Do American boys find the english accent atractive?

Boy   Thursday, March 24, 2005, 02:00 GMT
Nothing against Americans personally. I have found American accents very loud like some "robots" are speaking. I hear all sorts of accents on Tv. But i haven't found any "softness" in American accents as compared to those of others. I'd imitate an American accent only If I had to live there all my life.. don't know why..but I found Australian and South African accents very good..
TheRat   Thursday, March 24, 2005, 03:30 GMT
Its really wierd refferring to an "American accent" because there are just so many. New York alone has atleast 3 established accents, then theres the New Jersey accent, Texan, and the innumerable accents of the South and Middle America. I guess if you really had to label an accent as the "standard American accent" it would have to be the Californian accent which is really more of an absence of accent. (if you dont know what that is just watch CNN)
Dom   Thursday, March 24, 2005, 03:37 GMT
The music in the voice is often what is the most important for the liking of an accent. It strucked me that in many different languages, you can feel the essence of the person just by listening to her voice.

Uneducated American tourists can sometimes be loud, not too respectful nor self-concious, and it somehows shows in a very vulgar-chewy accent that may be perceived negatively by people affected. Which would be the same for many other languages.

People in contact with better english, through movies or better tourism, would tend to like the modulation of a better used tongue, mirror of a more educated mind... I think ;)
Bill   Thursday, March 24, 2005, 06:28 GMT
"absence of accent" <--- oh stop!!
Kirk   Thursday, March 24, 2005, 06:44 GMT
TheRat, as a Californian I'm somewhat amused that I have been labeled "accentless" by your statement :) Actually, everyone has an accent. There is no such thing as an "accentless" variety of a language, altho popular myth sometimes holds so. That being said, I've heard plenty of American reporters on CNN who I can immediately identify as not being from California.
Fire fighter   Thursday, March 24, 2005, 06:49 GMT
''Actually, everyone has an accent''

Only in linguists dreams.

There is such thing is an accentless variety of a language and it's only that linguists refuse to realize it.
Gabe   Thursday, March 24, 2005, 06:54 GMT
Yeah, I don't know whether I have an accent or not. I'm from California, and so when I went off to MIT (in Boston) I expected/hoped to have a 'Californian' accent. Instead, everyone just says I "don't have an accent." Except one person -- he says I have a Californian accent, but that's mostly because of my diction, and not my pronunciation.

Of course if you label "accent" as "way of speaking" then it's obvious everyone has an accent to someone else. That was my mindset leaving California, anyway, but apparently it's not that way to most people. An accent to them is speaking differently from the norm, or something. I thought people who spoke with a Texan accent, for instance, would consider me to have an accent, but most of them that I've talked to still consider _themselves_ to have an accent, and not me. Go figure...
Travis   Thursday, March 24, 2005, 07:11 GMT
Now, Fire fighter, on what basis do you believe such to be so?
Deborah   Thursday, March 24, 2005, 07:14 GMT
I believe an accent is, as Gabe put it, a way of speaking, so therefore everyone has an accent. Obviously, many others don't feel that the "standard" way of speaking is an accent.

The following true story illustrates that the California non-accent can be considered an accent:

In 1968 my family drove from California to North Carolina. In a diner somewhere in Texas, a little girl in the booth next to ours said, after my brother finished talking, "Mama, that mayin in the next bewth shore does tawk funny!"
Travis   Thursday, March 24, 2005, 07:14 GMT
Forms being "accentless" is really just various social norms that are put into place that denotes a given set of speech forms as being "accentless", rather than anything objective that really says that a certain given set of speech forms are "accentless" in and of themselves. People who say things like something is "accentless" are generally linguistically ignorant, and or elitist, and that is that.
Gabe   Thursday, March 24, 2005, 07:46 GMT
lol, Deborah, that's a great story! You could probably send that in to Reader's Digest.
Deborah   Thursday, March 24, 2005, 09:45 GMT
Hmm, I could make $300!
Damian   Thursday, March 24, 2005, 11:18 GMT

<<Mama, that mayin in the next bewth shore does tawk funny!" >>

Deborah:

Amusing...I can just imagine it..actually I quite like the "Deep South" US accent....I know I shouldn't use the word "funny" but if I do it would be in an affectionate way.

I wonder what would have happened if that phone booth had been in Glasgow....Scotland. Probably nothing as American accents are heard pretty widely over here.

I wonder if there is a place called Glasgow in the USA?
Euro_boy   Thursday, March 24, 2005, 13:53 GMT
I have a question for native speakers about accents.

Why when I speak Americans believe that I am Russian. I'm from Romania and I don't have a Russian accent to my opinion. Russian accent is very distinctive. I do have a kind of heavy voice, but nothing of Russsian accent.
Somebody answered my question saying that because Americans know French, Italian and German accents very well and than because mine is none of those they put my accent in the Russian category. I think she was actually right, but my question is why ?

Thanks
Ed   Thursday, March 24, 2005, 15:46 GMT
Euro_boy, Romanian is a Romance language, but when it comes to pronunciation, it's much closer to the Slavic languages than to the Romance languages (as much as you may hate that fact).