What's your accent (in your native language)?

[warpus]

Alright, how is that all y'all people from relatively small countries have so many accents?

In the case of Poland it's mostly slight regional variations with exceptions like Kashubian (not even Polish), goral (a very small minority speaks this strange dialect/language), and.. yeah most people in Poland speak "standard" Polish. There are small variations like people in Bialystok who sound a bit Russian and people in/around Warsaw who pronounce a letter different.. and I guess Silesian, they use a couple different words and pronounce things slightly different, but I don't think it's that noticable.

I don't think it's all that surprising. Poland might be small in terms of geographical area, but 40 million people is 40 million people.

 

[emzie]

You mean there's another way to say "caught"?

I say them ever-so-slightly differently. Cot comes out slightly more forward in my mouth.

 

[Mongoloid Cow]

I personally speak with a mix of Adelaide's speech and New South Wales' speech. Not enough to sound funny, but enough so that people here sometimes ask where I am from (because of the way it's mixed, I guess it sounds familiar but different enough from anything anybody else speaks). I also get asked if I'm a country boy as well, so I must sound a bit of the bush sound too.

 

[Joecoolyo]

We in the PNW often times will pronounce "caught" like we do "cot". I don't know if everyone else does this too, but everyone I know pronounces "our" like "are". From what I hear the PNW is the most basic English when it comes to accents.

I always thought that was a east coast thing, not the west coast.

I pronounce caught "kawt", cot as caught is just weird.

 

[Leoreth]

I'm form Northern Germany, so unless you ask me to pronounce "Pflug", I speak pretty much perfect standard German.

 

[GoodSarmatian]

I'm form Northern Germany, so unless you ask me to pronounce "Pflug", I speak pretty much perfect standard German.

Do you greet people with "Moin" at six in the afternoon ?

 

[madviking]

Same here. I also have difficulty pronouncing, for example, the "t" in mountain. I pronounce it "moun'ain". Are you the same way?

Glottal stops are a common way to differential dialects. I speak using very strong glottal stops; "cotton" becomes almost a monosyllabic word.

 

[duckstab]

So for the coke thing, does this ever happen?

"do you want a coke with that?"
and you go "Yeah"
"what will you have"
"I'll have a coke"
"oh, I'm sorry, we only have pepsi, will that be okay?"

That particular sequence has never happened that I recall. I'll usually be asked if I want "anything to drink." But it's also the case that iced tea is commonly available. And unlike much of the south, it's unsweetened by default.

If it's a self-serve place I'll order a "coke" and fill it with whatever. If not, when I order a "coke" I expect a Coca-Cola, and to be informed if they only have Pepsi (since it is emphatically not okay ).

 

[Veles]

...People in Prague also have a very pronounced accent, one which to most other people sounds gay - and I don't mean it in the pejorative sense, sometimes (not always) it really sounds like the kind of very camp gay speech. (I know that even some native English speakers notice that.)

I was told by a Russian friend that the standard "Moscow" accent is only spoken by Muscovites and homosexuals, and speaking in such a way would make you assumed to be gay by other Russians.

WTH, dude. Didn't he just easily insulted 15 million people? That imaginary 'Maasskva' accent, the one they make fun of in the comedy-shows, is only spoken by celebrities. It has little to do with how actual people of Moscow talk.

Seriously, though, you must have heard of 'Moscow vs. rest of Russia' rivalry. The good and generous folk of the heroical city of Moscow are hated because of their freedom and classiness and tons of moneys, which they unfairly get, sitting in their offices, doing nothing as opposed to poor provincials, who spend thier lifes in coal mines for 6000 rubles a month I'd laugh more if that last part wasn't the sad true.

I live in Moscow Oblast near Volokolamsk (so I'm an uneducated peasant myself ) and people here speak just like they do in Moscow. So this bro of yours just musta been alittle jelly. Can't blame him, though. The distribition in Russia is heavily and unfairly biased towards Moscow, because all huge companies generaly reside here, and thus pay taxes here, leaving little for the regions where they actually get the resources they sell. This is clearly unfair and should be changed. Less centralisation is required.

I personally detected no accent between Moscow and St. Petersburg, but that's because I was concentrating on the words they were saying and not so much how they were saying them.

Wherever I've been in Russia, they spoke the same, with minuscule differences in intonation and pronounciation.

 

[Mise]

Mine's pretty close to RP most of the time, although I do slip in and out of Welsh and various other vaguely "poor person" dialects depending on who I'm speaking to.

 

[Skwink]

Same here. I also have difficulty pronouncing, for example, the "t" in mountain. I pronounce it "moun'ain". Are you the same way?

Yeah, I pronounce mountain like too.

 

[The_J]

I was born there while my dad was serving in the Fulda Gap, and learned German there at a young age.

Point Alpha?
-> That then counts as Franconian dialekt ^^ (according to this).


But honestly I really can't differentiate between most of the dialects when hearing them, unless it's heavy Bavarian, Saxon, Berlinese or northern german.
I'm pretty deaf in that sense. -> therefore I'd also say that I don't have any special dialect.

 

[ZeletDude]

I am assuming I have a North West/West Coast accent? I know I don't have a redneck Idaho like accent, so that's good.

 

[Arwon]

I'm told that I don't have an accent.

Which of course means an American accent.

 

[mangxema]

Obligatory reference to GMU's accent database.

 

[Tecknojock]

I have a southern dialect, but but not a southern accent. I don't really consider myself to have much of any accent (EDIT: According to Arwon, I guess that means I probably have an American accent), but my voice is a bit on the nasally side, a side effect form when I broke my nose.

I have had a conversation where I've been offered a coke only to find out that they don't carry coke.

 

[Arwon]

(EDIT: According to Arwon, I guess that means I probably have an American accent)

No offence intended to anyone, but I've always found the idea of certain people "not having an accent" to be quite fascinating.

 

[Mise]

Not sure if arrogant or naive.

 

[Cutlass]

I have no accent.

 

[Tecknojock]

Its probably a culture thing. The predominant accent in the US, I think, is probably taken as the baseline for which other accents, like a southern draw or a bronx accent, are measured against. Those who speak with a standard American accent are probably often considered accentless because it's what we are used to hearing.