British English or American accent?

  • Thread starter Anonymous
  • Start date
  • Views : 426,017
Status
Not open for further replies.

Maxwel

Member
Joined
Jun 6, 2005
Member Type
English Teacher
This is my first time to post, I'm a Chinese. Most English books here in schools are BE. But most of our foreigh teachers are Americans. My college teacher told me BE speakers always beat AE speakers. Here most Chinese like AE better than BE because it sounds good, especially "r" sound. And there is another reason that's AE is easy to learn. Anyway I can't tell which is AE or BE.There is another problem about the "test" here: He is likely to come.(here likely can be both adj and adv. It depends on whether you stress likely, if so, it's adj;if not it's adv)
 

amigo

Member
Joined
Sep 26, 2004
I'd say a clear speech is the most important of all.

I don't believe British accent is better than American accent,or vice versa. Depending on where you are on earth,being an ESL student,you don't want to study American accent because you love American accent while you are living in a British-dominant country,or try to study British accent and use it in the United States,if u understand what i mean. It's just like you don't want to hear American accent in a Shakespear's play. Just go with the flow. If I were a native speaker,that'd be a different story because,the key is speaking English to let other people understand you and the accent familiar to their ears. ESL students will just get more confused if they want to learn American accent but their English teachers are all British,or vice versa.

I find American accent more easy to understand and accessible because American media is everywhere around us,far more than the British. I don't have much chance to hear about British movies. I see courtesy footages of news from CNN or Reuters on TV more than from British media,say,BBC. I watch both.

As far as BE vs AE,you don't stick to the American date format mm/dd/yyyy while you are in a country where BE is dominant. You'd just cause arguments with others.

Be open-minded.;-)

All accents are good IF they are used appropriately. It's just my 2 cents.

Thanks! :)
 

Tdol

No Longer With Us (RIP)
Staff member
Joined
Nov 13, 2002
Native Language
British English
Home Country
UK
Current Location
Japan
Maxwel said:
My college teacher told me BE speakers always beat AE speakers.

Beat them at what? :lol:

Welcome. :hi:
 

ricardocontroller

New member
Joined
Aug 20, 2005
i, Iam from Brazil in south america, so I live in Uk, almost two years, and nowadays British English seems to me more polite...
 

SunnyDay

Member
Joined
Aug 13, 2005
I live in Florida, USA. I don't have much of an accent, until I go up north and people start asking me, "Does everyone down there say 'y'all' like you do?"

I prefer British accents, though. I just visited London about a month and a half ago, and I noticed something I hadn't even thought about before--the accents were stronger in smaller towns than in large cities. In London I could understand everyone, but in the Whitecliffs area there were some words and phrases that I just couldn't figure out.

We also talked to an older guy in France who had a sort of mixed French-British accent . . . and he couldn't understand us too well. ^.^; He asked where we were from and my sister said, "We're from Flur'duh." Lol, he was like, ". . . Where??"
 

JJM Ballantyne

Junior Member
Joined
Sep 16, 2005
Member Type
Academic
Native Language
English
Home Country
Canada
Current Location
Canada
However, the college teachers suggest that British accent is more acceptable in the world, especially in the world outside US. Is it true?

No. Any judgment on whether a particular accent might be more "acceptable" than another will always boil down to personal opinion. My own sense is that, among those learning English as a second language (unless they live in the UK), preference for the British accent is losing ground to the American. But this probably has almost nothing to do with language and everything to do with economics.

Do Americans like British accent on the phone when it is a sales call, for example?

I'm Canadian and I do not react well to any sales call - regardless of the accent!
 

Kas55

Member
Joined
Nov 12, 2005
I am a Canadian originally from South Africa. I teach in a public high school, and although I have had to adapt some of words to Canadian- ise them, my students have never had a problem understanding me at all. The ones from Asia say that I speak slower and more clearly than native- born teachers. The local students are fascinated by my accent and really listen, so all round, having an accent can be something very positive! I live in Toronto, the most culturally diverse city in the world, and accents are so usual here, that no- one bats and eyelid, as everyone seems to have one these days! Also, having an accent here, is a great conversation starter, as people want to know where you are from and then, you ask them in return, and friendships are born in this manner.

Be proud of your accent - it defines who you are.
 

Vlad_the_Inhaler

Junior Member
Joined
Dec 1, 2005
There is no such thing as a 'British' accent, so I assume the debate is between Received Pronunciation (the old 'BBC English') and US English.
It all depends on the whether the learner expects to use English with other non-native speakers, or with British, or with North Americans.
Since most speakers of English are not native speakers, and most of these have learnt RP, percentages suggest it is better for the majority of learners to learn RP.

The strange thing about RP is that, to many ears, speakers with a Slav or Latin accent sound a lot better than the native English speakers on the recordings.
 

huy_njc

Member
Joined
Dec 19, 2005
Hi everyone, I'm a newbie, and this is the first time to post. I'm Vietnamese and I arrived at Singapore 2 months ago, just finished the English Course. English is one of the national languages here, but the accents of the local people are really different from other English-speaking countries because the English here was afftected by the Chinese (there are many Chinese in Singapore). At first, I could not make out what they were trying to say. Now it's getting better, and I have some improvements. But I still have to deal with some other problems. I feel that my E is not good enough to follow the lesson together with the local students next year (well, term will start at Jan 2006). The final result of my E course was just 52%, enough to pass. It is not easy for me to pronouce the /ed/ fluency when speaking. I mean it's not natural. Can anyone give me some advises to improve my language learning? Thank you very much! :)
 

Moniker

Member
Joined
Jan 6, 2006
I am french-canadian, but our high management is located in the USA and
we also work with an american as a Gen.-Mgr. We have a co-worker that went to teach english in the UK recently for a 6 months contract, when she came back and started to work with us again, our American boss was correcting her each time she has the "guts" to speak to her with this "charming" accent. So I am far of thinking that the Americans think that the UK or Australian accent is nice to hear.
 

