Questions tagged [accent]
An accent is a distinctive way of pronouncing a language, especially one associated with a particular country, area, or social class.
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How can I get rid of my Indian accent and sound more neutral/native
I have recently moved to Canada and I feel I often end up having to repeat myself because of my typical accent. I am attaching a link to a very short audio and would love to know what can I do to fix ...
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What does "ima" mean in "ima sue the s*** out of em"?
Is "ima" an informal spelling of "I must"?
MegaCharizardZord Replying to @nytimes about COVID-19 vaccine:
i just hope when i take it don't die lol. i trust the government in ...
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What makes an Indian English accent hard to understand?
I have experience communicating with people from different nationalities and several have noted that Indian English accent is difficult to understand.
Are there any suggestions on how a person with an ...
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Do Americans pronounce 'are' as 'do' in "What are you waiting for"
It seems a stupid question, but I already hear American on TV or movies or even songs, say Are like Do in this context
What are you waiting for
I just listened to it again in this song
https://...
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Rihanna's accent in the song of "Diamonds"
I like Rihanna and her song "Diamonds".
She sings the phrase "At first sight I left the energy of sun rays" at 01:25.
And I can't hear this "rays" but "ray-hey" or "ra-hey".
Is this her original ...
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Why is Christina Perri pronouncing "closer" as "cloSSer"?
In this song at 0:58, Christina Perri pronounced the word "closer" with an S sound: clo[s]er
I have always pronounced and heard it with a Z sound. Is the pronunciation of "closer" ...
user126704
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US-American pronunciation of 'e'
Since quite some time I get the impression, that especially in US-American, spoken english the pronunciation of 'e' (as in 'best' — /ɛ/) seems to shift towards 'a' (as in 'flat' — /æ/). Some recent ...
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Is this Liverpool accent? "I wanna hold your hand"
I like this song "I wanna hold your hand" by The Beatles.
Paul and John sing the phrase "I wanna hold your hand"
as "I wanna hol'-your hand".
Other cover singers sing it as "I wanna hol d-your hand" ...
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The most important things which show that an speaker is not native [closed]
I know that there are many things which reveal that, for example, I am not a native English speaker. But I'd like to know the signs that native people use to determine if an speaker is not native.
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american accent tool or website
I am a non native speaker.
I have never talked English with anyone before. so all my accent depends only on how I see the word or if I heard it from a movie.
Is there any website or tool FREE that I ...
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Palm RP and GA pɑːm pɑm pɑlm
I'm confused with the different pronunciations of "calm". I'm using lexical sets to understand the differences between Received Pronunciation and General American.
According to Wikipedia, the ...
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How do I understand Yvonne Strahovski's accent in an interview with Craig Ferguson?
Source
At 3:45, I really found it very difficult to understand her accent. The youtube transcript shows the very out-of-world things.
Should I practice with BBC documentaries for both Aussie and ...
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How Adele sings "There's a fire" in the song "Rolling In The Deep"
I like Adele and her song "Rolling In The Deep".
She sings the first phrase "There's a fire".
And I can't hear it but "They they fire".
It's different from how a cover singer sings "There's a fire"
...
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Where does "day" sound like "die"?
I've seen that words like "day" sound like "die", "pray" sounds like "pry" and so on. I just googled where does day sound like die but didn't get anything.
So, are day and die homephones in some ...
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Accent Reduction Between Native Speakers
Has the accent between native English speakers decreased in recent decades with the advent of TV and now with the internet?
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Improving fluency without being able to talk to other people?
I am looking for tips/tricks to improve English fluency without talking to natives. I do speak English on a daily basis, however I speak English to a lot of other non-native speakers.
I am Dutch and ...
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Is the midwest accent the standard accent in TOEFL and CNN?
Of late I had somebody told me that midwest accent is the standard accent in TOEFL and CNN. If this is the case, then how to get used to this accent? CNN is a bit too fast for me now, so I want to ...
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What type of English uses the words/pronunciations "yer", "ter", "ernly", "der" and "don'"?
The words "yer", "ter", "ernly", "der" and so on, are they Irish? Also the way the contractions are contracted, "don't" to "don'". Hagrid ...
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How to pronounce unaspirated stop sound properly? Such as the /t/ in " let me", is it just/lɛ/ /mi/?
I'm not a native speaker, and I feel difficult to pronounce unaspirated stop sound properly, such as the /t/ in "let me". I found some learning materials on internet, but they are not sophisticated ...
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Which mouth form is the close one to pronounce the R
I am trying to learn American R, I have a problem, which is the R becomes like "O" in the begging of the word like
Reall-> I say: "Oreally" with a very very very small "O".
So I tried to change my ...
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In American English, can we flap the /d/ in the phrases "Where did", "Where do", "Where don't" and "Where does"?
I am 99% sure Americans quite often flap the /d/ sound which comes right after /r/ in the phrases "Where did", "Where do", "Where don't" and "Where does" (I am talking about the initial /d/'s), and I ...
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How to learn to understand the Newfoundland accent? [closed]
Recently I watched a video with Newfoundland accent:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXLmCJG9USw
Apparently it is English :) However my colleagues and I find it literally impossible to understand ...
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How to improve my British accent, in particular intonation [closed]
I have been studying English for many years, focusing on British accent. Apart from my books with DVDs in British, I listen to different podcasts of BBC learning English. Sometimes, I shadow the ...
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Is General American Accent the only choice If I want learn an accent through the Internet that is understood by everyone?
I am learning English. Please stop telling me accent is not important. If I want to understood by everyone I need to learn an accent. I know no matter how hard I try, I will never sound perfect. But ...
