Originally posted by Meg@Apr 25th, 2004 - 1:01 pm
Recently I have read some articles about British accent. I found some webs were it is said that Queen Elizabeth accent is changing.
Queen accent 1
Queen accent 2
Queen accent 3
I am learning English and I can’t distinguish between different English accents. Jennifer López for example sounds a little strange, it seems to me that she has no intonation.
What kind of accent have Audrey Hepburn, Grace Kelly, Cary Grant, Hugh Grant, Kate Winslet, Emma Thompson, Gwyneth Paltrow etc. I suppose Mary Donaldson has Australian accent, but What kind of accent have Queen Rania and Alexandra of Denmark when speaking English?. What is your favourite accent?.
I'm not certain about the movie stars and celebrities you named, but English accents vary widely. Especially in America [not sure about England].
For example, I have what is called a "Pittsburgh accent" [since, of course, that's where I'm from]. I speak too quickly, leave the "g" off of words ending in "ing" [I say "thinking" like "thin-kin", but actually, a lot of people do that], and have a bit of a broad "a" [instead of saying "downtown", what I say sounds like "dahhhhntahhn"]. In other words, I'm sometimes hard to understand.
I currently live near Charlotte, North Carolina, so I'm in the southern US. Here they have the ubiquitous southern accent- and it's hard for me to understand people here sometimes. Southerners have a very twangy, nasal accent and, in my opinion, speak much more slowly than me. "Y'alllllll....."
Then of course, you have people from, say, Rhode Island- they replace the "a" on the ends of words with an "er" [for example, instead of saying "formula" they say "formuler", "pizza" is "pizzer"]. A purse to them is a "pokkabook", a lawyer is a "loyah". And they, too, have a rather distinct accent, although it's subtle.
Same thing goes for people from different areas of the country- I've heard New York accents, Boston accents, Minnesota accents, California accents [ugh], and West Virginian accents. It's actually pretty interesting, the way some people talk.
In addition to accents, you have dialects- I've met people from Wisconsin who call a water fountain a "bubbler", I myself call a telephone pole a "telepole", a thorn to me is a "jagger", when it's cold out, my friends from South Carolina say it's "airish", and in a way of greeting, my friend Rhys from New Orleans says "Yat?' ["Where are you at?'].
I hope I've provided a bit of insight [at least, on American accents]
Good luck with your English!
-Kara-
