Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with accents

I'm descended from Spanish kings and don't you forget it!

zeraus — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 10:49:17 -0800

Hispanic-Americans, I have a question. Do you accent your name? I see people in the states all my life use González, Hernández, Suárez, Andrés, etc. without the accent only using it while signing the dotted line.

I've been told that throwing the accent on is considered pretentious.

Thoughts?

Can you think of movies, television or radio shows which feature British actors playing American characters putting on fake British accents?

Kattullus — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 16:58:54 -0800

Can you think of movies, television or radio shows which feature British actors playing American characters putting on fake British accents? Extra bonus points if you can name other examples of actor from country X playing a character from country Y faking the accent of country X. In case the X/Y is confusing, here's a couple of examples:

An actor from Portugal plays a Australian character who at some points fakes a Portuguese accent.

An actor from China plays a Cambodian character who fakes a Chinese accent.

This doesn't have to be limited to English-language films.

So far I've thought of Dominic West in The Wire, Hugh Laurie in House M.D. and Lee Evans in There's Something About Mary.

For super duper extra bonus points, what on Earth should this particular phenomenon be called?

Why do people treat me better when I use a British accent?

realpseudonym — Sun, 23 Dec 2007 01:35:45 -0800

Why do people treat me better when I use a British accent? I work at a movie theater, and I've noticed that people generally pay more attention to me when I use a British accent. For example, when I tell people to shut off their cell phones with a British accent, they actually seem to do it with a sense of urgency! Why is that?

Should I stop speaking like a Yank?

Anonymous — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 20:06:59 -0800

My boss would like me to drop my accent by developing a Southern one. Is this a bad idea? I live in the South (in the US). I was raised in the Western US by Yankee parents, so I have a Yankee accent. Now I have a good job (that I don't want to quit, so please don't suggest that) in the deep south.

My boss and co-workers say they can't always understand me. Part of this is because I mumble a bit, but I try to enunciate when they say, "what?"

I've never been good at mimicking accents, so my speech hasn't changed despite living here for over two years.

Yet every time I've spoken Southern, they claim I do a good job, but to me, it sounds like a cheap imitation. It also seems like I would have to speak Southern full time on the job otherwise the locals will think I am making fun of them. I would feel weird answering my cell ("oh, it is my parents, speak normally" vs "oh, it is Bob, step up the drawl.")

A guy I spoke with on the phone later asked my boss if I was a foreigner. (But maybe to him, foreigner=yank.)

Is there anything wrong with adopting an accent? If you are a native Southerner, would it make you mad to hear a Yank without an accent? Is there anything I am not considering?

(posting anon because my posting history would easily lead people to where I work and I don't want to get harassed)

The rain in spain falls mainly on the plane

Samuel Farrow — Sat, 21 Jul 2007 21:05:01 -0800

What is the shortest sentence that would highlight differences in dialects and accents in the English language? I am looking for some thinking about accents. Ideally ideas about the way we sound.

Awesome would be language quirks in particular groups within each country (such as the rolling r NZ has in Southland.).

Including English quirks in areas where it is spoken as a second language, and why.

Wabbits.

jazzkat11 — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 21:05:28 -0800

Which British dialect pronounces R's like a W? ie. Pronouncing 'research' as 'wesearch". Is it Welsh?

How is one to know a Vancouverite from a Haligonian?

orange swan — Sat, 16 Dec 2006 07:05:00 -0800

Why doesn't Canada have more regional English-language accents? In Canada, to the best of my knowledge, there are only two English-language accents — the Newfie accent and the Peter Jennings accent everyone else has. My Albertan relatives and a guy I dated who was from Yellowknife sound exactly like Ontarian born-and-bred me.

In the U.S., by contrast, there are so many, many accents that even some cities have their own, and New York alone has several.

Why is this? Is our population simply not big enough? After all, how many accents would the U.S. have if it only had one-tenth of the population? Perhaps the various regions aren't populous enough so that they can mostly interact just with each other and so develop a particular accent?

Hope this isn't too open-ended a question, but I figured there must be some specific criteria/conditions necessary to the development of a regional accent.

Easy Spanish-language typing on a U.S.-type keyboard?

killdevil — Sun, 24 Sep 2006 15:39:06 -0800

Easy Spanish-language typing with a U.S. computer keyboard? How can I make typing the common accent marks encountered in Spanish (properly considered extra letters, I suppose) quick and easy on my U.S.-format keyboard? I need to write quite a bit of Spanish and typing ALT+[Unicode string] (or however one does it on a Windows-based computer) seems terribly unpleasant and time-consuming.

