Do you Brits and Aussies and Kiwi's and Scots, South Africans and Canadians, and Irish and Welsh, folk like the sound of American accents?

And our @UCME sounds wonderful!

As does our @Mama_Cakes.

My daughter just moved to Scotland and people say they like her accent all the time.
The kids have had no problem making friends. Other kids think they have movie star accents.
It’s not lasting long though. I was talking to my 5 YO grand daughter on the phone today and she said “would you like to talk to my mum?”

I will answer as an American who’s lived in seven different countries on four different continents. I have lived in both England and Australia. I was often complimented on my accent, and yes, I did pick up a tiny bit of an amalgamated non-American sound.

I will also answer as a person who has acted in Shakespearean plays in the US. We are told specifically not to affect any accent other than our own, because an American accent is closer to the original Elizabethan pronunciation than what’s spoken on the BBC. I will be directing Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra next summer, and the cast will be told the same. We will not be attempting any accents other than our native ones.

To my ear, an American accent can be very alluring. When I say American accent, I’m thinking of the pronunciation one hears on the nightly news, which is most often described as the native Midwestern accent. I’m not thinking of some regional accents.

I grew up in the South, and I can sound like that in my sleep. I don’t speak that way any more. I haven’t lived there for many decades. Three, to be exact.

Here is a beautiful American voice reciting Shakespeare.

I am Scottish and Welsh by decent….American by generations of family spent here, but no, I wish I retained my accents, Americans don;t have an accent IMO.
I am Annie Laurie Bryson from the highlands, fuck you very much! lol

My wife loves Downton Abbey, and I don’t watch it with her, but always enjoy walking through the room when it’s on, doing my best impersonation of the great Maggie Smith….

“WHAT is a week….end….?”

“THIS is a home…..NOT a hospital….”

Not exactly. The vast majority of our movies and TV shows come from the US, and I actually find the US drawl quite tiresome. Not to mention the North American habit of using excess syllables. I love Scottish, Welsh, and Irish accents, but US, Canadian, and South African less so. Aussie and New Zealander accents just sound like home, so I can’t really comment there.

@Coloma, in Scotland when people tell my daughter “I love your accent,” she replies “I love yours too!”
She said she always gets blank stares like, “what accent?”

I will develop a perfect Scottish accent. I will. Dammit.

I’m not sure where this particular accent comes from, I mean from what state, but I love those American accents that can’t pronounce R’s properly. Like instead of saying park, they say pawk, or instead of bombardment, they say bombawdment. Sounds so hawt.

I also love the stereotypical Texan accent, although outside of movies and video games, I’ve never actually heard a Texan speak it that way. Met this old man from Texas last Christmas, and he sounded like everybody else lol.

^ New England. Could be Boston

Or my own native accent, Staten Island

Haha yeah, that’s exactly it; naytsha (nature) Haha that’s so cool.

…which one?

The Boston one. but the guy in the second video is tad hawter, nay?

I like the southern accents. Occasionally an American calls at my work when I answer and I think, wow where do I know them from?? haha.

The worst American accent for me, is New York. The typical gangster accent. It is awful. Though I absolutely love the south accent. I’m not sure which area it is I like best. People on here have called it southern drawl, so that one.

Of the United Kingdom, I can’t stand the Scottish accent. Especially the stronger areas, I just can’t understand them.

You didn’t ask about all foreigners, but I can tell you my husband, who is from Mexico, thinks an average American accent sounds neither here nor there, an extreme southern one sounds stupid; and a UK, Irish and South African, accent sounds more intelligent and elegant to him. That is, the accents Americans are usually exposed to from England and Ireland and SA. We almost never hear the really extreme gutterul ones or a ton of collequialisms (is that a word?) in our media.

@Coloma I never understand how people think they have no accent.

I am a native of India and English is my second language. For me American accent is the most difficult to follow, but honestly, I like most American accents.

Canadian here,and your right nothing about an American accent really gets me going.

The vast majority of American accents sound awfully twangy to me, really monotonous in tone.
I do like the sound of the Boston accent though, rough & ready.

I don’t like the slow drawl of some American accents. I find them easy to understand because we hear them a lot in films and on television but they do come across to me as a bit neutral, like a newsreader. The New York accent has a bit more pep to it but it can become grating. A lot depends on the voice.

I’m not from an english speaking nation, i’m from germany, living in englang since a few weeks, but i really love american accents (especially californian accents, cause i know someone from california), of course i also live british accents, (london is the best :D) but american is really sonething special i think…

When I was first in England in my twenties, I was in a pub in the wilds of Lancashire. Some teenaged girls came up to me and said, “Ooh, are you American? Can you say something? We love American accents?”

My son later would criticize me for switching to Briicisms and a British intonation when we visited the in-laws.

