American Accent

[paochai01]

1. Well, the change you are talking about occurs when there is the particular spelling combination of n + t + vowel sound. (However, I personally think the n+t+i in 'continental' is pronounced as a glottal stop, not nn.) One can pronounce these as T and sound like a native speaker who is speaking carefully or slowly. - I see. Clearly or carefully. Now I get it.

2. Regarding the accent training, I agree with your assertion that workers must perfect the TH. Although SOME Americans say D rather than T (in particular, people from New York, parts of New Jersey, Black English Vernacular), it is not standard. It's not a question of 'laziness'; it's just what's natural in their dialects. - Got it. But what about some westerners, midwesterners and southerners who say D rather than T?

3. I have found that a more useful pronunciation change is from written T to spoken D. This occurs when a written T occurs in a non-stressed syllable between two vowel sounds. - Yeah, they know about that... Beddy badda bida bedder budder.

1. I would like to return this sweater. (not redurn)
2. They will determine if the deduction is allowable. (not dedermine) - It's because the stress falls on the T sound so T should be aspirated. Like guitar, not guidar.

They have Ann Cook's American Accent Training book and audio. I have the American accent but I don't know how to teach them. I read their book and I realized Ann Cook is so good coming up with such a book.


Thanks! This is really helpful. More feedback from other native Americans would be highly appreciated.

[Barb_D]

Originally Posted by bhaisahab

I would take issue with your assertion about speakers of Irish English...Personally, I think of the "d" for "th" as being more American than anything else.

Bhaisahab, I said I associate it with Irish English; I did not mean to imply everyone who lives there speaks the same way. I can't tell the nuances of Irish accents, but I'd be very surprised to hear that someone from Cork couldn't tell someone was from Dublin and not from down the street. However, even you say that Dubliners (is that an okay phrase) use the d for th. If you took umbrage that by using the word "Irish" I implied the entilre population of Ireland, I apologize.

I'm astonished to hear you say you associate with an American accent. I don't know anyone who speaks that way, although it is perhaps used in Brooklyn. (I'm referring specifically to the th- at the beginnings of words being said as d, not the computer/compuder as listed above.)

[paochai01]

Barb_D, are you saying that no American from the west, mid-west and southern pronounces voiced TH as D?

[Barb_D]

I'll never say that "no American" does anything. If nothing else, we're a diverse and independent gang.

However, I would say that saying "I'm going to da store" or "Did you see dat?" is something I am completely UNfamiliar with Americans using in their standard, everyday conversations, outside certain parts of New York City. I haven't travelled everywhere in the US, of course, but I talk to a lot of people all over the country in the course of my work, and I would not say that it's a particularly "American" way to speak.

EDIT: Okay, now that I think of it, I've heard it in New Orleans, but for reasons that aren't clear to me, there's an accent like Brooklyn there. Not in other parts of Louisana or elsewhere along the Gulf Coast - just in New Orleans.

[paochai01]

Thanks very much, Barb_D!
Yah mah seyviah!

[Methuselah]

This is madness !

You are correct they are insane :)