BE 643: Appalachian, Southern or Boston? How to Understand American Accents

This is the Business English Podcast, Episode 643, Appalachian, Southern, or Boston, How to Understand American Accents. Welcome to the Business English Podcast from All Ears English. Get the English skills you need to achieve your dreams in global business. For a presentation, a meeting, or your office party, this is Real Business English with your favorite American hosts, Lindsay and Aubrey, coming to you from Arizona and Colorado, USA.

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One more time, go to allearsenglish.com slash f-l-u-e-n-c-y-s-c-o-r-e. Hello, Lindsay. How are you today? Hey there, Aubrey. I'm feeling pretty great today.

Excited to be on the show with you. What's going on? What's happening today? We're talking about accents today. Are there any accents in American English that you have more difficulty understanding?

Oh, I love accents. I mean, the classic Boston accent, I'm not from Boston, but I'm kind of from the Boston area. So I feel at home when I hear shows that feature Bostonians. It's just a very like, I don't know, like blunt sounding accent.

It is, but it's very endearing. I love a Boston accent. It's so great. There's so many characters. I mean, the movie Good Will Hunting is the classic.

But yeah, sometimes Southern accents I can struggle to understand. What about you? Yeah, same. And it's interesting. I'm the same as you, Lindsay. I love accents.

I know that's maybe not the case for everyone, but anyone out there, if you've ever been concerned about your accent, most people in the States, most people I know are the same as me. We're like, we're so excited to talk to someone who has any kind of accent in English. It's endearing. It's beautiful.

Accents are fantastic. But today, yeah, we're talking about accents in American English, because there are quite a few of them, depending on where you are, if you're in the Northeast or the South, there are certain regions where an accent might be stronger, and you may have difficulty understanding. Yeah.

And honestly, this makes me think of our Connected Communicator course because we did a journey around the United States, two months, 12,000 miles, and we did go to all these regions. So I interviewed people with all of these different accents. So if you want to check out the course, guys, go on over to allearsenglish.com slash connection and check it out. Yes, that's a great place to hear examples of all of the accents we're talking about today.

I love that. And this actually was inspired by a YouTube comment. Bessane, Y2E, who said, if I can understand you so easily, will I be able to understand native speakers if I ever travel to America?

What a great question. Yeah, really great question. The main answer is like some, some, yes. Most people, yes. But every now and then someone might have an accent that would be more difficult to understand.

Yeah. And I mean, it's interesting because even the difference between – within the South, let's just take the Southern accent. The difference between a Louisiana accent, which is very distinct.

Maybe you've heard it on TV, Aubrey. You know someone. I think of Waterboy. Okay. Do you remember it with Adam Sandler? And they're like – they live right in like the bayou right off the – and there's some like –

really strong Louisiana accents. And there's one guy who intentionally, he's like an alligator hunter and he's intentionally speaking, you can't understand a word. It's almost like a, I don't even know if he's really, he's just kind of speaking gibberish on purpose. But yeah, sometimes it's a really strong accent.

It's difficult to understand. Really strong. And that versus like a Virginia or North Carolina accent, very, very different. Right. Gosh. Yeah, you can't even say southern and that's such a blanket term.

Within 20, 30 miles, this accent might sound really different. Exactly. So we've got our work cut out for us today to answer this question and just kind of shed a little bit of light. Obviously, you would need to go through a full course.

We do have a pronunciation course as well where we show you not necessarily how to mirror accents because we don't necessarily want you to feel like you have to speak. speak with an American accent or speak with a British accent, but how to be understood. That's what we're here for, right? How to make sure you are understood and you can understand others.

So Aubrey, where should we take this episode today? Well, we first want to give a shout out to some reviewers. We are grateful for everyone who has reviewed the podcast, the Business English Podcast or All Ears English. And we want to share some names of people who have left reviews.

Ryu, who left us a great review. Was that in Apple Podcast? That was an Apple podcast, an amazing five-star review. Thank you so much, Rio9153. Amazing.

Thank you to Saddam Mode. Saddam said, hi, guys. I like this series. It's so helpful. Thank you for your amazing work. Aubrey, who else reviewed us? Yes.

Levi said, thank you. Congratulations from Brazil. So shout out to Levi in Brazil. Cesar, Ronay, Roger, who said, love this podcast. Very enjoyable. These were in Spotify.

Thank you so much for everyone who has left a rating or a review of the podcast. We read these and we really appreciate the feedback. Yeah. And guys, keep in mind, if you want to hear your name announced on the show, the best, fastest way to do that is to go and leave a review wherever you're listening, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iOS app, Android app, go and leave your review.

