11 Strange American Accents You’ll NEVER Guess | PART 2
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🇺🇸 Up for another American English accent challenge? This one is sure to keep you guessing! Test your listening skills and share your wins in the comments. Let us know which accent you’d like to see next!
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7 Difficult American Accents You’ll NEVER Guess 👉🏼
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⏱ TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 – Intro
0:21 – Accent #1
1:52 – Accent #2
3:17 – Accent #3
4:45 – Accent #4
6:12 – Accent #5
7:50 – NordVPN
10:04 – Accent #6
12:01 – Accent #7
13:12 – Accent #8
14:52 – Accent #9
16:36 – Accent #10
18:01 – Accent #11
📜 SOURCES & ATTRIBUTIONS:
🎬 Video Clips:
Dude, I’m from the SF Bay Area in California. Generally regarded as having a plain, or non-accent, accent.
Except that all my great-grandparents were from Oklahoma, and three of my grandparents were from other southern states, and my grandpa is Mexican. So I have like 18 different accents that just come out 😂
I’ve been asked if I was from the South, if Im from Mexico, and so many others.
My American accent is inconsistent and vastly different every time I talk . 😂😂😂😂
So interesting!
We are a very very very diverse people. Philly-Baltimore accents are very unique.
So diverse indeed
Philly girl here, living in the UK / Ireland for 17 years, so my accent is totally watered down now, but I loved hearing those Philadelphia accents and all the rest – amazing how diverse America is – and it’s fascinating how it’s all evolved!
Philly resprent!!
I like how you call all these accents “cool”. As an American with a flat, news-reporter accent, these regional voices tickle my ears.
They’re super interesting for me!
The video was quite interesting. Appalachian region definitely has their own accent with the British, Irish, German, and Native American mix. Love the old english words with a twist that have been handed down many generations. I still use them today.
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as a New Englander who spent a lot of time in the Midwest, I was able to quickly place most of these, but Burqueño and the last one were trickier for me
I hear a bit of the transatlantic accent in the Hamptons, New York among the very wealthy usually older generations. Probably because they live transatlantically. My age like 50+ yo had a new York Boston combo on the east end. Also some people I knew growing up here had an accent called Bonica ( I think) they sounded like they were from the south. I don’t hear it among them or at all anymore.
Fascinating. I’ve spent most of my life in suburban NY, Philadelphia, Chicago, LA, and Salt Lake City, but I’ve never heard many of the accents in this video. And I know even less about UK accents: most of my life I’ve divided those into just two: “Cockney or Australian” and “non-Cockney English”. And Scottish or Irish are also distinct.
West Country aka “pirate.” Arrr. ☠
I can recognize one or two British accents from watching old British tv on YouTube. One of the archaeologists on Time Team (Phil Harding) has a West Country accent, which is how I learned that the “shiver me timbers” pirate accent came from an old English actor who played a pirate and used his own native accent. (Robert Newton, Long John Silver, supposedly a Cornwall accent.)
Love these accent videos 😀Have you thought about one on the different Portuguese accents Olly? I’d say it’s the most diverse in terms of variations, definitely deserves some attention!
My guesses: 1st one is definitely Philly, 2nd definitely transatlantic accent, 3rd is Appalachian/West Virginia?, 4th Great Lakes accent?, 5th is def. Hawaiian Pidgin/accent, 6th is New Mexican?, 7th is Pittsburgh because of “yinz”, 8th is most def. Native American accents, 9th is obviously Boston, 10th is Amish?, & 11th is rich Massachusetts?
Edit: I got 3rd wrong (Arkansas), 4th is pretty much correct (Chicago), & 11th wrong (Locust Valley, NY)
British English for me has more varieties than American English. Some of these are just slightly different variations of the same accent, where the sentence stress is the same.
Admittedly, I sometimes have difficulties with understanding BrEng accents, however, no issues with all those American ones. I barely hear the difference between them to be honest.
How about doing a video on German accents, or Norwegian ones?