A quick and dirty solution is preferable to an elaborate yet elegant one. Thanks!

Evil Psychiatrists & Texas in the Movies?

rainbaby — Tue, 22 Aug 2006 04:03:22 -0800

I'm looking for movies featuring evil/bad psychiatrists. I'm also looking for movies that feature good (West) Texas accents. An example of the first would be Michael Caine in "Quills,"an example of the second would be Sissy Spacek in "Badlands." Bonus points for contemporary time frame and female actors, but not necessary. Comedies are fine too.

W for v substitution when some Germans speak English

ob — Tue, 08 Aug 2006 06:29:36 -0800

Why do many German speakers pronounce the v sound in English as a w? It's not that every German I know does this, but this is pretty common. From the languages that I speak to a greater or lesser degree (Spanish, Dutch, French) I know that there are inherant things in those languages which greatly affect the way that a native speaker pronounces English, but I can't quite see this in German. I mean there is a strong v sound in German. I've spoken about this with friends who speak German and no one has an answer.

Scare quotes.

Jimbob — Wed, 17 May 2006 18:22:02 -0800

Why does Windows think I want to permanently type in "accent character" mode? On the PC I'm currently using, both the ' and " keys don't do what they're supposed to. Pressing " for instance, doesn't make anything appear on the screen, until I type the next letter or press space. If the next letter happens to be a vowel, then it gets umlauts. For instance, if I type " followed by a, I get:

ä

The ' key does the exact same thing. As you can imagine, this makes it very difficult to type normal sentances. It happens in every program, from Notepad to Firefox to Word. I know that this sort of functionality is usually accessed by pressing the ALT key before typing the quotes, but it seems to be stuck on permanently. I've never seen this before, and have no idea how to turn it off - any ideas? Windows XP Professional, Service Pack 2 with Office 2003 installed.

Help an accent-deprived thesis writer do her thing.

anjamu — Tue, 09 May 2006 16:42:08 -0800

I am looking for word processing software that will do very specific accented-character-related tasks. I've been using MS Word to type in Spanish/Portuguese for as long as I can remember, and I quite like using the shortcuts Word uses for accented characters (for example, Ctrl + Shift + ~ followed by n produces ñ).

However, last week, my not-so-trusty old Toshiba pooped out on me. Having just bought a new computer, I don't have much of a budget for expensive new office software.

Are there any freeware or open-source word processors that will let me use these shortcuts or enter my own? I tried OpenOffice, but macros are cumbersome and frankly a bit over my head. Any other suggestions?

Linguistics: How do I get my foreign diction more specific than IPA?

sirion — Thu, 27 Apr 2006 09:56:39 -0800

LinguisticsFilter: There are a lot of resources explaining how to transcribe a language into IPA, but I don't have any that get into the nitty gritty of how one language pronounces a given consonant compared to another. Are there good resources on this front? Are there resources on how to speak in various foreign accents? I'm an opera singer, and have had diction classes and read books on simply getting a full IPA transcription of a language, but there's a significant step between reading IPA and reading Italian, for example. German and English both have the "sh" sound, but the German one has much lower formants. Where do I get practical resources on these subtle differences? (By practical, I mean something that can be helpful for learning these, like audio files comparing languages, accents, etc.)

A particularly useful learning tool I've seen in the past is the use of accents in English, where the teacher will speak the same phrase in an accurate American, British, German, French, etc accent, and the differences become extremely clear. Are there resources for this?

Breton accent, anyone?

blissbat — Sun, 12 Mar 2006 17:07:45 -0800

French speakers: can anyone characterize the Breton (Brittany, not Cape Breton) accent for me? Specifically, I'm looking for a description of the regional variations in French as spoken by Bretons (not information about the Breton language itself). In other words, how would you describe a stereotypical Breton accent? The usual "listen to accent/dialect X" sites aren't helping much with this one; I've found a few sound files of Bretons speaking French, but since my own French is quite poor, it's difficult for me to hear the difference.

Newo Aner

Big Fat Tycoon — Fri, 27 Jan 2006 19:56:56 -0800

How do I do a convincing New Zealander accent? And how do I do a convincing Australian accent? And how do I manage to not make them sound the same?

typing accents

Hands of Manos — Wed, 27 Jul 2005 17:43:49 -0800

My wife wants to be able to put Spanish Accents in on our PC Laptop however we have not found a solution. Is there one for a PC Laptop Keyboard without using that Function method?