We will try to announce your name out loud on the show. All right? Good. Yeah. So this is interesting. Just to start out, if you understand us, you will understand most people in the

Especially if you are meeting someone for the first time, they're going to try to speak clearly. They want to have a conversation with you. They want to connect with you. So often those of us who have accents, when we're in our hometown and we're speaking to others who have that accent, we might fall into being less understandable, maybe mumbling a little more.

But if we're meeting someone new, we're going to try to speak clearly so that we can have a conversation and be understood. Of course. Of course. So should we let our listeners know where we grew up?

Maybe for any new listeners, for example, Aubrey, what about you? What's your story? What accent might you be using? Yes. So I grew up in Idaho in the Northwest.

And there is definitely a regional dialect there. There are some words and phrases that I might use that Lindsay will be unfamiliar with. But I've now moved to Arizona. And as an English teacher and a podcaster, I am trying to speak clearly.

So you probably will understand me now better than you would understand the average resident in my hometown, right? Because it is a different dialect. Yeah, we do speak at a very normal speed. We don't slow down at all on the show.

But I would say we enunciate a little bit more clearly on the show, right? Almost like we're on a stage, right? You wouldn't mumble if you're on a stage and you have a microphone in your hand. That's what we try to do here.

It doesn't always work, but we try to do it. Exactly. And what about you, Lindsay? Where did you grow up? Yeah, I grew up in New Hampshire, southern New Hampshire.

But then I lived in New York for four years, live in Boston for 10. And now I live in Colorado. So I spent most of my life in the Northeast. I'm very at home with the Boston accent, even though I don't use it.

This is not a Boston accent, what I'm speaking with right now, or a typical Boston accent. And yeah, so pretty neutral. I think both of us speak pretty neutrally, I would say. Which is the case for a lot of people who have moved a few times, right?

If you have never left your hometown, you might have more of an accent. Whereas if you live in New York for a few years, I did as well. You've lived in a few other places. Your accent often does become more neutral because you're sort of changing it depending on where you live.

Yes, exactly. Exactly. So what else do we need to know here? Yeah. So this is interesting. A lot of the more touristy places in the US, the accent isn't as extreme.

So if you're going to New York, for example, or LA, most of the people that you will talk to, their accent will be pretty similar to ours. It's really when you get off the beaten path into some of those fun areas of the United States, the Rust Belt, the South, where you might be in smaller towns, especially, that's where you might meet someone that has an accent that might be more difficult to understand. Yeah. I mean, I'm going to San Francisco this weekend and I don't intend, I don't imagine I'll hear really any, I think I'll hear pretty neutral English because San Francisco is another city that draws people from all over the world and all over the country, right?

For work in Silicon Valley, tech jobs, that kind of thing. But I can definitely hear a Michigan accent in some of the people. Michigan has a lot of people, a lot of Michiganders have moved to Colorado to get away from the rain and the cold weather. And I can hear that Michigan accent very clearly, even in what some people might call a neutral accent here in Colorado.

It's interesting. Yeah, that's a good point. In the Midwest, there are some accents. Chicago is kind of known for an accent. Minnesota, if you watch the film Fargo, that's like a really strong Minnesota accent.

Right. And it is, you know, sort of standard American pronunciation, but some of the vowels might be elongated. They might say Chicago or Minnesota. Oh, a lot of that.

And actually, I think a lot of that, this is, I, you know, this is not based on research, just things I've heard. I think this, some of that stems from the Scandinavian influence in Minnesota, right?

Interesting. Or Canadian, right? That's close to the Canada border. And there's a lot like Canada has a pretty, a lot of Canadians have those same elongated vowel sounds.

So it's pretty similar to a Canadian accent. That makes sense. All right. So should we break down what these core regions are and where the accents are, Aubrey?

Yeah. So we kind of shared the Midwest there, right? Some of them are more neutral. The West Coast, like you said, San Francisco. That also includes like, you know, California, Portland, Seattle.

These are all pretty neutral, generally relaxed, clear sounding English, not a very strong accent. I agree. I agree. Then you have the Southwest, which is where you are, Aubrey, Arizona, Nevada.

Would you say it's pretty similar to the West Coast then? Yes. Yeah. And some people will say it's a very steady accent. There's less of the variation and kind of the up and down that you might hear in some places.

Some regional dialects are sort of sing-songy, where there's sort of more of a change in tone. And then others, bigger cities, more neutral accents, it's more of a steady tone. Hmm. Interesting.

Interesting. Yeah, I could see that. Do you think that you have a pretty steady tone in your voice? Would you say that you follow? Well, it's interesting because when we're saying steady tone, I don't mean monotone.

I mean, like my voice isn't really sing songy, right? Where I'm like going up and down and whereas I do hear some people in other parts of the country do that more. Yeah. Interesting.

So what are the places where we're really going to see a notable accent? Aubrey. Yeah. So definitely the Southern US, right? Texas, Georgia, Louisiana.

