Yeah, it sounds really weird when Americans say 'water'. Pretty much everyone here except for the Thames Estuary would pronounce the 't'.

This confirms what I thought. It's easier for a Latin-Language Speaker to talk in English than to a English Speaker to talk in a Latin-Language.

I think it's a matter of familiarity: the teaching of foreign languages has historically been rather patchy in English schools, though my personal view may be a little biased as I have very little aptitude for languages as it is. Edit: for the record, I wouldn't describe most French speakers of English as "impeccable", at least in my experience, though I have heard startlingly good pronunciation from Swiss and Swedish speakers.

For the French, I think it's because the harder consonants are very important, while in English they ten' no' ta be (tend not to be). Latin-language speakers basically have all of the "tools" (i.e. letters, pronunciations, etc.) of English, and then some, so English must seem pretty easy for them.


The Swiss! Yes, that was the one that wouldn't come to mind. I was referring to Frenchmen who are fluent in English, i.e. they've studied it well and know all the rules, not the typical Frenchmen.

There are some dialects in America that have some harsh consonants, I believe. Maybe Dakota and Minnesota, and Bostonian somewhat.

This accent discussion reminds me of when I used to play Guild Wars. I had some German and Brit guild-mates that I used to play with a lot and we were all on the Teamspeak server together. We started making fun of each others' accents, and it eventually became a tradition that we'd all try to stay "in character" the whole time as people from each others' countries. So, the German guy and I did our best generalized impression of a Brit, one of the Brits did his best generalized impression of a German, and the other Brit guy did his best American. It was actually pretty funny and nobody was offended by it. People that played with us for the odd one-off Underworld or FoW run were like

No, I don't pronounce the "T" either. It's "wa'uh" to me. Glottal stops tend to be used in place of a lot of consonants here.

Nope...wadder here.

I lived in Spain for years, most Spaniards never get a good English accent, it's too different for them. Same as the French...

Arsene Wenger being a classic case. The guy's lived here for decades.

http://youtu.be/DBOzKZpWGx0

Dark Knight, I mean those persons who've invested the time and energy to learn the language properly, Spaniard or Frenchmen...


GW2 is accepting beta sign-ups, by the way! See RPS for the link.

lol I guess I do say "wadder"!

And I don't sound anything like the people from the places you guys mentioned. Don't talk like a valley girl (which honestly, most people don't), I surely don't have that annoying drawn out nasal thing that yankees have (boston, new jersey, new york), the midwest has kind of the same but with a twist, and I don't sound like a redneck or Texan... But now I'm going to have to find someone from another country to tell me what they think I sound like....

Do Germans hold that same idea of American accents? I know a couple of German ladies...

Sure, but just listen that Wenger interview. He's lived here for 20 years and his English is impeccable, yet he still has a really broad French accent. I have met very few Spaniards/Frenchmen that have lost their accent.

It seems to me that Scandanavians pick up English better than anyone else. Truly amazing...

I have met a lot of Americans that just have the standard accent. No real quirks, just your normal straight down the middle accent. I'd say I have the equivalent English accent. I'm southern, but my accent is very neutral.

Where are you from, Missouri or something?

On a somewhat related note, it would be awesome if everyone from a state talked like macho man Randy savage.

A Boston and a New York accent are quite different, I have family from both areas.

I love the Boston accent. Has anyone here seen "Gone baby gone"? There are some great Baaaawstan accents in that!

I can say that's true of the French. They will usually keep at least some trace of their phlegmy Rs. But other than that... It may sound a bit more nasally? They still pronounce English much better than most people do; to my ear, anyway. I've met very few Spaniards outside of Europe -- that is, immigrants and/or constant travellers -- who don't speak perfect English.


They also have one of the best education systems in the world, which might account for some of it.


It may be my favourite American accent.

DOUBLE. POST.

People from Boston breath differently. It goes like: suax(sox to everyone else)...suax...suax...suax...suax etc.

I lived in Barcelona and it's not quite as "Americanised" as some parts. Meaning a lot of people speak Catalan and try to shun Castellano or regular Spanish. A lot don't speak English and even the ones that do and speak it really well, maintain a really strong accent. Spaniards really struggle with "Jay" sounds it always comes out as "Ha" or "Yay"

Nope, they have more of accent in the midwest (which I consider Missouri to be one). My best friend is from and lives there and she says things much differently.

I didn't mean they sounded exactly alike, but they all have a nasal sound to their accents. Like "pop" is more a "paaaup". Honestly, my family from MI drives me BONKERS when they say "pop" or "bob" or the likes.

There's not really such a thing as a "standard" or "neutral" accent, it all depends on the perspective of the listener. I imagine people from any region might describe their own accent as "neutral" as that's how it sounds to them... and I have heard just that on a number of occasions, something that can be extremely odd depending on how far removed their accent is from something I'm familiar with.

Ehh, in the US there's a 'general consensus' accent. It's considered rather plain, compared to unique dialects, like Southern Dialect, which aside from 'Ya'll' I don't use many Southern colloquialisms, courtesy of a mother from the North. ( I admittedly find Southern accents to be 'bumpkin'.)

I guess I can't really comment on the situation in the US: as an onlooker, if I can't isolate a particular flavour of US accent it's just "generic American" to my ears, but I figured to someone living there, everywhere still has its own regional accent, much the same as tends to be the case here (edit: clumsily worded, I guess that's what happens if I post at 5:30 in the morning...)

Living in the UK, my experience has been that there's a fairly direct correlation between a person's insistence that they have no accent and my difficulty understanding them! A "standard" accent may be considered to be whatever a typical BBC newsreader speaks in that their speech is somewhat contrived for mass ease of understanding, but it's still definitely an accent, usually south-eastern but at times from other areas such as Wales; but that leads people with similar accents to then conclude that they speak likewise, often with assertions of unaccented clarity, when that's really not the case. I remember living in Hertfordshire for many years, an area where I frequently encountered this "I speak standard, unaccented English" phenomenon, but I never entirely got to grips with the local accent: I often found myself having to ask people to repeat themselves, which seemed to irk some of them as they considered that repeating oneself was my job!

I realised what I like about the Boston accent: it baws instead of bahs. Most Americans pronounce Os as ahhhhs. Bob is Bahhhhb. Bostonians (-ers? -ites?) pronounce it Bawwwb.