You say potatoe...

grumblebee — Sun, 08 May 2005 09:07:32 -0800

In the US, the first syllable of "privacy" rhymes with "eye." In the UK, it rhymes with "give." So why, when listening to an audiobook, did I hear a British reader (with a standard British dialect) pronounce it the American way? Was the reader just being weird, or is the pronunciation of "privacy" becoming Americanized? Are there any other common Brit-pronunciations that are migrating across the pond? I direct plays (in NYC) and they are sometimes British plays. Having lived in the UK (and having had a British father), I can generally help my American actors sound more authentically British. But I fear I am losing touch with changes in standard British pronunciation. (I know there's no REAL standard, but would most Brits smell a fake if they heard a character say pr-EYE-vacy?)

Need name of a region.

Capn — Tue, 08 Mar 2005 10:12:21 -0800

This is an easy one (I hope). Had some UK'ers over for a wedding recently, they were talking about a vacation region that I'd like to know more about, but I don't know remotely how to spell it or where it is. They pronounced it Mee-ork-ah. Once I know the spelling, I suspect Google will be able to tell me all I need to know, but if you've got information or stories, please share.

To what extent is an American accent an asset in the UK, if at all?

leotrotsky — Fri, 21 Jan 2005 06:59:38 -0800

"I'd suggest ...the UK... You'll get a job doing whatever you want easily, because you've got an American accent" Mefi-Brits & Expats, have you found this to be true? To what extent is an American accent an asset in the UK, if at all?

Accents

BuddhaInABucket — Tue, 11 Jan 2005 01:12:04 -0800

When I hear English spoken with, say, a Spanish or a Persian accent, I find it interesting and intriguing. However, whenever I hear Spanish or Farsi spoken with an (American) English accent, I find it irritating and unattractive.
Why doesn't it work both ways? (+) I guess there are certain foreign accents that aren't exactly sexy in English, either, but is there a reason why this is so?
In your native tongues, what foreign accents are considered attractive? Which not so much?

Learning Languages

arimathea — Wed, 24 Nov 2004 17:34:27 -0800

Is it more difficult to learn two or more foreign languages at once than it is to learn one? Can the experience gained learning one foreign language be used to benefit the learning of the other? And on the subject of accents, those of you who can turn accents on and off at will, how did you achieve this talent?

Is Gary Oldman's american accent better than Rene Zellwegger's british one?

dash_slot- — Tue, 09 Nov 2004 16:44:58 -0800

Is Gary Oldman's american accent better than Rene Zellwegger's british one?

What are the stereotypes of the native English speaker's accent as perceived by non-English-speakers?

Shane — Thu, 07 Oct 2004 07:07:01 -0800

What are the stereotypes of the native English speaker's accent as perceived by non-English-speakers? (More inside-->) Example: What does an American or English accent sound like to, say, a French person, when a (somewhat fluent) native-English-speaker speaks French? How about Spanish or Russian or Portuguese, etc? English speakers have stereotyped perceptions of how (just for example) a French accent on top of English sounds to them, but what about the opposite? Harder consonents, more monotonal, other nuances, what?

What characteristically stands out, or is missing, when a native English speaker speaks another language?

What about the stereotypes for English speakers speaking English? Are all Americans John Wayne or Geo W or maybe Ernest? Are Brits John Cleese, or a voice from the BBC News? Is there more than one American stereotype, like the Southerner vs the New England Yank? And do non-English-speakers differentiate between Scots, English, Irish, Aussies, Canadians, etc?

How did the "American Voice" come to be?

PrinceValium — Tue, 08 Jun 2004 20:30:32 -0800

I was listening to sound recordings of Theodore Roosevelt's voice, circa 1912, and was struck by TR's accent. It's nasal and aristocratic, and there are hints of both modern British and American dialects. I couldn't quite pin down TR's accent to a stereotypical New York, New England, or Long Island dialect. Which got me wondering:

At what point did the vocal style of American and Canadian English become distinct from British and Scottish English? I know that regional dialects are shaped by the immigrant communities that populated that region. But there is a fundamental difference between accents on either side of the Atlantic.

Put another way, what did Washington, Jefferson, and Franklin "sound" like? And how did the generic Midwest voice that we call "American" - Mr. Game Show Host and Ms. Voicemail - develop from the milieu of voices of Puritans, German/Irish immigrants, and slaves?

How can I set up my computer to type a lot of material in grammatically correct Spanish?

Yelling At Nothing — Wed, 04 Feb 2004 10:24:14 -0800

So, I want to type in Spanish [More] The deal is, I'm soon going to have to type up quite a lot of material in Spanish. It needs to be grammatically correct; punctuation, accent marks, etc. What I'm looking for is a program (or just a good way) to do it, that's fast and doesn't involve rebinding dozens of strange keystrokes.