Are you influenced by or bothered about accents in your country?

Hi,

Are you influenced by or bothered about accents in your country? I’m talking about the accents used by people speaking your own mother tongue. What I would be interested to know is whether the accent you use say in an interview would affect what the people on the interview panel think of you.

There are a variety of different accents in the UK apart from Scottish, Welsh, Irish (Northern) but there’s always one that seems to be the butt of jokes and that’s the one spoken in Birmingham. I recall once some years ago being introduced to a young man who was to be the future husband of my niece. It was a semi-formal occasion with other relatives around but the lad himself didn’t say a lot and when he did say something, it was in a fairly quiet tone of voice.

Anyhow to help the conversation along I happened to be talking about a radio programme and in particular the presenter of the prgramme. As is my bad habit I did an impression of this guy (the presenter if you’re still with me) and said how I couldn’t stand his Birmingham accent as it drove me up the wall. There was then a deathly hush as it was pointed out to me that the putative bridegroom also came from Birmingham and had a fairly strong ‘Brummie’ (popuar expression for an inhabitant of Birmingham) accent. I must admit he took it well but ever since when I talk to him, I keep well away from the topic of accents.

Alan

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The native accent in my area is more or less American broadcasting English, so I don’t have any trouble with people due to my accent. If I were interviewing someone for a job, I wouldn’t be bothered by most accents and would tend more to look at someone’s competence. However, some people here are bothered by extreme Southern accents and by certain thick African American accents, both of which they associate with lack of education and stupidity, even though those accents indicate neither of those characteristics. Some Northeastern accents sound snobbish to people.

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Before working for a British company, I used to like American English, but I prefer British English now. I think many people prefer American English in this part of the world.

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As for the question itself, I enjoy all accents we have in Azerbaijan, and we have many of them in various parts of the country…

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Not at all Alan!

I love accents! I even like imitating and practicing them whenever I can. See, I’m from the Borneo island and our Malay language is way different from the standard one. (Malay people in peninsular Malaysia just can’t understand us).So when I first came to Kuala Lumpur(capital of malaysia) I made a lot of friends from all over Malaysia and I started grabbing accents and guessing who’s from where.

And as for the english language, I think the british have very sexy accent and very easy to listen to (can’t help it, i’m british english educated) though my father told me the cockney accents are infeasible! and I believe him after watching My Fair Lady.

Overall I think accents are fun and we should appreciate them.

p/s: if one I can’t stand it would be bad handwriting!

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Funny you should say that, because I personally can’t find anything remotely sexy about British accents, although I enjoy them all (I’ve even got one myself)! Of course, it would very much depend on the voice, if you ask me – a husky voice, for instance, would sound attractive, regardless of its accent, I suppose.

Now if I should rate English accents in terms of sexiness, I’d go for American accents, most definitely. There again, though, the voice and many other factors would have to be taken into account.

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I think the German language sounds sexy, and other Americans think I’m crazy. It’s because I think of the voices of women TV and radio announcers, and other Americans imagine the voices of Hitler and various World War II military officers.

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There are also variations in the German language. People speak “Swabian” in the part of Germany where I lived. I loved it, but Germans from other parts of Germany sometimes told me that people who speak Swabian sound like uneducated hicks.

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I guess the butt of jokes when it comes to German accents is the one I grew up with – Saxon. It does sound funny when somebody speaks with a heavy Saxon accent without making any attempt to keep it in check. It’s a very lazy way of speaking German which sounds hilarious to some and causes confusion in others. Sexiness completely missing in that accent I’m afraid…

TOEIC listening, question-response: It’s been a tough week, hasn’t it?

Hi Alan,

What about your own accent? What does it sound like and how do people react when they hear you speak?

Englishuser

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Hi Conchita,

You said:

That’s interesting. Any idea why you like husky voices so much?

Englishuser

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Jamie (K) wrote:

Does this extend to foreign (non-native) accents and URP?

Could you tell us a bit more about ‘posh’ American English?

Englishuser

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For foreign accents, yes, unless you simply can’t understand the person. If you just can’t understand the person, it often indicates some kind of stubbornness or another personality problem.

I don’t know what URP means.

We don’t call it “posh”; we call it snooty. It’s generally those Northeastern accents that picked up the later sound changes that occurred in England centuries ago. If it’s not an accent specifically associated with blue-collar origins, then the closer it sounds to England, the more snooty it sounds. Listen to an old recording of Franklin Roosevelt, or someone who’s got a really heavy, old-fashioned Harvard accent.

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Hi Jamie,

URP = Upper Received Pronunciation i.e. aristocratic British English. Would you be likely to hire a URP speaker?

How often do you hear people speak like Franklin Roosevelt in the northeast of the US?

Englishuser

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Hi,

URP sounds a bit of a manufactured oddity! I would have thought this should be called GARP - grossly affected received pronunciation.

A

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Mmm, I’m not sure what the real question behind your question is. :slight_smile:

Ayway, the fact remains that some sounds are more pleasant to the ear than others. What makes deep, breathy or whispery voices more attractive than, say, shrill, high-pitched or nasal ones? I can only wonder. All I know is that some voices make something stir within you*, while others are just plain insufferable.

  • This brings to mind an (unofficial) expression used in the context of music: ‘to hit your musical G-spot’ (now, what do you think the masculine equivalent of this term is?).
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Of course I would hire anyone who had the correct skills, seemed like a nice person and would be easy to work with. My only fear with a speaker of what you call URP would be that in meetings, Americans tend to react to that accent as if it were the Voice of God. I worked with a manager who spoke to me in a “low-class” Australian accent when we were in her office, but would switch to RP in meetings. It was outrageous how some Americans used to knuckle under to her when she talked like that, and I know she exploited this accent for exactly that purpose.

The thing is that in old American movies, God usually speaks RP, although now he tends to have a black accent. Evil geniuses in American movies and TV shows also tend to speak RP.

Less and less often. It’s dying out. John Kerry, the guy who lost the presidential race last time, got rid of his accent, probably because he’d never have gotten elected to national office with it. As it was, he was defeated partly because of what people perceived as “Eastern elitism”, even without the accent.

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Hi Torsten!

What does a Saxonian say when he/she wants to buy a christmas-tree?

“E T?nnschen, please!”

Michael

Hi Conchita,

Are you sure you don’t find high-pitched, nasal voices attractive at all?

Englishuser

Hi Alan,

It depends on the URP speaker whether or not they sound affected, don’t you think? HM Queen Elizabeth II, for instance, does not sound particularly affected to most ears although she speaks with a more or less aristocratic British accent.

Englishuser