Often the rhythm is slower. There's what we'll call a Southern drawl sometimes where a vowel is sort of drawn out. Maybe instead of, I would say ride. And in the South, they might say rad.

I'm going to take the cow for a rad. Yeah. And how would they say cat? I don't even know if I can do it. Yeah. There's like a diphthong in the vowel. They'll say like cayette.

Oh my gosh. Okay. Interesting. How's your K yet? Did you get a new K yet? Okay. Yeah, that sounds right. You're like, I don't even want to try. I can't do it.

The movie that I would recommend here would be Sweet Home Alabama would be a good way to get a sense of that. You know where I hear the Southern accent a lot is on the Handsome podcast. I don't know if you listen to that. Fortune Feimster is a comedian from the South.

She has a pretty heavy accent. So her stand up or that podcast, you get to hear her Southern drawl. And sometimes she'll intentionally emphasize it just kind of for fun. I love it.

That's so fun. That's so fun. But then Miami. So Miami is interesting, right? Because we have a large Cuban population there. So what does this feel like in Miami?

What is the English accent? So it's definitely known for faster speech, right? And then sometimes it will be sort of an English-Spanish mix. So a lot more Spanish words that are – and this happens in Arizona as well, right?

We have a lot of people who speak Spanish in this area as well. So sometimes a lot of those words will get mixed in with the English, which makes for a really fun combination. Yeah, it's true in Colorado as well. But I know that Cuban Spanish is known to be one of the faster versions of Spanish, right?

So that kind of makes sense that maybe that's kind of bleeding into the English in Miami. Interesting. Yeah. This reminds me, do you know the comedian Marcelo Hernandez?

I think his name is he's on SNL. He's from Cuba. His mom was from Cuba. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And he's every now and then he'll tell a joke with his stand up or on SNL, where he'll be sort of imitating and he you know, and then when he goes into Cuban Spanish,

And he's like, so fast, I can't understand a word. Yeah, it really depends on who, what, where the Spanish is from, how well we can do with our listening, right? Yeah, that's a challenge. And then you have the classic New York and Boston accents.

And keep in mind, these are not the same accent, right? These are different. But they might have some similarities, I think. Yeah, probably a faster pace.

And then the R sound is changed. It's either dropped or changed. So Boston, you've got that classic car park, park the car in our yard. Yeah. Yes, exactly.

And then we talk about the New York accent. There's the fun phrase to say coffee talk. Coffee talk. I love that. And you guys might have a lot of familiarity with that accent because we have Michael from Happy English often on the show.

I think we will be having one. We should have had one back in September, a guest episode from Michael. So you'll be able to hear him again. He's been on the show like four or five times.

Great friend from New York based in Tokyo right now. Great New York accent. That gives you a good opportunity to hear that accent. Go back and check out that episode if you missed it.

For sure. For sure. Anything else we should know here before we go further? Well, this is interesting. We can't stereotype with accents, right? We could never say like everyone in the South has this accent.

It really depends on who you're talking to, their age, their cultural background, education, travel experience, where else they've lived. All of that is going to impact how a person speaks. Yeah, for sure. For sure.

And again, a lot of cities are multicultural. Yeah, like we said, we might hear that mix. I mean, it's it's really it's we want to avoid kind of essentializing people, right? Exactly.

You're here. You're from here. So you must speak this way. We want to be careful of that. Yeah, exactly. Definitely. Have you ever walked out of a meeting thinking, I could have said that better?

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One more time, go to allearsenglish.com f-l-u-e-n-c-y-s-c-o-r-e. Okay, Aubrey. So what can help our listeners understand English in the US? I mean, despite these different accents, what do we do?

So we have three tips for you, especially if you are going to travel to the States or if you're wanting to better understand TV in English. We have three things you can do. So first of all, to train your ear for speed, right? We speak at a natural speed on this podcast.

We don't speak super fast, but we're not slowing down either, right? Right. So some Americans will speak more quickly. There are TV shows and podcasts where you can listen to their made for native speakers, where someone from Miami or New York might be speaking even more quickly.

And you could listen to that to train your ear. Yeah. I feel like a lot of the crime shows, because my partner watches a lot of crime shows, I feel like most of them are based in Boston or New York.

Yes. CSI. Or there's CSI Miami too, where you can hear that Miami accent. Yeah. So just pick your favorite crime show and then you'll get these accents for sure.

And then what else about the speed of listening, Aubrey? What do we need to know here? So this is interesting. As you know, we have connected speech in English and the faster we're speaking, the more

Words are connected and sounds are dropped. For example, instead of going to, you're going to hear, just like I just said, gonna. Don't know, say don't know. So as you're listening to faster speech, you're going to hear a lot more connected speech.

