Standard american accent

no tengo nada que hacer   Friday, October 15, 2004, 01:03 GMT
Lisa Simpson
Leela
Fry (I think fry has a NY accent)
...
aussie actors
Mxsmanic   Friday, October 15, 2004, 03:14 GMT
In general, ESL students can emulate a very wide range of American actors and actresses for pronunciation, as very few ESL students have so little foreign accent that they'd be able to distinguish between regional American accents (most regional accents are extremely faint and difficult to hear, even for native speakers).

This being so, the choice of a model isn't too critical. Note that models need not be from the U.S., as standard American English is spoken not only throughout the majority of the United States, but also throughout much of Canada as well.
The Cable Guy   Monday, October 18, 2004, 01:09 GMT
Quote-''When I wrote "I don't think that your conclusion is justified." I meant Jose's not Smith's.''

''"6.2 A southern US merger''

Quote-''"Then there is the START-NORTH distinction, exemplified in pairs such as 'farm' and 'form'. It is not only the Jamaicans that tend to pronounce these identically; many Americans speaking popular accents in the south do so too. They have a test phrase about being 'born' in a 'barn', and it is well known that some people confuse or reverse the two: country bumpkins in the southern states are ridiculed as being 'barn' in a 'born', with the typical confusion of people trying to introduce a contrast into their speech that they don’t natively have."''

''J.C. Wells
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/wells/accents_spellingreform.htm''

''So for some Americans "far" and "for" would be pronounced the same but I think it would be a mistake to try to link this to the "caught" vs. "cot" merger.''

''Perhaps some Americans could fill in any details I've over-looked.''

Jim, In central Texas ''car'' and ''corps'', ''far'' and ''for'' etc. are pronounced the same i.e. [ka:r] and [fa:r] but ''core'' and ''four'' remain distinguished [kOur] and [fOur].
Jim   Monday, October 18, 2004, 01:29 GMT
You could be right. Here, from the same article:

"4.2 NORTH and FORCE

"Most of us nowadays use the same vowel sound in NORTH as in FORCE ...

"This distinction is a historical one which is now mostly lost in England, North America and the southern hemisphere, though still made in Scotland and Ireland and to some extent in Wales, the West Indies, and the United States. Speakers who have it make a difference, for example, between 'horse' and 'hoarse', and do not rhyme 'short' and 'sport', 'fork' and 'pork'."
dsgdfg   Tuesday, October 19, 2004, 04:01 GMT
julia roberts has a smyrna, ga accent can't you hear the southern drawl.
Ben   Tuesday, October 19, 2004, 15:12 GMT
Julia Roberts used to have a somewhat pronounced Southern drawl, but got rid of it later on in her career (just as Mel Gibson used to be unquestionably Australian, but now speaks with a general American accent).

I think the best people to listen to for Standard American accents are Tom Cruise, Tom Hanks and Julianne Moore, since they all moved around so much as children that they adopted very non-regional accents.