’ between two words that end and begin in vowels.
(2) Do start pronouncing ‘r’ at the end of syllables when written that way. The terminal ‘r’ is pronounced with the tongue a little farther back than the ‘r’ at the beginning of a syllable.
(3) O’s a little rounder than in most British dialects. American ‘O’ is a diphthong consisting of a nearly pure Continental O (as in Italian) followed by a ‘u’. The British O begins with more a of schwa sound like the ‘u’ in ‘mutt’.
Write Hugh Laurie and ask who his voice coach is.
To get back to the OP:
You’re gonna have to be more specific than just “American,” as others have pointed out. I would recommend either a variety of Southern or the Midwestern “newscaster” accent.
Yes, Johnny Carson seemed to be without accent, probably because everyone saw him on television.
Can you talk Canuck? If you can talk like a Canadian, you are well on your way to sounding like someone from New York, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and the Northern portions of Ohio and Illinois (with an occasional Hoosier ([del]victim[/del] resident of Indiana) or Iowan thrown in).
Just round out the “ou” sounds so you sound less like a Scot or Northumbrian and only use “eh” at the end of questions, not statements, and you have 90% of the Northern dialect for the U.S.