You need to be aware of that. And the more you can train your ear, practice listening to that, the better you'll be able to understand people in person. Yes. Love it.

And just be aware that, again, that speed makes people connect words and drop sounds like we've said. Those are exactly the examples you just used. Yes.

Okay. What about a second tip, Aubrey? What else? So second is to focus on the overall meaning of what's being said, right? And I've done this before, too.

If I'm listening to podcasts in Spanish or French, if ever I'm trying to understand every word, then I just get frustrated and give up. Often, I just need to listen for the gist, listen to understand what I can, right? So don't expect to understand every word, especially podcasts and TV shows that are made for native speakers.

Yeah, exactly. Look for those keywords, the context clues, and be careful of the different vocab, right? Just be careful there. Love it. Yeah, right. There's some examples like in Idaho, we say pop, and most places say soda.

Or in some places in the Midwest, they'll say soda pop. So there are some little vocabulary differences even within the states, maybe tennis shoes versus sneakers, little things like that. Love it.

And then again, context clues are the key, right? Ask yourself, what is the topic? What are they asking you in that given moment? Okay. What do we expect to hear?

And then when you're having that conversation, right? Connection, not perfection, of course, right? Don't stress so much about perfect grammar or understanding every word of the person that you're talking to. What's most important is that you are able to have a conversation and connect.

Yes. Yeah, build a memory, right? Get to know someone, have a laugh together. That is what you're going to remember. Maybe you start a friendship. Who knows, right?

But if you're so locked into being perfect, that'll never happen, okay? Third tip here is just listen to a variety of different accents, right? Get yourself exposed. Get that crime show on your Netflix schedule.

We all watch Netflix, right? So go check out your favorite crime show, for example, or what else, Aubrey? Exactly. Podcasts, of course, right? Lots of different podcasts, crime podcasts, or whatever you like to listen to.

If you look for a variety, you're going to end up getting American speakers that have different accents. And then another good suggestion is reality TV. Because these, again, are unscripted. So you're hearing, for the most part, how people really speak to each other.

Real Housewives, lots of different accents on there. Love is Blind. Shows like this where people are coming from different regions in the U.S. And they're going to be speaking with more of an accent than the average accent you would hear on a TED Talk, for example. Right.

On a TED Talk, you might be more likely to hear a neutral accent. Did you ever watch Jersey Shore? Was that that reality TV show? I never did, but I know what you're talking about.

They had some pretty heavy Jersey accents. Yeah, very heavy New Jersey accents. Or you could also go to YouTube and just search for street interviews in different locations to get a sense of, you know, maybe you can try to guess where the accent is coming from as well. Could be something to do.

Yes. I actually really love those, the shows where it's just someone being interviewed on the street and it's just real people stopped as they're walking. Unfortunately, more and more what you see on TikTok, that's like all fake. It's all like posed and prepared.

But some of the older street interview shows on YouTube is still when it was like authentic, like they were really just stopping somebody on the street and talking to them. You mentioned the Connected Communicator course. You're like just finding people on the street and like, let's have a conversation. Yeah.

Yeah. I never knew that there was a real term for it, street interviews, but that's basically what we did in this course, right? We drove around the country, stopped at festivals, restaurants, grocery stores, wherever, and just asked people to talk to us, right? Really good stuff.

Well, and that's where you're going to get how people really speak, right? It's unscripted. It's what people actually talk about. And the best thing about that course is they're interesting conversations on

controversial topics, right? Gun rights, gay rights, religion, lots of things where people were being really open about their opinions, which some of them might be surprising, you know, you might be surprised how extreme people's opinions can be in the States. Yeah, we didn't just interview people of one idea set, right? One side of the political spectrum.

We let everyone's voice be in the course. So go on over and check it out. It's a great course, guys. AldersEnglish.com slash connection. And Aubrey, what's another episode our listeners could check out right now?

Yes. Scroll up if you missed this one. Allers English 2716 over on the Allers English podcast. This is us breaking down English grammar for a really interesting, trendy new phrase that you could use both at work and also in everyday conversations.

Yeah. And I think that's really the takeaway is don't let it get in the way of connection, right? It's all about connection. Don't let yourself get paralyzed.

Do expose yourself to different regional accents, especially if you're at the B2C1 level, you're going to be ready for that natural English in real life. And so you are going to encounter these accents. Absolutely. And don't ever think like, oh, you know, don't not start a conversation because you think the accent might be too strong.

Like anyone in the States is going to be able to have a conversation with you. They might try to make their accent more neutral to make sure they're understood, right? So yeah, don't ever let that keep you from connecting, worrying about not understanding an accent. You're going to be able to understand.

Yes. Don't miss out on the connection. Love it. All right. Great stuff today, Aubrey. Well, I'll see you in the next episode. Have a good day. See you next time.

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