Record yourself speaking General American

Guest   Wed Feb 28, 2007 5:56 am GMT
Sounds like an American to me, or else a foreigner with a very good American accent. The sequence of words "it forms a prism and" seemed to me to have a peculiar rhythm, perhaps marking the speaker out as non-native. But on the other hand, people often speak with a funny rhythm when reading from a book. The vowel /o/ in "rainbow" also struck me as slightly odd. But I'd say it could go either way.
Adam   Thu Mar 01, 2007 9:13 am GMT
Day of the dad

01/03/2007

An American accent can be charming, admits Tom Leonard - but not if it's his daughter's




It's started. Rising inflection at the end of the sentence. Sometimes several times in a sentence. Very. Short. Staccato. Statements. As yet no use of "like" four or five times in a sentence, but occasionally once or twice.

Meike, once the vocalisation of Laura Ashley prints and the only girl at her inner-London primary school who never dropped any consonant, let alone an aitch, is starting to speak with an American accent. Perhaps not quite an accent, yet, but the rhythm of her speech has changed in a decidedly US direction. The rest can't be far behind.

advertisementWe have been on "accent watch" ever since we arrived - monitoring our children's utterances for early signs of infestation. My wife always thought it would be a gradual process in which the children would pick up new habits, sinking into the vernacular to fit in with friends and classmates (though not with children's television - the popular culprit - which, over here, is largely populated by talking pigs with Hollywood Oirish accents).

I'd envisaged a more dramatic transformation. If Marika's scenario veered towards Lord of the Flies, mine was Alien - the Thing, the accent, lying dormant inside the victim's larynx, plotting silently, growing and waiting. Until, one day, perhaps during supper, it would hatch out small but fully formed from its host, the latter suddenly running around the flat screaming: "Hey, Mom, I'm like totally grossed out by that."

Not that we are totally grossed out by an American accent. Oh no, they're charming. Just not on our children. When you're 3,471 miles from home and faced each day with people who ask you to repeat even the most basic requests, it's reassuring to think that at least everyone in your own family is on-side linguistically. If not singing from the same hymn sheet - that would be too much to ask - at least singing something in the same accent.

Of course, one shouldn't be surprised that children adopt an accent more speedily than their parents, but initial encounters with a multiple-accent household can still be quite disconcerting. To use one more sci-fi analogy, I'm thinking more of The Midwich Cuckoos now.

When we first arrived in New York, we visited a British couple on Christmas Day, chatting away in English English until one of their children finally turned around from the television that they had been glued to and asked in this strangulated, high-pitched tone if they could change channels. If he'd had white hair, golden eyes and communicated his request telepathically, it wouldn't have been more out of place. Almost as surprising as Gwyneth Paltrow's Madonna-style Britican accent at the Oscars.

Meanwhile, we have some English neighbours whose older, nine-year-old daughter has - against the odds - kept her slight Brummie accent, leaving her little sister as the cuckoo in the nest, sporting the sort of Brooklyn twang one normally hears only behind a gun in a Martin Scorsese film.

Every other day, along with their homework, our children bring back from school a new word that they used to think they understood but now feel they need to reappraise. Last week, it was "crazy". And what do you say? That, technically, it means mad, as manifested in a wild or aggressive way, or do you give the meaning their peers intend? I prefer the former - if they can start correcting their classmates on their vocabulary, it's a surefire way of making new friends.

It's a learning process on both sides. The American mother of a little girl whom Meike visited for a recent "play date" (I won't even try to provide an equivalent British noun) told Marika her daughter had felt "elated" that she was learning a new "language". Her mum said she was glad that she had once lived in London as she'd been able to translate, among others, both "plait" and "jumper" for her daughter.

I caught our son, Joe, using "awesome" last night - without permission or prior consultation - to describe a Matchbox car.

Still, this was an unusual lapse from him. In London, Joe used to like to drop his aitches in grand style but now he has reversed roles with his sister and set himself up as the defender of the old faith.

He continually asks his mother in a worried tone if he's getting an American accent. He wants to go to an English school where he can be taught in English, he says. Quite where he gets this British snobbery from is beyond us.

telegraph.co.uk
RĂ­ Innse Gall   Thu Mar 01, 2007 4:33 pm GMT
LOL, newspaper articles trying to describe sounds and intonation by all kinds of strange references is just amazing! Especially when they have to use English, which is notoriously non-orthophone.
Original Poster   Fri Mar 02, 2007 3:28 pm GMT
>> Sounds like an American to me, or else a foreigner with a very good American accent. The sequence of words "it forms a prism and" seemed to me to have a peculiar rhythm, perhaps marking the speaker out as non-native. But on the other hand, people often speak with a funny rhythm when reading from a book. The vowel /o/ in "rainbow" also struck me as slightly odd. But I'd say it could go either way. <<

Yes, I'm a native speaker certainly. Do I have a General American accent? What was odd about the /o/ in rainbow?
superdavid   Sat Mar 03, 2007 10:47 am GMT
To Original Uploader (Guest):
I bet you are American but I'm not quite sure whether your accent is close to general American accent.
So where are you from and where did you grow up?
Guest   Sat Mar 03, 2007 3:42 pm GMT
It sounds like General American to me, with maybe a hint of Chicago or Wisconsin or something in it.