Can British people distinguish the types of American accents?
455299
in cali they cuss a lot
1166287
Here are a few words that can be used to describe accents:\n\nAdjectives and descriptive phrases: nasal, heavy, snobbish, affected, rural, rhythmic, twangy, lilting, sing-songy, unaffected, natural, posh, upper-class, lower-class, working-class, percussive, regional, flat, generic, exaggerated, typical, atypical, flowery, loose, annoying, relaxed, etc...\n\nNouns and synonyms for types of accents: drawl, patois, twang, patter, dialect\n\nTypes of American accents:\n\nMid-Western Flat: This is the "generic" sounding accent that is supposedly spoken in the mid-west by educated urbanites. Television journalists are often said to speak with this accent.\n\nNew Jersey accent: This is the sharp nasal accent spoken by "The Nanny" (Fran Drescher) and Joe Pesche\n\nSouthern drawl: This is what Scarlett O'Hara spoke. It can range from charming and light to garbled and heavy.\n\nNew England accent: This accent is what the Kennedy's used; note the dropping of the letter "r" in words such as "car" or "park." An exaggerated form of this is identified as a Boston accent.\n\nNorthern Accent: This accent is characterized by nasality, as in the word "Wisconsin" being pronounced "Wis-kaaaaannnnn-sin" by Wisconsonites. The movie "Fargo" illustrates this accent perfectly.
71467
British is good (and there are so many), Irish and French. Pretty much anything exotic, which automatically excludes the accents around you, so being in California, it definitely excludes American (all regions) and Spanish as they are so common.\n\nAlso, I guess German never works, exotic or not.
1046562
Most foreign nationals' children grow up with the native accent so in this case it would be english.  Not only would the parents accents most likely change but the child is exposed from school, tv & friends, all of which play a very big part in a childs accent.\n\nAnd yes destiny, americans most definitely have an accent!  Very strong in a lot of cases.  Is a southern accent the same as north, east the same as west? No...\n\nI believe southern england has the least tones and inflections in the english language but i'm probably wrong.
111078
british accents are pretty tasty...I like english boys!
104666
I've heard it compared to the difference between American and British English.  That means that there would be differences in accent, vocabulary, and probably grammar.
389812
English and Australian are the best accents. They sound so smart, sophisticated, and similar.
349188
I do not think American accents sound good/bad to me. \nI sometimes have difficulty understanding the Southern accent(s), though.\n\nWhat we feel "ugly" could be the attitude that sometimes is so easily associated with the speaker's accent. Be it American or not.
294871
No, we don't.\nAlthough, the people that DO have accents think that we have accents just because we don't have their accent! We still sound different to them, so they think we have an accent.\nMake sense?! ;0)
419563
Yes, i do esp a british accent and italian accent. very sexy. when i was stationed overseas i had italian guys just speaking to me in italian and i couldnt understand them, but i loved the accent.
138096
Sounds like scottish, Irish, German, or maybe even english.
874597
Personally I think British accents sound intellectual. Maybe because it is so soft and light sounding, whereas something like a Brooklyn accent or Long Island accent, or deep southern accent is so harsh. But accents should not at all affect how you think of a person from Britain or Brooklyn or Long Island or the south and so on and so on.
40473
I only know of one talking gecko (and any others are probably imitating him, apparently with right down to the accent).  I would guess he has a British accent because Americans think it sounds 'cool,' which is actually fairly important if you want people to remember your commercial.  Also I think that a lot of Americans will tend to associate a British accent with Oxford professors, so it gives the gecko credibility at a subconcious level.
37465
There's a great television show on PBS called "Do You Speak American." On it, they detail the various differences in accent in regions across the United States. Their website has many audio clips throughout. You might want to try the "Radio America" section. Of course, the question becomes, where exactly are hillbillies?
99350
I propose we change the version of english spoken in the US, and call it American. Being that we are a bigger and meaner country than England, we can bully them and say we speak proper english, but truth be told, English is from England.
1172358
Good question.  The different colonies had different accents just as in Britain today there are regions and locales with distinct accents.\n\nIn the 20th century, there lived on a remote island in the Chesapeake Bay a population whose English was heavily accented in what many scholars argued was as close to the Colonial English as anything.
228218
I'm not from England, I'm Irish, but I'd say some American accents sound lovely and some sound horrible.  There are lots of different American accents, just as there are lots of English accents, some nice and some not so nice.  I don't really think it's always the accent we like or dislike, it's other features of the person's speech.  For example, I personally can't bear listening to people with a strong nasal tone to their voice and I switch off when someone speaks too loudly.  I've read some research that says accents that feature stronger nasal tones are perceived negatively - in the UK, this is often described as a feature of the Birmingham accent (in the English midlands), the Australian accent, and the accent in some parts of New York and New Jersey (like Chandler Bing's early girlfriend in Friends).  My own accent - Northern Irish - is definitely NOT considered a 'cool' accent, so I'll sit here in my little glass house and make sure I throw no stones ;-)