rogusx

Junior Member
Joined
Jan 16, 2006
I am from South America, I was taught English using RP as a model and, since I've always had a good ear for sounds, I managed to achieve a pretty reasonable native-like accent. I am now studying in the United States and I've found that because of this accent, some people perceive me as affected. Apparently they expect a South American to have an American accent of the Hispanic variety. In any case, I've modified it to be less obviously noticeable (pronouncing all your "r's" whenever they come up is a good start, flapping your "t's" is also a must).
 

samsiahk

Member
Joined
Jan 19, 2006
I did my undergraduate studies in the United States, and English is not my mother tongue.When I came back to Malaysia to teach, I was very conscious of the difference between the British English and the American English because the school system uses the British English in terms of spelling...pronunciation wise, Malaysians have many varieties. I did not stay long enough in the States to "catch" the accent.Moreover, many lecturers told me to remember to speak to be understood, not to impress! It would have been problematic to use either one accent especially if one teaches in the rural areas where English is really a classroom language. With the globalisation factor in mind, I think we should speak to be understood internationally meaning that the syntax must adhere to the English syntax (regardless of which English) but one has to consider the ethnic background of the speaker. Having an accent is "charming" but language is used to communicate, not just to impress.
 

dave1000

New member
Joined
Jan 31, 2006
An interesting discussion. I am an Australian, and am in the USA (Washington DC) for a few months. My accent has been described by some Chinese friends as "refined", meaning closer to Received Pronunciation than Broad Australian. Perhaps it was my father's influence, as he was born in London and only came to Australia after marrying my mother (who is Australian). When I go to the UK, the people there pick me as Australian straight away though.

Here in the US I am commonly asked where in England I am from. I guess it's the Steve Irwin influence. Americans don't seem to be able to identify an Australian accent unless it's broad "Strine" (as spoken by Irwin or Paul Hogan). In terms of my accent preferences, I don't really care, so long us I can understand the speaker. If a person who has learned English as a second language (ESL) is speaking to me, all I care about is their ability to speak the words clearly (Also they need to speak loudly enough. Some ESL speakers seem very shy and therefore speak too softly to be heard). The other thing I like is consistency. If you're learning one type of English, try to stick with it. Mixing up spelling, vocabulary and pronunciation from British and American English makes the speaker's English sound poor in my opinion.
 

rogusx

Junior Member
Joined
Jan 16, 2006
That last comment illustrates precisely a point I'd been trying to make in a different thread. If, to the ear of a native speaker, a blend of different standards of English (AE and RP for instance) sounds like "poor English", then all the more need for a clear model when teaching English. This fashionable idea that pronunciation does not matter as long as meaning is effectively conveyed might do a great disservice to students.

On a different note, I'm surprised nobody has raised any major objection regarding the terms "British English" or "American English". The former should presumably lump together Scottish accents and Cockney (clearly different even to untrained ears) and the latter would mean someone from Alabama sounds the same as someone from Chicago. RP (Received Pronunciation) as the non-localized, educated speech of the home counties could be what many have in mind when they say BrE. GA (General American) being the kind of "network English" heard from many people all over the United States could serve the same function in the US.
 

Tdol

No Longer With Us (RIP)
Staff member
Joined
Nov 13, 2002
Native Language
British English
Home Country
UK
Current Location
Japan
When people say BrE, they would be referring to a regionally neutral form of the language, RP in the old money.

One point about Dave's comment- sticking with it is in theory good, though many students would be studying in places where they have little control over this. A student outside an English-speaking country may have an American teacher one term, an Australian the next and round the year off with a whingeing Pom. :)
 

samsiahk

Member
Joined
Jan 19, 2006
"Sticking" to one version is of course the best way. As a student in the Malaysian education system, it was British English but coming to study in the States, I had to do a little bit of relearning. Suddenly, I had to spell "standardization" instead of "standardisation"! And now, after more than 10 years, I have to relearn as am working on my master's degree in one of the local universities -which uses basically the British English. Somehow, with the teaching experience, it is not that difficult to adjust. May be because I was constantly telling my students that this is the American version every time they corrected me! Anyway, for both British and American accent, the sort of standard version one hears on Tv or movies would be acceptable, I guess. Because once you start using that Cockney accent or the Texan twang, I am lost! Well Dave, a friend did her bachelor degree in Australia, then she went to the States to her her master's...the Americans could tell that she was "from" Australia straight away...well, we claim that we speak "without" accent, but somehow, to be "accepted", we still "mimick" to a certain extend.
 

dave1000

New member
Joined
Jan 31, 2006
It's funny that Americans could tell your friend had studied in Australia by the accent when they can't seem to pick me as a (native) Australian speaker by mine! Maybe my accent is much closer than an English one from Dad's influence. My friends keep calling me a Pom (Australian slang for an English person) even though I was born and raised in Australia.

The previous comment about students having little control over the type of English they are taught is a good one, though with a bit of effort the student can learn remember the differences and stick with one form of the language. Word processors are a great help when writing - when writing for an American audience I just switch it to US English in the spell checker and write in my usual way, and it picks up all the words that I need to change!

When speaking or listening of course the spelling doesn't matter. Instead, it's little things like Americans not knowing what a fortnight is, or saying "off of" instead of "off" (eg. steam is coming off of it (US) vs. steam is coming off it (BrE)). Americans usually understand me of course. But if these little differences are mixed together by one speaker, it sounds strange (in my opinion). And if you are aiming to speak English well, surely you don't want to sound strange! So to me it's not a question of being understood, more a question of style and sounding "right". Whether that matters to you is up to you.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top