To wonder if Americans hear spoken English differently?

[LordLancington]

Obv, not meaning that they have different eardrums or something, but more whether they don't have the same contextual associations that we do.

Started wondering this after going down the YouTube rabbithole earlier, as I sometimes do when aimlessly browsing. I watched a couple of UK drill videos out of interest - not at all my cup of tea, but I was interested to see what all the controversy was about.

I was surprised by how many Americans were saying things "can't take this seriously. Talking about stabbing people, but using the Queen's English." Thing is, it was about as far from the Queen's English as I could imagine. Proper London accents with loads of urban slang, and for want of a better term I'd have said pretty 'chavvy'.

I've read before that in studies English people tend to associate the Birmingham accent, for example, with being not particularly bright, and the Scottish accent with being 'authoritative'. However, American people found the Brummy accent as 'melodic' or 'friendly' - something like that.

Speaking of accents and the US election, can British people hear the difference in accent between the current occupant of the White House and his soon to be successor? They are two of the most distinctive regional accents in the US, although in both cases have been smoothed out to some extent by the speakers.

@Ritascornershop yes, I mean a generic American accent and Canadian accent. Eg, Is it Michael Buble who’s Canadian? - because he just sounds generic American to me.

I’ve never really thought about what accent Trump has, never entered my head that he has a “regional accent” - where is he even from?

He has a definite New York City accent. It's smoothed out but it is still very recognizable.

I think it's similar with any regional accents -- if you haven't grown up with the cultural connotations, you miss hearing the differences.

I lived in Georgia and Alabama for a bit and can generally distinguish a "Southern" American accent from e.g. New York. But more local differences were completely lost on me.

When I was there, people asked me about my accent a lot because a real English person was a bit of a novelty. So I was chatting to someone at a local market and, having ascertained I was indeed English, he told me "I'm sure you can tell from my accent ... "

And I was nodding and smiling, 100% believing he was going to tell me, like everyone else I'd had the same conversation with, that he'd grown up two streets away ...

And he said "I'm not from round here at all! I'm from Oklahoma!"

Which was not what I was expecting. It is frustrating to see American culture totally mangle British regional accents, but we do are equally unaware of all the nuances of American spoken English.

I was at a

I’m always surprised by Trump’s very NYC accent - he was raised wealthy, why does he have a regional accent?

Michael Buble is from my neck of the woods. We like to think that American actors mimic us as our accent is a (to our ears!) a little smoother and less nasal. So when you think we sound American, they actually sound like us! 😬

I find Buble’s sort of accent a lot more pleasant than my prairie coworker, but that’s also because she’s terribly excitable so tends to speak loudly and draw out her vowels a lot (Oh My Gaaaaaaawd!! I love her sooooooo much.)

All very well to watch "The Wire" with subtitles, but then didn't "Trainspotting" need subtitles in the US ?

Had a "Geordie" boss, once. Only he wasn't. But living in the Midlands, he learned to put up with it (in the same way a Yam Yam in Newcastle would have to resign themselves to being a Brummie). He once explained that he was actually a Wearsider. However (and rather confusingly, if you try to wiki it) he didn't like being called a Mackem.

My DF is pretty good at spotting Italian accents after he did his National Service all over the country in the 1950s. I did used to be able to pick out Roman, Neapolitan, Torino and Milanese accents when I was hearing them daily.

About 48% of those who voted in the US election did, or some of them anyway- the words 'Joe Biden has won' sounded differently to them.

That aside, I think they do, if my experience of US born co-workers is a guide.

I'm American. I can hear the NYoirk in DT's accent but never noticed anything regional about Biden's voice. His accent sounds same to me as Kamala Harris or any other generic American.

Oh that’s interesting, yes I suppose it’s logical that he should have a New York accent but it honestly doesn’t come across as what I think of as a New York accent. He sort of comes across that he might be a Southern Redneck.

I need subtitles for parts of Trainspotting and all of Gregory's Girl. And I have lived in Scotland.

After 3 idyllic weeks driving around California, New York hit me like a sledge hammer. Not just the accent but the tone of voice. Even when people were being nice, they sounded so abrupt and rude. I went into a diner and was told to 'siddown' - it was like Cagney and Lacey.

I’m always surprised by Trump’s very NYC accent - he was raised wealthy, why does he have a regional accent?

