Jette <bosslady@scotlandmail.com> wrote:
> http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7509572.stm
>
> There's a video of a voice coach demonstrating the difference between
> the English *long* sounds and the US *short* sounds.
Extremely subtle differences! No wonder it's hard!
> Normally she's teaching Americans to have English accents for movies, here
> she's taking an English guy through learning a US accent.
And I am impressed with Hugh Laurie's accent. He does sound native if
not quite easy to localize regionally.
You know what's funny? You can't hear the difference between an American
and an Englishman when they speak accented Norwegian. The big give-away?
Their R. Even the English have that "American" R when not able to
pronounce Norwegian R's (either guttural or rolling, depending on
region). And what Berkery says about Americans protesting that we don't
do our R's like that made me LOL, because that's what I keep saying to
Norwegians who think that's what makes an American accent. (The biggest
mistake non-English-speaking Europeans make is not sounding the S or Z
correctly. Listen to ABBA and you'll hear it.)
Reminds me of a funny story a Norwegian friend told me: He was staying
in South Carolina for a week and pegged as a foreigner only once and
that was when he asked for the bill at a restaurant. He never heard his
own mistake, but the Americans noticed the British L's at the end of the
word (making "bill" sound sort of like a short "beeoo"). We simply do
not have that L-sound.
--
Keera in Norway * Think big and then ask for more.
http://home.online.no/~kafox/ 
OT - English to US accent 
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