Accent Sample | Antimoon Forum

I've recorded myself reading the following passage.

'Please call Stella. Ask her to bring these things with her from the store. Six spoons of fresh snow peas, five thick slabs of blue cheese and maybe a snack for her brother Bob. We also need a small plastic snake and a big toy frog for the kids. She can scoop these things into three red bags, and we will go meet her Wednesday at the train station.'

http://download.yousendit.com/E90E508814C1BA87

Could you please tell me what impressions you get when listening to my accent?

Thanks in advance!

Is it a Midwestern accent? You speak faster than I do, and have a slightly different intonation pattern. You pronounce "Bob" as [bab] and frog as [frag], so you don't sound like you're from around here. You also pronounce "bag" differently--sounds more like the vowel in the word "bad".

you say "ask" as sort of "ay-uhsk", so I'm thinking Northern Cities Vowel Shift:
It is called northern cities because it is taking place mostly in a broad swath of the United States around the Great Lakes, beginning near Syracuse and Binghamton and extending west through Cleveland, Detroit, Chicago, Madison, and north to Green Bay (Labov et al. 187–208).

probably not the northern portions of: Wisconsin, Michigan, or Minnesota, because "bag" is [bæg].

I'm guessing one of these:
northern Illinois
Wisconsin
New York state
southern Minnesota
northwestern Indiana
Michigan (but not Upper peninsula)
St Louis corridor
northeastern Pennsylvania
Massachusetts
Conneticut

What would help is if you said these words:

sorry
tomorrow
ban
pour
what
like
outhouse
ow
hot dog
dan
don
dawn
cot
caught
ought not
taught
dull

You are definitely not from:
Alaska, Canada, Hawaii, Washington, Oregon, Idaho, California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, New Mexico, western North Dakota, western South Dakota

You are probably not from:
Texas, Florida, Maine, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas

It is likely that you are not from:
Louisiana, Washington DC, southern Kansas, Oklahoma, Nebraska

Trying to narrow down a little further...

You sound similar to this speaker except for 1 thing: http://accent.gmu.edu/searchsaa.php?function=detail&speakerid=465

He is from Waconia, Minnesota. Notice how he says the word "bag" though--with a vowel closer to "beg". This is a feature associated with Canada and the areas adjacent to Canada. You pronounce it more like the vowel in the word "bad". Therefore I would say with 65% certainty that you probably live further south than Waconia.

You have a very rounded "o" in "go", which is associated with the Northwest, parts of the northeast, northern Midwest and Canada. But we've ruled out Canada, and the part of the US that is very close to Canada. Further evidence that you are not Canadian is that (from this recording) I get the impression that you probably pronounce words like cot and caught differently. The evidence comes from the way you say "Bob" and "frog". 99% of Canadians are cot-caught merged, which means they pronounce the vowels in the words cot and caught the same way (also tot-taught; etc.) You may be cot-caught merged, but people with the merger typically will pronounce the "ah" sound in words like cot/caught with rounder lips after the "ther" sound in "brother". You didn't round your lips--therefore you probably keep cot and caught distinct. With this evidence, we can not only completely rule out Canada, but also the Western states. We can also probably rule out the Dakotas, because they are mostly cot-caught merged as well.

So, we still have the northern midwest (probably further south than northern Minnesota), as well as a small chunk of the northeast left.

To properly narrow it down further and to be more accurate, more data is needed. Without more data, I can only make a wild guess. Probably Iowa or Ohio or one of the states they border.

The only puzzling part is the way you say "she" (as in "she can scoop...) It sounds almost like how a Korean or Japanese person would say it, but it could just be the poor quality of the computer recording.

Here's the recording of my pronouncing the words you gave.
I hope it helps:)

http://download.yousendit.com/7320839C003D358D

By the way how is the way Koreans and Japanese pronounce 'she' different from others'?

It's amazing how much an accent sample can give one an idea of where I am from...

Anyone?

My accent's something I can't put a name to. For me I sound British sometimes and American at other times. However, someone told me she love the way I speak and to put it precisely, she was commenting on my accent. My accent drives crazily sexy. They love it, but unfortunately, I'm not satisfied: don't like the sound of it to an extent. I think of Queens, but my tapping the Ts comes as a drawback now and again. Oh well, I think I love British accent more, but American comes natural to me. Do you mind if I say I'm a Nigerian who loves English from Childhood and has been using it as his 1st language? I belong to the class of those who call dog dag. Those are the poeple from western united States.They They also call marry merry. I do this naturally well;think I ought to give the devil his due and begin to love real American English, even if 80% of my books are by British authors.

My sounding midatalntic, albeit, depends on my mood. When I'm serious tapping the Ts is reduced and so my English becomes pretty Estuary. But I do not strive to reduce my intrusive Rs.

American Webster Dictionary( Collegiate) of the 9th Edition is truly the best dictionary of the 20th century. I think with such richness of words Americans too have a say in the way English should be spoken. Can anyone out there tell me what type of English he or she wants me to favour, please? Confused. But variety, I sense, maybe okey with capital O, for me.