Accents

Students often want to know the difference between American and British pronunciation. That's difficult question to answer. There are many different accents within the United States, and there are even more inside Great Britain. Add in the fact that there are multiple accents in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, and Scotland and the issue of difference between native speakers becomes quite large.

Still, here's a link to an actress who can speak with 21 different accents. It should give you a taste for the variety of accents in English.

Amy Walker's 21 Accents in Two Minutes

If you are interested in learning more about Amy Walker, you can click this link.

Different American Accents:
Here's a link to a collection of videos of different regional accents in the US.

Here's a link to a man talking about New York accents.

Here's a link to a Medford City Councilman speaking. He has an accent associated with Boston.

Different British Accents:
Here's a link to Peter Sellers doing many different accents.

Here's a link to Sean Ruttledge doing many different accents. I think you'll find several of them hard to understand.

Different Australian Accents:
Here's a link to Eugene talking about Australian accents.

Here's a link to Adam Hills talking about the Australian accent. (There is some use of profanity in this skit, so if you don't want to hear that, please skip this link.)

Different New Zealand Accents:
Here's a link to Stu talking about the New Zealand accent. (All things New Zealand are often referred to as Kiwi for the Kiwi bird that is indigenous to New Zealand.)

Here's a link to a news report on the New Zealand accent. (Pay attention at the very end when Lisa Glass says her name and the name of the news station- a speech bubble comes up and captions it for you.)

Here's a link to a New Zealander introducing himself to an American. She has difficulty understanding his name because the vowels are different between American English and New Zealand English. (This is a clip from a TV show called Flight of the Conchords.)



Good luck and enjoy the many different accents!!!