Hi, my name is Erik Singer.

I'm a dialect coach.

You may have seen me here before

talking about accent performances in movies.

What do Texas accents and South Asian accents

have in common?

The answer's retroflexion.

So today, I'm gonna offer you

some quick and easy ways

to tell one accent apart from another

when those two accents are pretty similar

in a lot of ways.

Can you ask somebody to say a simple phrase

to try to tell whether they're from, say,

Australia or New Zealand?

I'm originally from Sydney, Australia.

From Philly, PA.

Yorkshire.

New Bedford, Massachusetts.

Number one, how to tell an Australian

from a New Zealander.

We can use the kit vowel.

In Australia, there's a realization

that is not too far off

from my own American accent, for instance.

Something like an ih sound.

An Australian might say that something like this.

Myth, Myth. Myth.

New Zealanders tend to centralize this sound.

So instead of the tongue being arched up a little bit

towards the front of the mouth,

it's relaxed down a little bit

towards the middle of the mouth,

and you get something closer to a schwa.

Uh, cut.

You can hear that here.

Myth. Myth. Myth.

Myth.

And myth.

And myth.

So there's one, actually very famous

phrase that you can use, uh

that you could ask somebody at cocktail party

say, to pronounce to try to tell whether

they're an Australian or a New Zealander if

you're not sure. And that phrase would be

fish and chips.

And Australian might say that something like this:

Fish and chips. Fish and chips.

Where as the New Zealand version might sound

more like this:

Fish and chips. Fish and chips. Fish and chips.

Fish and chips.

Fish and chips.

Fish and chips.

Fish and chips.

Number two, how to tell somebody from

the north of England from somebody from

the south of England.

Many accents in both places, of course.

But the cool thing is, you can draw a line

straight across England. North of that line

strut words, words like cup, under, mother, love, son

are going to have a vowel sound something like

ooh, very similar to the vowel sound in foot words

like wood, butcher, woman, look.

Here is a Northern English person and you can

hear their strut vowel.

Cup, cup, cup.

In the South, they're going to be two

different vowels. One is strut, and one is foot

and they won't sound the same.

And here's a speaker from the South.

Cup, cup, cup.

From the North.

Mother, mother, mother. Son, son, son.

From the South.

Fun, fun, fun.

Son.

Fun.

Son.

Fun.

So, if you meet somebody and you're pretty sure

that their accent is from somewhere in England,

but you want to know whether it's from the North

or from the South, you could ask them to say

the following phrase:

Did you cut your foot?

From the North.

Cut your foot. Cut your foot. Cut your foot.

From the South.

Cut your foot. Cut your foot. Cut your foot.

Cut your foot.

Cut your foot.

Cut your foot.

Cut your foot.

So, of course there are many different Northern

English accents. Two famous ones are

Geordie from Newcastle and Brummie from Birmingham.

One way that you could potentially tell

a Geordie accent from a Brummie accent would be

to take the face vowel.

A brummie is going to have a sound that's kinda

similar to a London sound. It's a diphthong,

it's a vowel sound that starts ahh and ends up

ee. Moves from ayeee, it takes a journey.

So if you hear something like this:

Great cakes. Great. Great. Great.

You're dealing with a Brummie.

If you hear something that's much more monophthongal -

aye, something like this:

Great cakes. Great. Great. Great.

Then you're dealing with a Geordie.

A phrase could be, David bakes great cakes.

You can hear that here:

David bakes great cakes.

David bakes great cakes.

Bakes great cakes.

Bakes great cakes.

Bakes great cakes.

Next up, New York and Boston.

Now this one's probably easier to hear and place

if you're American, probably less so if you're

not an American.

The lot vowel

is going to be

very open, fronted,

no lip rounding.

In a New York accent,

lot, hot, not, God.

Here's a New York speaker.

Not. Not. Not.

It's going to be a little bit lip rounded in a

Boston accent so more like lot, God.

Here's a Boston speaker.

Not. Not. Not.

Not.

Not.

Not.

Not.

So here's a phrase you could ask somebody

to say, that's not a lot of pots.

If they say it with an ah, that's not a lot of pots,

they're probably from New York.

That's not a lot of pots. That's not a lot of pots.

If they say it with an aw, that's not a lot of pots.

That's Boston.

That's not a lot of pots. That's not a lot of pots.

That's not a lot of pots.

That's not a lot of pots.

That's not a lot of pots.

That's not a lot of pots.

Next up, New York City and Philadelphia.

So both New York City and Philadelphia raise

the trap vowel in certain circumstances

so you'll get ahr instead of ah.

They do it in different places. In a New York accent

you get trash and traffic, you also get sad and bad.

Here's a New York speaker.

Trash. Trash. Trash.

Where as in Philadelphia, those are not some of

those trap words that are gonna get raised.

We're going to get other ones like man and hand.

So you'll get something more open like my own

ah, traffic, trash, sad, bad.

Here's a Philadelphia speaker on similar words

with a different sound.

Traffic. Traffic. Traffic.

So if you want a quick cocktail party test

you could have somebody say trash or traffic.

Trash. Trash.

Traffic. Traffic.

Trash.

Traffic.

Trash.

Traffic.

That's it for accent party tricks, I'm Erik Singer.