I would have my friends spot me a sawbuck and you can do the math!

English as a Second Language English Vocabulary, Grammar and Idioms
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My name is Oscar, very happy to be here. Now, to be honest, My English is quite perfect, the only problem is I have a pretty funny accent, which can be pretty embarrassing when talking to native speakers. A lot of times I find myself around people just muting myself so they won’t be making fun of me. So I did the famous Accent Tag and thought maybe you guys could give me some notes. When I ask my friends what im doing wrong they’d say stuff like “oh, you don’t need to work on your accent, we love you just the way you are”, which is heartwarming but doesn’t help at all. So please guys, if you got the time, be honest with me and tell me what I’m doing wrong . Thanks in advance –
Oscar
Here’s my accent tag:

Your name and username

What is the story behind your URL?

How old are you?

What is your favorite color?

Pronounce the following words: Aunt, Roof, Route, Theater, Iron, Salmon, Caramel, Fire, Water, New Orleans, Pecan, Both, Again, Probably, Alabama, Lawyer, Coupon, Mayonnaise, Pajamas, Caught, Naturally, Aluminium, GIF, Crackerjack, Doorknob, Envelope, GPOY,crey, polka dots, Swag, LOL, Papaya, Penthouse, Bestiality, Subtext, Smile.

What is it called when you throw toilet paper on a house?

What is a bubbly carbonated drink called?

What do you call gym shoes?

What do you call your grandparents?

What do you call the wheeled contraption in which you carry groceries at the supermarket?

What is the thing you change the TV channel with?

Choose a book and read a passage from it.

Do you think you have an accent?

Would you rather: Have a million dollars or a million friends?

Be a wizard or a vampire?

End audio post by saying any THREE words you want.

Thanks guys

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Hello, and welcome to the forums! Make yourself at home!

I’ll selectively answer your questions.

TPing!

The clicker

Hell yeah!

I’d go for the friends! I would have my friends spot me a sawbuck and you can do the math!

Sorry no audio.

Happy to oblige!

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Our Tort System
Well, I see you’re speaking British English, I speak American english, I like the word Clicker, has a funny sound, sounds a lot better than a remote control :slight_smile:

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I don’t understand why you feel Tort is using British English in his posts, DharmaIcaCream.
Some of his responses are decidedly American and I wouldn’t say that any of them are distinctly British.

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The clicker. Maybe i’m not hanging out with the right people, but I have never heard anyone using that word in the states :slight_smile:

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I have never heard of anyone using that word in Britain either, and I’ve been hanging out here since I was born.

On the other hand, this:

is distinctly American

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Maybe you are right,to be perfectly honest I havent been talking to a lot of British folks. no need to be insulted anyway. I wasnt using the word British in an offensive manner, you know :slight_smile:

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I wasn’t insulted, but I was bemused.
Just as this bemused me, given that there is a comma splice error and a capitalisation error in it:

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Yeah I do that too sometimes. In both languages I speak. I signed up here to get feedback on my accent but it’s a good thing someone notices my other f**k ups. I would never have given it a thought otherwise. so thank you. I guess…

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That last message brings the count to eight capitalisation errors written by you in this thread. It’s obviously something you need to think about if you also wish to improve your writing skills.

Anyway, your accent is pretty good. You ought to look at the word ‘salmon’ again though. It has a silent ‘l’ - both sides of the Atlantic.

I loved your answer to the question ‘Would you rather have a million dollars or a million friends?’

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Thank you. I’m gonna pay better attention to the way I pronounce Salmon. Any notes on how to improve my accent? I don’t wanna sound “pretty good”. As for the capitalization thing - where should I not use it? I thought I was only supposed to capitalize at the beginning of a sentence, a headline, a name and a title. What am I missing here?
BTW thank you for taking your time to help me. I appreciate it a lot.

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Hehe,
I’ve been to England on a couple of occassions and I have never been to the States (don’t let my location fool you), but as Bev says British slang is hardly my forte.
I’ve managed to pick up a quite lot of American slang while watching American movies/cartoons.
:))

By the way, to TP is to cover someone’s house in toilet paper, I heard it on South Park (it was a prank). When I was in England, I asked an aquaintance of mine if he was familiar with that term and he drew a blank, saying it was not something he had ever heard. Go figure!

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It’s not something I’d ever heard either.

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going to /want to - the terms 'gonna and ‘wanna’ are formed from the speed of pronunciation and are not grammatical terms.

You have capitalised a number of words which don’t follow any of those rules. You have missed capitals on the pronoun ‘I’ which is always capitalised.

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TPing, TP for toilet paper. Never done that. I use “gonna” as a short for “going to” all the time. I hardly ever say “going to” unless I want to really emphasize something. Like “No! I am NOT going to do that” in an angry tone. Thanks though.

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Wow, OTS, I thought you did live in NYC - your English is very good! I guess with Sandy it is a good thing you don’t live in Big Apple, at least this week.

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Thanks, Luschen!
Yeah, from all accounts Sandy is very devastating! I’ve been following radio coverage of this storm. My heart goes out to those who’ve been hit by it. I think the worst is over by now.

By the way, I think I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I distinctly hear the difference between “caught” and “cot” when you pronounce them (as in your recording above).
Sometimes I can’t tell them apart when some native speakers pronounce them. (You’ve just explained that it’s because of their accent)
Go figure!

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Hi OTS, yes, I agree that I say cot and caught differently, sorry if I did not make myself clear. This map shows that most people in the Southeast distinguish between these two pronunciations. Don/dawn has the exact same pattern.

ling.upenn.edu/phono_atlas/ICSLP4.html

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You should always hear the difference in BrE.