How aware are you of your accent? (Read the whole OP before answering, yeah that's right, all of it)

[FalloutJack]

And now, FalloutJack talks accents. His own, and others.

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Now then, I am an Irish-Italian living in America, and I have an accent. Not one from my native heritages, but there is one. I say this because I live in Pittsburgh, and we in The Pitt (Har har, Fallout 3 reference.) have our own dictionary of slang-terms. Now, I don't USE the slang-terms, but to anyone from anywhere else, it's noticeable that I'm not from around there if I'm talking normally.

The problem is that I don't talk normally.

Let me explain. I once gave directions to a woman who was obviously born and bred in New York, with an accent that told me she could've taken a Subway to the area of the Empire State Building or gone to Ellis Island with no trouble at all. It was heavily noticeable and I cracked up after she left. Of course, we in my town (the drinking town with the football problem) probably sounded weird to her. It's all in perception. But I am a little different in this area.

I am a chameleon.

Some people work hard to do impressions of other people, and some come to it naturally. I'm a little of both. When I hear an accent or a funny line, I start to be able to talk that way. Enough Monty Python and I'm John Cleese, Eric Idle, and Graham Chapman. Enough Get Smart and I've only missed Don Adam's voice but "that much". Groucho Marx makes me recite lines about Captain Spalding. You put me in a room with differently-voiced people and watch me to. It'd be hilarious. The world might explode if I get too close to Robin Williams.

But I reproduce accents to the point of sounding too authentic to be figured for anyone else. So, do they annoy me? Not really. Not unless you're Bob Dylan. I can't stand him.

 

[Danny Smooth]

I am firmly aware of my accent. Being Canadian, I know that I bludgeon English to death with big stones, tie strings to it's major features and dance it around like a morbid marionette. There are no "aboot"-s, "Eh?" usually ends a question, and you may even get a word of French thrown in, but other than a few examples like these we seem to take pride of stripping the language of any liveliness or character.

So kudos to you, the rest of the world, I love your southern drawls and cockney twang. Accents are awesome! Especially when derived from a language that uses umlauts.

 

[Ace of Spades]

I have an American accent, and I feel cheated. My voice would sound so much better with an Australian accent.

 

[Fraught]

What you, my sir, experienced on Xbox Live was what we here, in Eastern Europe call as a mild case of the retard.

My language is very, very similar to Finnish, so you'll get a better picture of what kind of a language you speak.
I lived under the same roof (also known as "was visiting") for one and a half months, and black people talk so fast and stuff.

I don't know where I was going with this, but I sometimes, on purpose, do a British accent, because I really like it, and one of my friends, we have this thing that we always say "Hello, ! How are you doing?" or something of the alike, then replying, and doing as much of a Brrritish accent as we can.

But although I conversate, or atleast greet, one of my friends that way (even though English is not the native language here) when I was communicating with that black person, I talked English like I normally would, without paying any attention to with what accent I talk, and he many times mentioned that I have a british accent, although he didn't to my brother.

So I guess I have a British accent, and I actually like it.
British accent has always appealed to me more.

 

[SaintWaldo]

-Have you ever put much thought towards your accent? How it sounds, the similarities and differences it has with other accents?

Yes. I try to be a global citizen as much as possible.

-From a global perspective, how do you think your accent (note: Accent, not the country/place of origin in question) is viewed?

I have the affect-less, "newsreader" or "California" US accent, due to midwest birth and a lot of travel and relocation growing up. I got my accent, the generic US one, from our TV. Think of it as our country's version of the British Received Pronunciation that was so big on the BBC until the late 80s. I get the impression that this makes me seem like a normal person to the rest of the world as opposed to a crazy New Yorker or belligerent Texan, to quote some known US stereotypes.

-Since we're sort of on the subject, what's a foreign accent you have fondness for (it would help to say what country you are viewing this foreign accent from so I can see if there is a link between accents and what accents are liked by people with said accents.

I love the Scotts/Irish family of accents, because that's where my lineage is from. I have a fondness for all accents, I love imitating them from a Canadian to a Columbian, from a London Hindi to a New York Orthodox Jew, I can do all sorts of accents, so the subject does fascinate me a bit.

-In the same sense as the above, is there any accent you don't care for at all, or find downright infuriating?

Nope.

And while I'm here, I might as well ask

-This whole Toasted cheese sandwich thing, is it just me? I'm thinking it might be that there was a toasted cheese sandwich present at the time of the original event, but it's not the first time such a sandwich has sparked a memory like this. Maybe I just need to go outside more.

Or forget the bread and skip straight to fritatas.

 

[Madshaw]

i live in the south of england and have always forced myself not to have a chav accent,
i love irish and german accents just because they are funny, and russian and eastern european accents can be very sexy (if spoken by a girl), my favourate accent is russian

I'm not aware of whatever kind of accent I may have at all.
But I do wonder how others would describe an American accent. I would personally describe a British accent as slightly nasally, a Russian accent as deep and thick, and a Spanish accent as smooth and calm.
Could anybody not from the USA please tell me how they'd describe an American accent?

downright enfuriating (american accents that is, especially new york or southern)

other anoying ones are australian and african

 

[Sensei Le Roof]

I'm a resident of Kansas, born and raised. For those who don't have a globe, atlas, or other source of maps handy (in which case, being online, do you not know of mapping Web sites?), this is too far north to have the so-called "Southern accent" -- hell, Oklahomans can fight it off just by being in a decently-sized city -- so I'm stuck with the boring accent that every "generic American" on the screen has. So I'm somewhat aware of it.

