What do foreigners think of the American accent?
im an italian and i particularly love to hear the "waz up" thing its sounds so cool fr the new yorker/californian accent...i cant say the say with the people fr south texas/georgia they almost singing when theyre talking though out of tune he he he i mean no offence ok since ur asking how we find ur accent...we italian sounds so silly with english but sexy no..?
Do people from other countries think that Americans have accents or is the American accent a neutral one?
Do people from other countries think that Americans have accents or is the American accent a neutral one?All Americans I know of (including in films and TV shows) have a very noticeable and distinctive accent, although it varies from region to region. I notice Americans as soon as they start speaking, and I lived there for two years as a child.For a start, most American accents I hear are strongly rhotic — you usually pronounce the “r” after a vowel, which Australians don’t do. That immediately marks out American speakers. I occasionally need to take time to distinguish between certain types of Irish and American accents, but NO American accent is “neutral” — not even vaguely.Americans are also likely to pronounce many vowels differently — especially those Americans who confuse “cot” and “caught” which are quite different in Australian English.There are one or two varieties of London or southern English which can sound a little like Australian English — or at least “neutral” — but American English is very noticeable and very different to my ears.Americans sound as different and accented to me, as the Queen sounds to American ears. The American accent is definitely “foreign”.
What do Europeans think of American accents?
I was raised kind of bilingual (meaning that whenever my mother actually did bother talking to me, she did so in English, while my father and talked in Swedish mostly, as far as I can remember). Anyway as a result at least I think that my accent must have always sounded more or less American.In Sweden that didn’t ever make me stand out too much though. As mentioned in other answers: We watch American movies a lot, so it tends to be the first English accent we’re exposed to anyway.In other European countries, if anything, my accent very quickly brings up the question where in America I’m from, lately usually followed by the next question, which is whether I know anyone who’s a Trump supporter, but that’s about it really.If you count Brits as Europeans (which I actually still think you should)… a few love it and will tell you. Some will pretty much ignore it, but treat you from there on as “not a member of the secret club” and most… well, they’ll maybe comment on it like they comment on the weather.
Do British people like american accents?
Not exactly. The American accent is not very "foreign" in other countries. What I mean by that is they hear it every day. Many television shows in the UK, and in many other countries are American. And so much music is American. The American accent is so often used over seas. So people are so used to it. Not to say that they won't recognize it as foreign, but it is nothing special. Most British people do not find our accent very attractive also for the reason that it's very flat and dull. To others it sounds nasally. And many people think that we sound like idiots when we speak. But they are referring to the Americans who say "like" in-between every word. There are some people who do find it attractive though, but do not expect people to be running up to you asking you to repeat words for them. Odds are, if they do this, it's because they are making fun of you're accent. In the UK, the most favorable American accents are most likely the New England, and California accent. Both of these are very clear which is most likely why they don't mind them. Something like the Southern accent could easily get on someones nerves. But some people actually like the southern accent the best. They may not find your accent very attractive and unique, but that doesn't mean they won't find you unique. As long as you are not the stereotypical American (the southern stereotypes: fat, stupid, racist....etc) you will not get made fun of. If you want to make your accent a little more attractive without faking an accent from another country, practice little details in the way you talk. For example: Pronounce all the T's in a sentence, and D's. And play around with you're pronunciation with vowels. Pronounce every syllable, and every word. Almost like a Canadian accent. Give yourself a more unique American accent. Just play around with it. And don't sound like an idiot. But british people do not hate us, and are usually nice people.
What do the British think of American accents?
Which variant of the American accent?In general, we view it as novel and rather quaint, and if we meet an American (much like I imagine Americans do when encountering a British person), we’ll try and get them to say as many words that they pronounce differently as possible (see: banana, process, progress, etc.) and to be honest, we’ll probably (playfully) mock them for it.There are a few things that grind on our nerves though. In fact, I think our distaste for the American accent can be summed up in one word:Tomato.I’m sorry, I couldn’t stand pronouncing it ‘to-may-to’. I could learn to say ‘parking lot’ instead of ‘car park’, ‘cell phone’ instead of ‘mobile phone’, and even pronounced ‘progress’ as ‘prah-gress’, but never could I bring myself to say ‘tomayto’.It’s completely irrational, but no British person I know with a shred of self-respect would say it like that. Slightly racist, but that’s the British for you.Apart from that, I think we generally like it as an accent. We tend to romanticise the Southern accent quite a bit - it conjures up images of the stereotypical Southern Sweetheart tipping his cowboy hat in greeting *sighs dreamily* - but we also tend to put on a more insulting variant of it if we’re being playfully racist; I’ve been hearing the ‘Inbred Texan Accent’ (as I’ve personally dubbed it) more and more since Trump became Republican nominee.We also mock the Valley Girl accent if we ever go to Starbucks. We are very familiar with these stereotypes.In general, I think we’re quite fond of it. It’s different, so naturally we’re interested in it, and having an American accent will probably make you 200% more interesting to your average British person, just as a British accent will make you 200% more interesting to an American (I warn all Americans, though, there are a lot of British accents outside of the one you’re undoubtedly thinking of.)Edit: I somehow forgot about the aluminium vs aluminum debate. I don’t care how you American mutilate the spelling, how on Earth did you come up with al-oo-min-um? Joking aside, aluminium was first discovered by a Danish scientist, and in Danish it’s spelt aluminium.That being said, if an American actually did said aluminium the proper way (or as a commenter mentioned, said to-mah-to), we’d take the piss so much. It’s probably best we keep our linguistic differences, otherwise we’d be reduced to insulting the French accent, and that’s just old hat by now.
