differences between english and american english pronunciation

[secretgarden]

Excuse me :
I'm a english major at college and everyday we have to be exposed to a lot of different listening materials,and I do want to know the differences between english and american english pronunciation although I can listen sth from them ,could you explain it to me ? Thank you very much!!!

[rewboss]

That's a very difficult question to answer, because there are many different accents in both British and American English. Someone from Boston sounds very different from someone from the immigrant Italian community of New York, and they both sound very different from a Texan farmer.

Generally, though, there are differences in vowel sounds, particularly the short vowels. British speakers often don't pronounce the R in words like "car" and "hard" but Americans nearly always do.

[nemesisage]

Well I would certainly like to put some comments here,

As I understood the American Accent is all about using flat “T”, aspirating the words, and Rolled "R"
I.e. T, K as like “Kay

Flat T is like, Interview but with American accent; you can pronounce it as “Innerview”

I would send you some more materials which can help you to understand the American Accent…

It’s all depends upon Stress Pattern of the words as well…

However, It’s bit difficult to explain you in writing…

[Casiopea]

Hello, secretgarden.

Here are some sites:

Pronunciation Differences

Listen to the Differences

Listen to the Sounds of English, with IPA

Click and Hear an American Speaker; Click and Hear a British Speaker

Grammar Differences

All the best.

[snipper]

English and American people tend to pronounce "t" differently. For example:

English people say the word "Tube" as "choob". American speakers would pronounce it as "toob"

English people say "mature" as "machure" American would say "Matoor".

Americans sometimes pronounce "tt" as a (if my memory serves me well) a "tap" which sounds a bit like a soft "d", e.g. budder for butter, bedder for better".

[Lucky6]

Originally Posted by rewboss

That's a very difficult question to answer, because there are many different accents in both British and American English.

Yes. There are many British accents that Americans can not understand. They sound like a foreign language to us. Once, two Brits came to the US to join a seminar with a small group of Americans. The British girl we could understand without any problem but it was very funny because she had to translate for the British man.

It took about five days for us to start understanding him. Once we became familiar with his accent then it was no problem. He couldn’t order a meal in any restaurant we went to. He would even ask for a “coke” five or six times and the waiter could not understand what he wanted. The British girl had to order for him.

[Tdol]

Do you know which part of the UK he came from?

Originally Posted by Casiopea

Hello, secretgarden.

Here are some sites:

Pronunciation Differences

Listen to the Differences

Listen to the Sounds of English, with IPA

Click and Hear an American Speaker; Click and Hear a British Speaker

Grammar Differences

All the best.

I think AUSTRALIAN
ENGLISH and British is easier than AMERICAN
AMERICAN is so fast and I can't understand but i can understand the written sentence

[nyggus]

I am Polish, and even in Poland I sometimes have problems with understanding Polish even though Poland's population is about 40 million, so after my visits to Canada and England and Scotland I stopped feeling bad because of not understanding English from some guys. The biggest problem I had was when I was in Norwich (the UK), where I tried to talk to a guy who was managing taxis at the airport: it was a complete disaster.

Nyggus