English comprehension -11 accents you need to know!

Understand 11 English Accents From Around The World

Your English comprehension will depend on your level of English. However, it’ll also depend on your ability to understand different accents in English. English is spoken all over the world. An Australian speaking English sounds very different to a Scotsman; and a New Yorker’s English pronunciation is a lot different to that of a Cockney (from London). In todays class, we’ll introduce you to some of the most important accents from around the world. You’ll also learn how to identify and understand them better.

Read and listen to the information about these 11 English accents from around the world, and learn how to identify them!

The Welsh English accent

The Southern US accent

In Texas we like to make our words a lot longer. We got a lot of time in Texas, so we just make the words as long as we can make ‘em. Yeah, like the word, the word “bed”, you know, that’s where I go to “bed” at night, but sometimes the people up north don’t understand me. Well, pretty much any word that has that… any word like “friend” or “pen”, you know, if I need to borrow a “pen”, sometimes people think I’m talking about something that you make bread in (a “pan”), but I’m talking about a “pen” to write with. Well down in Texas, we like to say things like “howdy,” “how ya’ll doin’?” “Wassup?”

The Australian English accent

There are many special words, phrases and expressions in Australia. For example, we like to shorten long words like “breakfast” to “brekky’, “biscuit” to “bikkie” and “truck driver” to “truckie”. We even shorten the name of our country – Australia is often referred to as “Oz” and instead of calling ourselves Australians, we say “Aussies”. Australians use a lot of expressions. When you want to tell someone that something is not a problem, you say, “No worries”. If you agree totally with someone’s opinion, you can say, “Too right”, and if you think something is really excellent, try saying that it’s “Sweet as”.

The Posh English accent

The key to speaking in a posh English accent is to speak more slowly and to elongate the vowels. Some say you need to talk as if you had a plum in your mouth. For example, notice how all the syllables in these words are pronounced: “education, nation, situation.” Now, notice the final ending sound in these words, “robber, rotter, blighter”. And the elongated vowel sounds in these words: glove, love, shove; bath, laugh, mars; day, lay, may; brown, crown, frown; boat, coat, moat. When speaking in a posh accent, It’s also important to speak with an air of superiority – a true belief in your own self-importance.

The New York English accent

Well, we tend to make a lot of the vowels a little longer. For example, “coffee”, we say“coffee”, we got “talk”, we can for a “walk”, even, come to our great state of “New York”. And, other things is the “th” we often use as a “t” or sometimes a “d.” For “three” we say “tree”, or the “thing” over there, we call it the “ding”. I could bash you “tree” times in the head with that “ding” over there.

The Scottish English accent

There are many interesting features of the Scottish accent. For example, it can be quite sing-songy as it goes up and down a bit. The “r’s” are rolled quite a lot so they sound stronger and longer than in an English accent. For example, we say “hurry up” and we make “arrangements”, whereas an English person would say “hurry up” or “make arrangements”.

The Canadian English accent

Another special feature of Canadian English is the use of “eh?”, at the end of a sentence, as a sort of question tag to verify if the person you’re speaking to has understood you or just basically to verify information. People make a lot of jokes about that, with Canadians. For example, you’ll say, “You haven’t finished the report, eh?” instead of the usual question tag, “have you?” Or “It’s cold, eh?” which… you know, instead of “isn’t it?”

The Liverpudlian English accent (from Liverpool)

There are many interesting features of the accent. For example, the / uː / sound is very distinctive and fairly elongated in words that end in “l” and is similar to the standard English vowel sound / uː / in the word “soup”. For example:
a) We went to the pool.
b) I’m from Liverpool!
The “ck” endings are pronounced very strongly as “bach”.
For example:
a) Get back!
b) I’m coming back!
c) There’s a stack of them.
d) That’s a really good book.

The Cockney English accent

Cockney English is a working class accent from mostly the East End of London. One of the key features of the Cockney English
accent is the dropping of the “h” sound at the start of many words: ‘ammer (hammer), ‘ouse (house), ‘ave (have), ‘e (he).
a) ‘ave you got the‘ammer? = (Have you got the hammer?)
b) Is this your ‘ouse? = (Is this your house?)
In many cases, the “t” sound is dropped. For example, “wa’er” (water), “ci’y” (city).
Here are some examples in sentences:
a) We went from Waterloo station.
b) Do you want some water?
The unvoiced “th” / θ / sound becomes a / f / sound.
For example, instead of “thing”, it’s “fing”.
Here are some more examples:
a) I didn’t see anything.
b) We went north.
c) She lives down south.

The American English accent

One of the main characteristics of the accent is the “r” sound. This is often heavily pronounced – much more so than British English. For example: barn, march, bird, bar, heart, shark, fork, pork, cork. You can hear this in sentences too.
For example:
a) There are some sharks near here.
b) There’s a nice bar that isn’t far.
c) There are some birds over there.
Another big difference is with the “o” sound. In British English, it’s a rounded vowel sound (ɒ). However, in American English it isn’t so rounded. For example: hot, cot, top, box, cod, fox, spot. You can hear this in sentences too.
For example:
a) The food is very hot.
b) It’s on the top.

The Irish English accent

Many words with the “r” sound are pronounced fairly heavily. For example: morning, park, car, far, corner.
Here are some examples in sentences:
a) It’s in the corner.
b) It’s quite far from here.
c) She went to the park by car.
Many words with the British English / aɪ / sound are pronounced / ɔɪ /. For example: right, like, bright, Irish.
Here are some examples in sentences:
a) I like it.
b) It’s right over there.
c) It’s bright tonight.