What do foreigners think of american southern accents?
A lot of British people do not like the southern accents; they think it is inferior even though there are a lot of English accents in Northern England that are not easily understandable. Blame it on American movies and TV shows. They always exaggerate the American Southern accents – making them look like idiots. There are people in the south that have the “twang” sound or stretch their words but they are not the majority. There a lot of soft spoken, articulate, and very intelligent Americans who live in the south. They speak in clear and understandable voices that do not make them sound like hicks or bimbos. Unfortunately, almost all Americans will be looked down at from the rest of the English speaking world.
Do people from England or Australia think that American accents are as cool as we think yours are?
It depends which accent. America has a lot of variety in accents.I quite like some. I love the Brooklyn accent for example just because we don’t have anything that sounds like it at all here in the UK.But the southern ones for example mainly just make people sound really stupid (although we have similar accents that come across like that. Birmingham ones for example but one of the smartest Englishmen I know is a brummy so I know that sounding stupid and being stupid are NOT the same) although at the same time they can sound really endearing and friendly too.I wouldn’t say I “love American accents” but I do find them more interesting than English accents just because they are something I hear less often.Although obviously the completely generic Hollywood American accent is pretty dull now so any American without a strong regional accent tends not to interest me the same way.In terms of the wording of the question though. The only truly “cool” accent to me from America really are old black guys who sound very calm and wise. Morgan freeman has the coolest accent in America imho. Obama too sounded awesome. No young American sounds cool to me when I’m used to hearing all sorts of European accents though which seem far cooler.The least endearing accent is the “wall street” smarmy salesman type of accent or whatever it is that trump has. Hearing him speak makes me want to punch him in the mouth TBH he just sounds like such a smarmy arrogant twat, although I guess some of that is influenced by knowing a bit about him and not just how he sounds.In terms of the opposite sex. No American accent sounds particularly attractive to me TBH. I do actually often fancy American women as they can be quite confident and sexy but just not their accent, my current girlfriend is half American and half English so has a fairly “liberal american” edge to her personality which is very attractive but luckily spent most of her young years in a posh part of London so sounds pretty much “English princess” which I guess is a good blend. But to me the sexiest accent in general on a woman is either French or Eastern European/Russian, I’ve no idea why that is.
What do Japanese think of American accents?
I always find it cute. Sometimes I want to giggle with the cuteness, but I try not to because I don't want to offend them, I just want to encourage them to learn and speak Japanese more.
Do non-American people find American accents attractive? (As Americans like myself find European accents attractive)
Do British, Austrailian, Scottish, Irish, and English speaking people find American accents attractive?Some of the (many) regional accents, sure. The southern US accent always sounded appealing (though I should add I’ve met very few folks from the South - I don’t know how much of what you hear on film/radio is a real accent or played up for Hollywood or country music purposes).I usually find the broader and more drawling accents appealing, I think. Likewise the accents that also involve different speech patterns tend to be more interesting - again the Southern accent, plus AAVE/Ebonics always sounded interesting (though I’ve encountered very little of it for real, so the usual Hollywood qualifiers apply).Some of the coastal accents, less so - New York accents can sound good, Boston accents always struck me as a bit odd, with that flattened sound. California accents don’t sound too bad, though the higher and rising tones they tend to use (“ValleyGirl” to linguists, apparently) take a bit of getting used to.US accents in general certainly aren’t disagreeable. (Also keep in mind most of the above is based on Hollywood as much as practical experience - I’m assuming they treat American accents more realistically, but certainly if they handle them like they do Irish accents, then disregard all of it.)