Where is the Speaker From?
It was fun quizzes! My results were one correct and one wrong in all areas except New England area. However, I just chose the answers by intuition because I am familiar with only Wisconsin English accent. From my experience, I think that English spoken by people from coast (East and West) has a weak accent and is easy to understand. I guess it is because many people had came from outside of seas, and to communicate with each other properly, they started to use a more standard English accent. I think a northern English accent is different from others. I remember when I came here, I took an English skill test. I listened to a tape, and found a speaker had a Wisconsin (or Minnesota) accent. I felt really weird, and it was hard to understand until I got used to it. I cannot explain how northern people speak differently from other areas, but according to the web site, they speak “o” sound differently. People from midland speak English with a strong accent. For me, they seem to speak without opening their mouth. When they speak, they do not open their mouth widely, so the pronunciation is not clear. Southern accent is easy to recognize than accents of other areas. Southern people are likely to speak slowly, and when they speak something, I do not understand what they say, and I can hear “Ura ura ura…”. These are my personal view and may be wrong.
Test Your Vowel Power
Does someone know where the speaker comes from according to her accent? Her sound was interesting. Her vowel sounds were close to “ ” sound. So, my answer of the first question was “black” (correct answer was “block”.) For the question five, I chose a completely wrong answer. The correct answer was “grade,” but my answer was “scribe.” I wondered where the “s” came from. I guess I misunderstood “seventh grade” to “scribe” because I thought it was one word instead of two spate word. If you have a chance, please talk to Japanese, and listen their “th” sound. When a Japanese English speaker says “think”, you might hear it as “sink” because Japanese does not have “th” sound. Thus, many Japanese pronounce “think” to “sink”. Like Japanese, if people who are not familiar with vowel sounds (a, e, i, o, u), they cannot pronounce them correctly. The ability to learn a language, especially in terms of accent, is the highest at very young age (I believe age three), and after that, language learning speed is slow down, and in some languages, old people may never distinguish a difference between particular sounds.
Language is one of the crucial elements which represent a culture. Even within a same country, people have various accents. It is a part of their culture and there are no wrong or correct pronunciations. For example, the speaker of the test, Test Your Vowel Power, spoke English with a strong “ ” sound. My English is often mixed up “l” and “r” sounds. As an English native speaker, what do you think about your accent? Do you think accent could be different between male and female, or young people and elder people in the same area?
I think the midwest definitely has an accent. While I still can't quite figure it out because I haven't traveled the United States enought to compare, I think it is easier to understand. But this is a biased opinion; I have heard others say we sound improper, uneducated, or talk to fast. Until I live somewhere else, I can't really have a proper opinion of it. I don't think there is a distinct difference in accents between males and females, or young and old people. However, I do think that the use of vocabulary will differ greatly between these groups.
返信削除I think that age matters, my grandmother has a accent and I am told that I have a unusual southern accent, even though none of my family is from the south. I don't think that gender really has an affect on accent. I think that you get your accent from the people that you were around when you were learning to speak and gained your accent through hearing people talk.
返信削除I have a strong Minnesotan accent! We do pronounce our "o" as "oh" like it said on the quizzes. We also tend to speak rapidly and slur some words or sounds together. I don't think age or gender affects your accent; I think accents are primarily based on where you grew up and who you heard speaking as a child. For instance, my grandpa grew up speaking both French and English, so some of his English pronounciations are how a French speaker would pronounce a word.
返信削除Between older and younger people in the same area? Yes, I believe there could be differences. A lot of changes can occur in the lifespan of a person in regards to the area they live in. An accent could have been fairly widespread in an older persons youth but may be limited or non-existent to a much younger person.
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