Hello! Hello! Hello Everybody, my name is Steve Ford and welcome to Peppy Pronunciation
I have had many requests by students over the years to do a video about American regional accents
While some types of pronunciation are the same from New York to L.A., some are not
So let’s take a look at some similarities
So it really doesn’t matter if you’re from New York, L.A. or Toronto
did you hear the way I just said my hometown, "Toron(t)o"
we don't say Toronto, we omit all the t’s after the consonant “n”
and two prime examples are: want and can’t
did that guy just say can or CAN’T?
he said can’t and the “t” is not pronounced
How will you know it’s negative?
intonation, it goes down........can’t......
Another good example is internet
so let’s take a look at some people saying this word from different parts of North America
first in it’s full form, the way a TV news anchor might speak if you’re lucky
and the way it is usually pronounced
Now you have to understand that native speakers are not English teachers
and are mostly unaware of the fact that when they say
“I’m surfing the in(t)ne(t) that all of the t’s in the word are not pronounced
Why do we leave out the t’s? Simple, it’s faster to say: internet, internet, internet
Not all Americans talk like a Texan boy or a New York rapper
Accents can vary even in a city like New York, Boston or Austin
Let’s take the example of the word coffee
Now standard American and Canadian English would be coffee
the “o” has an AH sound, you go to the doctor and he says, stick out your tongue and say “ah”
So let’s take a look at different ways to say coffee across the USA
the “o” sound is really an o, oa or owa
the ah sound is a little different, ah, ah, what we call “southern drawl”, coffee, coffee, coffee
Another big “o” difference is in the word “sorry”
some parts of the states and a lot of Canada say sorry while the rest of the states say “sorry”
listen to some examples
Now quite recently I was driving down to the USA and I had to go shopping
The boarder guard had one of those rural accents
and it doesn’t matter what part of North America someone is from
when it’s rural, they simply leave out consonants
I’m going to buy a cat tree for my cats!
because the same product is 50% more expensive in Canada
So there I was, an English teacher, the Sherlock Holmes of impossible accents in English
thinking if I could barely understand what this guy was saying
imagine non-native speakers of English trying to understand what this guy was saying
This kind of speaking is a relaxed rural way of speaking
and basically it’s a way that requires no effort whatsoever for the speaker to move his/her mouth
I have to say that I like the way English sounds in New York street talk because it is very musical
It’s got a beat! It’s full of intonation!
Often they will use swear words to spice things up a bit!
So “what are you talking about?” becomes
Well everybody I really enjoyed making this lesson
especially since so many of my fans and subscribers have requested a lesson for this for ages
Try to keep in mind that accents can change even in one city, state or province
Have a great day and see you in our next lesson!
Bye for now!