But regional accents in the US don't have the same class connotations that regional accents often have in the UK. There is no American RP.

The president-elect has traces of the Mid-Atlantic region groups of accents (Delaware-Maryland, parts of Pennsylvania), but it is very smoothed out, which I think may in part be due to his work to overcome his stammer.

"I’d love to hear Virginians, or Appalachians, or Bostonians etc."

The Waltons are from Virginia. Cheers from Boston, Beverly Hill Billies from the Ozarks.

@SenecaFallsRedux

He has a definite New York City accent. It's smoothed out but it is still very recognizable.

Nothing like as strong as Bernie Sanders' though. I can't hear Trump's.

"But regional accents in the US don't have the same class connotations that regional accents often have in the UK. There is no American RP."

There are differences though. Read the poster above about Labov's work in New York on pronunciation of 'r'.
You can be rich and have a regional accent in the UK too. Not all rich people go to private/public school or have elocution lessons.

"I need subtitles for parts of Trainspotting "

I can't think of any UK drama that gives me problems, but for 'real life' programmes from Northern Ireland I need to switch on the subtitles.

The Waltons are from Virginia.

But no one on The Waltons had a Virginia accent, except the narrator. Most of the cast didn't even have a Southern accent.

I'll be honestly I (English, southern, non accent) struggle to differentiate between different American accents unless they are very southern and even then I wouldn't know a Texan from someone from Louisiana! I also couldn't pick out an Australian from someone from NZ.

It's just familiarity.

I have no difficulty with British accents but we're a small island and I have friends all over so maybe that's why! I can understand how people from other countries find it hard to differentiate.

Speaking of subtitles ... here's one of the channels I sometimes dip into ... A Southern Journalist talking politics

Curiously the auto-generated subtitles appear to be 100% accurate.

I guess we know how Google have trained their AI models ....

(Compare with some UK English fails ...)

But @Gwenhwyfar, those are all decades old. I was a baby when the Beverly Hillbillies was on. And in Cheers Cliff is the only Bostonian.

Tbh I'm surprised anyone would be surprised by this. Of course people from another countries are going to have difficulty picking up the differences between the accents of different regions and the class implications, especially if they are from a country with a less class-riddled culture than ours. If we are a bit better at picking up the differences in American accents, it's probably just familiarity, because we hear them more in films and tv than Americans hear British ones.

I can pick up differences in American accents (so I could tell you that three actors were from different places), but I can only map a couple of them to a place.

America did have an upper-class accent in the past — the mid-Atlantic accent. You can hear it in recordings, but I think it pretty much disappeared after WWII.

I think it can be very difficult to tell though. Most people think I'm from the south, but I'm not. Where I'm from, my accent isn't unusual though, it just doesn't have a name, and sounds more similar to ones in the south. I also have a lot of friends who boarded, and they pick up a school accent — you can generally only tell if they're from the north or the south if they use any dialect words. That's what gives me away too, I eat barm cakes.

But that Mid-Atlantic accent (not to be confused with the accent in the Mid-Atlantic States) was itself very regional. It was a northeastern accent. Upper class people in the South, the Midwest, and the West did not speak that way.

For some of the best exemplars of that accent, listen to Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt.

I've noticed some of y'all refer to McDonald's as "MacDonald's." Is it actually called MacDonald's over there, like how you call TJ Maxx "TK Maxx?"

@steff13
Often in the US that 'Mc' is pronounced Mick. McDonalds is even known as MickeyD's.

In the UK and Ireland the Mc or Mac in any name it occurs in is pronounced Mac, never Mick. McDonald's is sometimes called MaccyD's or Maccies.

Been watching a documentary series about the Kennedys (Channel 4) recently. The whole Kennedy family seemed to have strong accents that are not like the standard American accent we (in the UK) are used to hearing today.

Can anyone tell me which accent it was? As they were wealthy people perhaps that was the mid Atlantic accent mentioned above? Not sure though, as Rose Kennedy (JFK's mother) seems to speak with a particularly pronounced accent which reminds me a bit of what I thought was a Boston accent.

But then I have seen old black and white movies where the upper class Americans seem to have an accent which sounds almost English, or sort of half way between American and English, which is where I suppose the term Mid-atlantic must come from?

Confused!