@Kardamom I’m still intrigued as to how you hear my voice with a Scottish flavour :)

@ucme I think people confuse Northeastern accents with Scottish ones at times because it is a less familiar one to Americans but has a lilt.

@janbb Certainly heard through different ears, the jocks are geographically close to us at least.

I admit I used to confuse Yorkshire and Scottish, but after a few seasons of Dalziel and Pascoe, I’ve got it down.

@ucme You definitely do not sound Scottish. You have a nice accent. My stepmother is from Durham, was the only thing I liked about her. My aunty is also from that way, and I love how she says my name. Go on @ucme , say my name.

http://audioboo.fm/boos/1701646-remember-to-water-the-flowersboo

I still melt at Mel Gibson’s voice in Gallipoli.

I really don’t care for them (Canadian here).

@ucme, just listened to that. Thank you. Sounds good right.

@ucme, you sound like the guy on my sleep hypnosis iPhone App.
Love your accent.

@UCME Thanks for that!!!

It must be the lilt, I’m not sure. You just sound lovely.

I also love Ian McNiece‘s voice. He plays Bert Large on Doc Martin. He’s supposed to be from Cornwall, but I heard him say in an interview that his accent and most of the other actors (the Doc is supposed to be from London) on the show, do not really have a Cornwall accent. He also said that viewers from both the UK and the US would have a difficult time understanding a Cornwall accent.

What do guys think?

I think that some of you people should record your voices. I’d love to hear them!

Ooh, it’s been a while since the Please Call Stella thread. I wouldn’t even know how to find it.

I was still a blonde, then.

I’m not thrilled with my voice. It just sounds plain to me. I kind of sound like Meg Ryan.

I would prefer to sound like Caroline Catz

I’m prone to affectation. Too much BBC telly and I’ll start sounding Welsh. Haha. Most of the time, I sound pretty generic Wonder-Bread Midwestern, since my husband is from Illinois. But my natural accent is Staten Island, NY. The Speech Accent Archive only represents Brooklyn. That’s redonkulous.

@Kardamom She’s not half a hottie, isn’t she?

@Headhurts @Judi & yes, you too @Kardamom I’m pleased you find something good in my accent, I bloody hate my own voice.

@Kardamom People always tell me that I sound like Jacqueline Kennedy. We both spent much of our childhoods in Rhode Island, so the accent’s similar, and, like Mrs. Kennedy, I tend to have a “breathy” voice.

Is that orgasm-inducing? Oh, I certainly hope so! :-)

@SadieMartinPaul Marilyn Monroe also spoke like that, which is maybe one of the reasons JFK was probably attracted to her. It must have been O-inducing to him!

You must sound wonderful.

I wonder what Monica Lewinsky’s voice sounds like.

I generally don’t tend to care for US Southern accents, but I melt at the sound of Bill Clinton and Michael Nesmith‘s voices.

OK, if I ask the question, who will record their voices?
My curiosity is killing me

I would, I think. If I knew how to do it and what to say. My accent is a bit like Sean Bean’s. He’s from Sheffield and I’m from a town about 20 miles away.

You had me at “Sean Bean”

@Kardamom Are you saying that JFK might have liked me? Wow!!! How cool is that? Although, I always had a bigger crush on Bobby than on Jack.

“O-inducing.” Let’s play the double entendre game and make it “Jackie-O-inducing.”

http://www.fluther.com/165544/would-you-care-to-record-your-voice-for-us/

@SadieMartinPaul Hee Hee, I love that!

I tend to like American accents, we hear a generic American accent (I suppose that would be Californian one) in so many tv programmes and films that I guess we hear it nearly as much as our own accent when watching TV. My friend was complaining the other day that his young children use words like dumpster, diaper and trash rather than bin, nappy and rubbish because they were picking it up from the American kids TV shows on the likes of the Disney channel and Nickelodeon. Just an example of how much of it there is over here. Even going back to my own childhood, I loved shows like Sister, Sister andSabrina The Teenage Witch, I can’t remember seeing that many British kids shows.

Personally I prefer the accents with a bit more of a twang. I couldn’t get enough of the accents in the southern states like Texas, Tennessee and Louisiana and I also really like the New York accent.

@ucme I love your accent! As you know, I’m from the south but, in general, I prefer the northern accents (except the Manchester types).

@JLeslie I never understood that either. If you sound different to someone else then you have an accent to them!

Ooh, two votes for the Boston accent. You guys would love me.

If any of them really disliked the accent, they wouldn’t watch American movies and series. The television program in Australia is full of them.

@mattbrowne The predominant accent isn’t the defining feature of a movie or TV show. It just happens that Australian shows aren’t very good, and the US makes most of the shows I find to be worth watching. The accent isn’t a big enough issue for me to forgo quality entertainment to avoid it.