This was a fun and quite interesting activity. I enjoyed taking both quizzes and seeing how well (or poorly) I did. The first quiz called, “Where is the Speaker from?” went about as well as the second quiz did. I wasn’t impressed with myself after finishing either one. I guessed one right in each of the different areas of the country. I know that I usually do notice a difference in pronunciations when I meet people from different areas of the country, but I usually can’t place where they are from by the way that they speak. I just recognize that there is a difference. The family that I have out in Washington State has always made fun of how we (Midwesterners) say, “boat” or “about”. Apparently, we do something funny with our o’s. I can’t hear it myself or change the way that I say it around them. But I’m always conscious of it when I say such words. I’ll find myself trying to say, “boat” as quickly as possible, as to not let that “o” linger or do anything funny. I think some accents from around the country stand out more than others.
The second quiz, called “Test Your Vowel Power” was interesting as well. I’ll list below the words that I thought were said versus what was actually said.
Word | My Guess |
Block | Wag |
Socks | Sacks |
Desk | Dusk |
Buses | Prices |
Grade | Time |
As you can see I clearly don’t have consonant power, let alone vowel power. So you should all feel better about your performances now that you see how it went for me. It’s funny how difficult the word can be to understand when it’s said by itself, but once it’s placed within a thought or sentence it’s very obvious.
I’m sure the more traveling a person has done and the more people that you know from different areas of the country would make this activity that much easier. I’ve done very little traveling in my life and therefore haven’t been too exposed to accents from around the country. I met an older couple the last time that I was in Florida who asked if I was from Wisconsin. We visited for quite a while. They have retired in Florida in a very “touristy” area. They frequently hear and meet people from all over and at this point can now easily identify where people are from by the way that they sound.
I also met a gentleman on another vacation that asked my right away if I was from Wisconsin. He had lived in Wisconsin for the majority of his life. Although I think we often can’t hear that we sound different ourselves, do you think we can still easily pick out someone who sounds like us? Like this gentleman, do you think if you were in a different place do you think you could easily identify the people who are from the same place as you, just by listening to them speak?
Maybe, I've been everywhere I have went in groups so there wasn't a lot of socializing out of the group; however, if you hear someone screaming bubbler (water fountain) at the top of their lungs in Florida it's a decent guess that they are from the Milwaukee area. For some reason that is the favorite activity of my high school class, I didn't really get why it was so great. I have a hard time differentiating exact regional dialects because I tend to focus on the specific nuances of individual voices that I find interesting. In short to both the questions I would need more experience to offer and educated guess.
ReplyDeleteI have been South and East once each time and I did not get both of those answers correct. It was hard to understand what they were sayi9ng some of the time. It also makes it hard when they only say one sentence with one word in it that makes them sound like they come from a certain area.
ReplyDeleteI think you can recognize someone from your area. You will most likely recognize that person as not having an accent or sounding like a lot of the people from your hometown/state. Although, most people think I have an accident. I have lived a lot of places, so maybe I have just picked up a little bit everywhere I went.
ReplyDeleteI had always thought I could tell how people talk and what they sounds like. But I always guess near where they are from or some place completely different. I think some people sound exactly like where they are from and others sound completely different.
ReplyDeleteI think if we are from the same area, we can recognize that by listening. I'm thinking about in Japanese, though. I can't catch any difference in English, but I do when I listen to Japanese. Although I can't know exactly which prefecture they are from, I can know which area they are from.
ReplyDeleteIn my case, I think I can identify the people from the same area. We have totally the different accent and sentence tone in my Japanese dialect, so people can recognize that.