Hi, Olly! I’m from Southern California. I do not have the Valley accent because I live 50 miles to the east of Los Angeles. Honestly, I have no idea about my own accent. My mother’s family is from Arkansas, so I can do that accent. My father was born in Southern California, but his mother was Italian (like from Italy) and his father was raised in San Diego. My husband’s family is from Missouri and my husband tend to speak with a midwestern accent, like his parents did. I admire the non-rotic sound of English, so I find that I speak more in that way without going into a complete English accent. I have to play it down because it makes people feel strange out me. LOL!
Having spent 30 years in California after growing up somewhere else, I noticed a few small general traits to the accent. A common one is to kinda speak over a vowel… I noticed it when my college business calculus teacher kept saying “dohhllar.” Imagine Keanu Reeves saying it while playing Ted. It’s as if they perfected a Southern drawl without any of the Southern accent. They sometimes even add syllables to a word but still don’t sound Southern… even though a lot have started saying, “y’all.” Also, a lot of Californians’ voices rise in pitch at the end of each sentence. It makes a lot of what they say sound like a question. And of course there’s the interesting quality of white soccer moms using Mexican Spanish sayings they’ve picked up. Calling their babies “mama” or “mamas” which sounds a lot weirder when I describe it than when they actually do it.
You’re much more likely to speak like the peers you had when you were growing up than to speak like your family members.
18:37 The rural or broad Australian accent has the same feature. Sometimes referred to as Australian drawl. It is to stop the blow flies getting in. When the the flies get wise to the corks hanging from the brim of your hat.
You smile and squint because of the uv in the harsh Australian sun and keep your lips together because the flies will try to get to the moisture in your eyes and mouth. There is no use swatting them because it is too hot and there is always more.
Sentences are terse calm and deliberate. There is nothing worse than taking a deep breath because you have to get something off your chest. You will end up in a coughing fit with a fly down your lungs. Smoking is popular because flies can’t crawl down a cigarette or pipe.
I’m Australian and got the Boston accent straight away. We share their non rhoticity 😅
Yeah, #3 definitely clicked. I grew up in the Shreveport area and hearing that one I thought, “Well, it’s how a lot of people talked when I was a kid but it isn’t quite Louisiana, so… Ozark.” I count that as a win. Ok, time to see how I do with the rest.
Okay, I also got #2… love me some old movies. And #4 was easy thanks to SNL. I got others based on clues, like Boston (wicked smaht). And the last one I didn’t know by name but a lot of us know the accent and consider it a guaranteed sign of a rich snob.
My guesses were:
1. Philly, because I heard cheesesteak.
2. Transatlantic because I grew up watching old movies.
3. Appalachia.
4. I wasn’t sure, I guessed something up North, but couldn’t specify.
5. Hawaiian, mainly based off of the number of Asian ethnicities and the fact about the Queen.
6. I did not guess New Mexico; I should’ve though. I heard “Denver” and my mind focused on Colorado.
7. Pittsburgh due to “yinz.”
8. I guessed Rez accent, partly by the appearance of the speakers and partly by the uniqueness of the sound.
9. Boston all of the way.
10. My guess was Boston Brahmin or some posh New York accent. I didn’t guess Westchester county.
I’m a Boston kid who has been hanging out in Austin Texas for the last 18 years. With my original accent modified by all these years in the south even I am not sure how I might pronounce something. Funniest pronunciations I have heard down here are while working in a home improvement store. One big guy asks me where he can find a fall. I ask you want a fall? Yeah I want to fall down some wood. (File) Another wanted window seal. I told him it came in several different size rolls. He got a bit agitated and said “window seal don’t come in rolls. It’s made of wood.” He wanted window sill. I give up.
I don’t have one accent; I have what is mainly Southern Middle Tennessee/North Alabama, but mixed with the broadly midwestern Florida accent (Michigan/Ohio/Upstate New York.) I grew up in Florida but have lived in TN for 50 years. But people around here can still pick up the “yankee” in my accent.
I love the various sounds I hear traveling around America especially Southern accents where somehow 2 syllables evole from one. California’s accent with the perpetual upswing tone drives me nuts.