Like some others in this thread, I have a talent for faking other accents and some voices as well. I can't really pick out an accent for "favorite" or "un-favorite", though, as it's usually what's being said that'll set me off more than how it's being pronounced. (I have joked, though, about the Scouse accent being an un-favorite because despite all efforts, I can't seem to get it right except by complete accident. GRR I SAY!)

As for the sandwich thing, smell and taste are very strong senses to connect with memories, so that explains that, yes?

(Oh, and JokerGrin -- I actually do use "bloody" more than your basic average US-ian boring personage. I tend to say "bloody hell" when I realize something bad. *l*)

 

[Fightgarr]

I am unaware unless I am surrounded by people of differing accents at which point in time my accent becomes painfully obvious to me. I particularly hate hearing my voice as others do. I'm so much more suave and collected when I hear myself.

 

[magnus gallant]

I had sat down on my trusty ol' couch, made myself a toasted cheese sandwich and brewed up a nice cup of green tea.

[/quote]

man, green tea is delicious, it's all i drink

yeah, im from eastern canada, and i realise i have a bit of a drawl, i run certain words together, i say things like "this coffee is RIGHT good"

for the most part though i try to avoid the commen coloquilisms so as to avoid embarassment when talking to a person who speaks "normally"

we all print the same, at least i don't have a stupid sounding accent (of course i am not saying the british accent is stupid, i am talking in general)

 

[Wislong]

I don't think I have a strong one, i don't live anywhere that's too far into any extremity to have one...

 

[The Kind Cannibal]

My accent is Costa Rican, which is like the run of the mill Central American Spanish accent to English exept...softer. We often pronounce the end of words very softly or not at all, and vowels dominate a word, not consonants. But I happen to talk very fast, so it makes it worse. For example "Ah, Your from New Zealand." sounds like "Ah, yo fro No Zelan?" spoken twice as fast as normal. I have no idea what the world views it as, only that I'm often called Mexican or worse when I venture on Xbox Live.

I take a liking to Brazilian English, which has a Portuguese flair to the language.

I hate Euro(Brit,Scot,Irish,ect.) English, it sounds so sharp and stark. Very crisp and almost angry sounding.

 

[lizzielizzie]

I moved around a lot as a kid, and in order to keep myself from getting my head bashed in constantly, I had to learn to adapt my accent quickly to my new region's. Now an adult, my accent is a somewhat neutral American accent, not quite as brassy as a British actor doing an 'American' accent, but not exactly distinctive a la Southern, Michigan, or my childhood Bostonian/Upstate Massachusetts. It's somewhat similar to the accent Hugh Laurie does to play 'House.' Now, if you get me drunk, it's a different story. I'll either go factory-default and start drifting into the Massachusetts accent or start drawling a la my couple years in 'Loosiana.' If I spend any time around my relatives, the Mass accent, again, returns (think 'Good Will Hunting', 'The Departed').

Accents I like? I'm a bit of an accent whore... give me a good British (thank you Yahtzee ), Irish, Welsh (thank you, 'Torchwood'), Aussie, or, closer to home, Georgia-Southern accent (softer tones than most of the Bible-belt/redneck accents) and I melt like a snowcone on the beach.

 

[Spacewolf]

Im not sure if i do people from my area dont realy seem to have accents like the obvious ones from liverpool, and newcastle. But i do like the Scotish, Irsih ones, the canadian one isnt bad but i dislike the film american accent and the south europe accents that people put on

 

[Jacklin]

i talked other people over world of warcraft and they said i have a slavic accent, im croatian so it makes sense to me

 

[Nargleblarg]

I was born in St.Louis and apparently I have a accent when I go to other states everyone looks at me weird. I don't notice it though.

 

[Beckaa]

I'm from England, so I'd say I have a relatively posh English accent, although I'm from the North which means that I don't have a generic English accent (I don't pronounce grass as gra-rse, as southerners do).

I only really notice that mine's different when I hear it on video, when I shriek "Do I really sound like that?!" ;]

Also, Irish accents are sexy! As are well spoken English people :]

 

[Burld]

I think I have a fairly generic, slightly posh English accent. But while in London I was listening to myself compared to other people, and I thought hmm, these people sound like Londoners, and actually, I can hear the Bristolian (I am from Bristol) accent in my own voice. Nationally, you might think your accent is the same as everyone else's, but people from cities you visit can probably tell from your accent not just that you aren't local, but they'll know where you live. From an international, xbox live point of view, I'm just another English ****** to 10 year old Americans.
I would have to say that the Boston accent is one of the strangest and coolest sounding accents on the planet.

 

[Cameoflage]

You know, I don't think I've ever eaten a toasted cheese sandwich. I hate the taste of melted mozzarella, though (although this strangely doesn't apply to pizza), so I'm not confident that I'd want one.

You realise there is more to the world of cheese than plain old Mozzarella right?

*resists urge to unleash inner cheese fanatic*

Yeah, it was kind of a dumb thing to say without including any qualifiers, but eating anything other than mozzarella or that processed-and-individually-wrapped quasi-cheese (which is good melted on burgers or as the cheese in grilled cheese but gross if not melted onto something) in a sandwich would be weird. I do like other types of cheese, most notably Monterey Jack, but I only eat them by themselves.