American English vs British English?

[farke1]

So Canadian English would be neutral English? Interesting.
Which accent of the United States or others countries do you not like?

Perhaps I wasn't clear, since that wasn't really what I was trying to imply. To me, British English is "neutral English" since it's what I grew up hearing and speaking every single day, and it's what I speak by default (although I can do a sick valley girl accent if I have to, but that's another story), but what one considers neutral is subjective to each individual. Canadian English sounds the same as (standard) American English when spoken to me, although I'm given to understand that they spell words the same way as we do rather than using the American spelling, so I suppose it's somewhat of an intermediary dialect.

Assuming you mean in spoken English: I dislike Russian, Indian and "redneck" accents the most, and my favourite English accents are Australian, Finnish and Dutch.

[Daco Celtic]

Would love to get people's input on the Pittsburgh accent. It's really something to hear, very classy.

[Ruggery]

Perhaps I wasn't clear, since that wasn't really what I was trying to imply. To me, British English is "neutral English" since it's what I grew up hearing and speaking every single day, and it's what I speak by default (although I can do a sick valley girl accent if I have to, but that's another story), but what one considers neutral is subjective to each individual. Canadian English sounds the same as (standard) American English when spoken to me, although I'm given to understand that they spell words the same way as we do rather than using the American spelling, so I suppose it's somewhat of an intermediary dialect.

Assuming you mean in spoken English: I dislike Russian, Indian and "redneck" accents the most, and my favourite English accents are Australian, Finnish and Dutch.

Ahh ok, you meant that Canadian English sounds the same as American, if it also sounds the same to me.
Rednecks are the worst ones who speak English in the entire Anglo-sphere, not including others such as Jamaicans or African English.
I have listened to Australian English and it sounds very familiar to the British I guess that is why it has more relationship.

[Ruggery]

Would love to get people's input on the Pittsburgh accent. It's really something to hear, very classy.

Sounds great but the man is very loud.

[farke1]

I have listened to Australian English and it sounds very familiar to the British I guess that is why it has more relationship.

Interesting that you'd say this as I don't think the two dialects sound similar at all, but again my perspective is biased so it's refreshing to hear other people's opinions. To me, this is the English language unleashed at peak performance:

[Daco Celtic]

Sounds great but the man is very loud.

That is becuase Pittsburgh dudes are always mad and yelling at their kids. He speaks what is call a Yinzer accent. Kind of a blue collar accent.

"Yinzer" (or "Yunzer") was historically used to identify the typical blue-collar people from the Pittsburgh region who often spoke with a heavy Pittsburghese accent. The term stems from the word yinz (or yunz), a second-person plural pronoun, brought to the area by early Scots-Irish immigrants. Over time, yinzer has been used by many Pittsburgh residents to self-identify, even if they didn't speak with a thick accent.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yinzer

[Ruggery]

Interesting that you'd say this as I don't think the two dialects sound similar at all, but again my perspective is biased so it's refreshing to hear other people's opinions. To me, this is the English language unleashed at peak performance:

Well, keep in mind that English is not my mother lenguage, therefore, I will not know 100% what the differences are between all the accents of English, but for my foreign ears the Australian accent sounds more similar to British than American/Canadian, when I hear Australian celebrities like Chris Hemsworth or Nicole Kidman remind me of the British accent.

[farke1]

Well, keep in mind that English is not my mother lenguage, therefore, I will not know 100% what the differences are between all the accents of English, but for my foreign ears the Australian accent sounds more similar to British than American/Canadian, when I hear Australian celebrities like Chris Hemsworth or Nicole Kidman remind me of the British accent.

Of course. I didn't mean to say that "you're wrong", so sorry if it came across that way; merely that it's interesting for me to hear how other people interpret the sound of my own dialect since it's not something I generally notice on a day-to-day basis. I'll take it as a compliment anyway since the Australian accent is my favourite dialect of English.

[PaleoEuropean]

Americans are much more refined when it comes to the usage of English and pronunciation.

[♥ Lily ♥]

I think the spellings in UK European English are more complicated for foreign people to learn, (our spellings are closer to old French, old Latin, and old German spellings,) with spellings in UK English such as 'jewellery', 'colour', 'theatre,' 'sceptical', 'draught,' 'programme', 'analogue', 'liquorice,' 'mould,' 'manoeuvre,' 'analyse,' 'plough', 'aluminium', 'diarrhoea', 'paediatrician,' 'dialogue,' 'catalogue,'
'grey', 'aeroplane,' 'yoghurt', 'pay-cheque', which are some examples out of many: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americ...ng_differences

I personally relate more to UK spellings (which are the spellings also used in many former British Empire nations around the globe.) The decorative ways of spelling UK English words are a lot more poetic and soulful to me as it's a bit closer to Shakespeare's spellings, and also because that's the way I was taught to spell as a child in schools, and it's the way my relatives spell.... so I feel a connection to my childhood and my relatives by spelling in the same way that my friends and relatives do in greeting cards and letters whenever we write to each other.

Countries that use UK English spellings are shown in red (which also includes the massive 1.2 billion population of India who are currently the world's third largest English language book producers.)


American English spellings are more simplified as they basically spell words closer to how the words are pronounced, such as 'center' rather than 'centre' in UK English (which is more similar to French spellings.)

In terms of pronunciations... hmm... not sure as both countries have some strange ways of pronouncing certain words. (Eg; the way herbs are pronounced as 'erbs' in the U.S. and their strange way of pronouncing 'route' and 'roof'.) Canadians have a strange way of pronouncing 'about', and UK people can have some strange ways of pronouncing certain words... especially in the Highlands of Scotland and amongst Cockneys, Brummies, and Geordies.

I love Irish accents even though they struggle to pronounce TH in words.


There's a much larger variety of accents across all four countries in the Isles than in the entire U.S. according to linguists.

I used to have difficulties telling Canadian accents apart from US accents, but over the last few years I've listened to loads and loads of US and Canadian documentaries, and I've now become more familiar at detecting the differences between the Canadian and U.S. accents.

I love Califorrnian accents, some of the Scottish accents, some English accents (especially Lancastrian,) and some Welsh and Northern Irish accents. I like Aussie and Kiwi accents too.

Jamaican English has some similarities to Irish pronunciations... as both are rhotic and both struggle to say TH in words. Some West Country English (including the Cornish) also have rhotic accents, and so do Canadians and Americans.

I'm not sure if the queston by the OP relates to pronunciations, accents, spellings, emphasis, intonations, popular slang terms, or to all the other complexities attached to languages. And why can people only choose between the US and UK when there's also lots of other varieties of English in the other English speaking nations around the world?