jenfitz

I'm wondering because someone from England said my accent was annoying.

Saria

Lemme guess: you'd like to sound more "exotic".

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curlylaura

Why do care what other people think of your accent? It is what it is.

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The New Black

You're really worried about your accent.

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Honeycurls

What is the "neutral" American accent? Everyone on the planet thinks their own "accent" is "neutral."

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sew and sew

I'm guessing this isn't a general impression Brits have of how Americans sound, but I had an English guy tell me that 'men sound like cowboys and women sound like porn stars' here. He was in California so that may have had something to do with it. Cracked me up.

Don't take statements like that to heart. If you put something on the internet like a voice clip, you'll get all kinds of conflicting feedback. Sometimes people will give you a hard time just to give you a hard time. Your voice sounded perfectly fine to me.

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damsel_fly

That person's lack of manners is a bit annoying.

I'd tell them to sod off and that there's nowt wrong with me accent.

SunshineGrrl

I'm thinking by "neutral" they mean an American accent that is more prone to be seen in the middle of the US. You know, not a Georgian, Texan accent (just an example, there are plenty more regional accents, those were just the ones I could think up at these wee hours). Everybody has an accent, it just depends on where you're from and where other people are from.

I've been told by Brits, French, German, Russian, Polish and all sorts of other nationalities that my accent is strange, probably twangy. I suppose it probably is. I very much have an accent from the place I grew up, but still live there, so it isn't noticed here. My vowels probably sound pretty hard to someone who isn't used to my accent.

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No...going no-poo or CG does not work for me. It leaves me overconditioned and oily in a second no matter what I use, so that's not what's not working.

Starmie

I think we think it's just that - a neutral American accent.

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frau

i assume new anchor voices are neutral american accents.

multicultcurly

Yes. National news anchors have neutral American accents. They actually are taught to speak like that.

And contrary to popular belief, midwesterners have regional accents that aren't neutral.

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damsel_fly

Imagine if we all walked around talking like news anchors.

curlylaura

Everyone should walk around speaking the way tv presenters did on the BBC in the 1950s.

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SCG

When I was in France, people kept telling me that my voice sounded very nasally when I spoke in English. Which is odd... English isn't one of those languages that I think of as being nasally.

And then I tried to explain Pittsburghese to them, and they were like

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goldy

I have always believed Midwesterners to have an accent.

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cyndi

Yeah, French has many more nasal sounds.

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Sigi

I think people from the Pacific Northwest (Washington, Oregon, and Alaska) speak without an accent.

maria_i

I do think American English sounds very nasally.
I actually thought that was a known fact

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SCG

Unless you're Sarah Palin...

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"And death is at your doorstep
And it will steal your innocence
But it will not steal your substance
But you are not alone in this"

“My ability to turn good news into anxiety is rivaled only by my ability to turn anxiety into chin acne.” - Tina Fey

Sigi

Yeah, she's definitely the exception. Nobody sounds like that. I wonder if her parents are from a different state originally?