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Is it 'an hotel' or 'a hotel' [duplicate]
In a book I saw this statement.
Before words beginning with h and not accented on the first syllable, an is often used ; as,
An historical , an hotel.
I want to know whether h in hotel is ...
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Which region of UK speaks in Posh accent?
I am trying to get admission into a British university.
I would like to choose a university in an area where the local people speaks in Posh accent.
Which region of UK speaks in Posh accent?
user615
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How does connected speech work for accents which use the "h" sound?
Consider a British accent which doesn't use the "h" sound, so for example "hair" is pronounced /ɛə/ or /ɛː/.
When we say "your hair", do we pronounce the "r"? ...
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Does this Japanese accent need subtitles?
In this movie trailer "Paterson",
a Japanese actor said
"A bus driver in Paterson?" and "This is very poetic" with subtitiles.
Is his accent too heavy?
What about the accent of a Indian or Pakistan ...
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How can I understand what the speaker is saying in his Aussie accent?
Source
The Aussie says, "Now..." at 0:45 in the video. Then again at 1:53, what is he saying?
Which movies should do the job for understanding the Aussie accent clearly?
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"Law" vs "Lawyer" pronunciation, why is the "law" part sometimes pronounced differently?
So I've recently watched "Crazy Ex Girlfriend" (which is set in SoCal), and I've noticed everyone there pronounced "Law" and "Lawyer" differently, which was really ...
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Is this sentence ambiguous? 'Tom left directions for Sam to follow.'
I know that some sentences can have different meanings when speaking them with different intonations.
But in this sentence, 'Tom left directions for Sam to follow', could have different meaning?
...
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How to pronounce bet, bat, bite and but correctly?
I am a learner from China, and I'm always confused with sounds of /e/, /æ/, /aɪ/ and /ʌ/, no matter when I'm speaking or listening because all of them sound so much alike.
I find there are a few ...
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Accent reduction [closed]
How can I correct my prononcitaion of the words and reduce my accent? I am not able to pronounce the english words properly and therefore runinto people not undersatnding me.
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What this person is saying in "American English" accent?
Video
At 1:02: He says
Human beings should be ..... from each other.
Also a little bit confusion between 0:02 and 0:10. I believe it is:
Went through .......
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Language used in "Peaky Blinders"
For a schoolproject, we are working on a research question which is about the language used in the BBC drama show Peaky Blinders.
We are not born in an English speaking region so it isn't really easy ...
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At which point does mispronunciation become accent?
A while back, when I was talking to one friend of mine (we are both English language learners), he "mispronounced" a word so I pointed it out. He responses with something like "Well, I ...
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Do "fat" and "that" sound the same in the Cockney Accent?
I have watched a video about the Cockney Accent, and the Cockney Accent, "th" is not pronounced, but it's pronounced "v" or "f". I think that they sound the same. So do "fat" and "that" sound the same ...
user54466
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How to speak fluent in southern accent? [closed]
I want to speak like George W Bush's accent and like cowboys.
Example:
Y`all and Howdy?
I would die for this accent. I sincerely love this accent over cockney one.
user60854
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How can I learn one of the standard English accents? [closed]
A few months ago, I was asked to send a videotape of my self-introduction for a job of a language teacher in China. I was rejected citing the reason that my accent was not satisfactory.
I want to ...
user615
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How do I understand the Aussie English accent?
Source
I am unable to understand commentary at 2:00 by an Australian and also at 1:54.What does he say?
Which method should I adopt to learn English effectively if I don't have native speakers to ...
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Pronunciation practice(making 'also' 'all' sound correct)
I'm having a hard time to make 'also' and 'all' sound correct.
My native American tutor told me my 'also' sounds like 'arso' and 'all' sounds like "or".
He says I have no trouble with making "L" ...
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In a TV Series, I heard an actor say 'Love' as in British |o| Job and not Love as in |la|, is it a British Dialect or something?
Yet, when I looked it up in the dictionary, the word 'love' is pronounced the same either in British or American Accent. Thank you & Have a lovely day!
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What methods should I use to soften or remove my accent? [closed]
https://voca.ro/1jeSBpuxHA4c
I've had a weird journey learning English. Having grown up in Canada, I learned English before I learned my own native language. Once I moved back to the country from ...
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Pronunciation of Either
I notices that some people will pronounce the word, "either" in one of two ways. The first one is accentuiating e and pronouncing the e like one would were they saying the word, "each". The other is ...
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Does English contain accented letters?
Does English contain accented letters? Is there a standard list of accented letters that are used in the English language?
In my application I'm currently allowing the characters a-z and áéóúíý ...
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I did injured from the accident
Consider this sentence: I injured from the accident.
For emphasizing that I really injured from the accident, which sentence should I use?
1- I did injure from the accident.
2- I did injured from the ...
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Attitudes and concerns over Indian-English accent
What are common attitudes and concerns over the Indian-English accent (see video) among those who are teaching or learning in ESL? How do these attitudes make the Indian accent compare with others, ...
user102023
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Does English language ever use acute accent mark to denote word stress?
I do not mean acutes which denote special letter pronunciation, like in "canapé" or "résumé". I mean solely the acute accent mark which is used to indicate stress, or stressed syllable. For example, ...
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Standing in "fries" of me?
In Christina Perri's song A Thousand Years, according to all lyrics websites at 1:46 the lyrics is "standing in front of me".
https://youtu.be/rtOvBOTyX00?t=106
But to my ear she clearly ...
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Improve clarity of speech without losing my foreign accent
I believe that as long as a foreign accent is understandable it can even be used as an asset, instead of liability. Problem is, every time I'm being taught to speak more clearly I'm being taught to ...
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