Hearing your own accent on TV

[Deleted]

Hello.

I've always wondered this, but I was just reminded of it. I'm Scottish and I live in Edinburgh, for anyone that it might concern. When I hear Scottish accents on TV or film I always feel uncomfortable and the sound is odd to me. I'm Scottish and yet I think, 'Oh, he/she is Scottish. It sounds odd.' I hear it as if I'm anything but Scottish, and they sound way more Scottish than how I think I sound. However when I hear English or most American accents and I don't notice them. It sounds normal. And when I hear my own voice, I rarely notice that I sound Scottish. Is this commonplace? Do Englishmen hearing English people talking on TV feel the same thing? Do Americans find this? I expect Americans to pick up on accents that other Americans that live in different states have, but if you hear your own accent on TV, is it odd?

Maybe it's just because Scottish people are rarely on TV in Britain. ;P

[Spectral]

I pretty much don't notice when people have the "generic American" accent on TV. I think, from what I understand, that most Americans underestimate the extent of their own regional dialect and tend to hear a flat American accent as sounding like their own. It's also quite easy for decent actors to convincingly impersonate Americans; I didn't know Hugh Laurie wasn't American until I saw an interview with him and did a double take.

[Reeve]

I'm from California, so the most typical TV accent is my accent. I grew up with it, so it doesn't sound odd to me at all.

---------- Post added 2012-12-27 at 02:43 PM ----------

I pretty much don't notice when people have the "generic American" accent on TV. I think, from what I understand, that most Americans underestimate the extent of their own regional dialect and tend to hear a flat American accent as sounding like their own. It's also quite easy for decent actors to convincingly impersonate Americans; I didn't know Hugh Laurie wasn't American until I saw an interview with him and did a double take.

I found Hugh Laurie initially on Jeeves and Wooster, where he plays a wealthy Englishman with his own personal butler. It was unendingly weird for me to hear him speak with an American accent. It just sounds wrong on him.

[Deleted]

Just another point here. This guy doing a Scottish Accent, he sounds way more Scottish to me than I think I sound. It's beginning to annoy me for some reason.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mALkCGVA2BU

[Deleted]

I rarely hear Belgians speaking English on tv, the only time I hear it is when Herman Van Rompuy is on tv.
Belgians sound strange but funny and understandable(unlike some the French ) when speaking English. Its probably because we always use subtitles

[Deleted]

I just had to wrack my brains trying to think if I'd even heard any Welsh accents in movies - it's not exactly considered a popular (or attractive) accent. Last one I can think of is Rhys Ifans playing Spike in Notting Hill and it does sound a little bit odd to me but mostly because it's just so incredibly rare for someone to want to put a Welsh accent into a movie I think.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=soV3lwzZeYU

[Sierra85]

i hate hearing australians on tv trying to be "real true blue" aussies. they sound terrible.

[Kerath]

No, not really. I have a very bland, generic, southern English accent, so it's quite normal to hear it on TV shows.

[Lagwin]

Hello.

I've always wondered this, but I was just reminded of it. I'm Scottish and I live in Edinburgh, for anyone that it might concern. When I hear Scottish accents on TV or film I always feel uncomfortable and the sound is odd to me. I'm Scottish and yet I think, 'Oh, he/she is Scottish. It sounds odd.' I hear it as if I'm anything but Scottish, and they sound way more Scottish than how I think I sound. However when I hear English or most American accents and I don't notice them. It sounds normal. And when I hear my own voice, I rarely notice that I sound Scottish. Is this commonplace? Do Englishmen hearing English people talking on TV feel the same thing? Do Americans find this? I expect Americans to pick up on accents that other Americans that live in different states have, but if you hear your own accent on TV, is it odd?

Maybe it's just because Scottish people are rarely on TV in Britain. ;P

Scotland varies in degrees of accent, north has the heaviest sounding ones, Aberdeen is quite bad, the east side is relatively accented and the west i would say is nearer normal...though i stay in the west of Scotland, anytime i've been on vent it's instantly picked up that i'm Scottish though i wouldn't say i have an accent or use a lot of slang other than excessive use of the word fucking.

[Deleted]

Most Scottish accents on TV and in films are terrible exaggerated stereotypes. People rolling r's so much they sound like a pirate. Murrrrderrrr. You probably sound Scottish to someone not from Scotland, or even not from your region in Scotland. I often think of Glaswegians as having incredibly thick Scottish accents; but you just as easily get thick accents in Aberdeenshire, where I'm from, but since I'm used to hearing that accent, I don't have difficulty with it and just associate it as 'Normal'.

[Reeve]

I just had to wrack my brains trying to think if I'd even heard any Welsh accents in movies - it's not exactly considered a popular (or attractive) accent. Last one I can think of is Rhys Ifans playing Spike in Notting Hill and it does sound a little bit odd to me but mostly because it's just so incredibly rare for someone to want to put a Welsh accent into a movie I think.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=soV3lwzZeYU

Isn't Torchwood set in Cardiff? Then there's "The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill and Came Down a Mountain."

---------- Post added 2012-12-27 at 02:55 PM ----------

Scotland varies in degrees of accent, north has the heaviest sounding ones, Aberdeen is quite bad, the east side is relatively accented and the west i would say is nearer normal...though i stay in the west of Scotland, anytime i've been on vent it's instantly picked up that i'm Scottish though i wouldn't say i have an accent or use a lot of slang other than excessive use of the word fucking.

I found most people in Scotland to have very nice sounding easily understandable accents, except the cab driver who took me to the airport in Glasgow, who was completely unintelligible. I have to wonder what part of Scotland he was from.

[Kerath]

I found Hugh Laurie initially on Jeeves and Wooster, where he plays a wealthy Englishman with his own personal butler. It was unendingly weird for me to hear him speak with an American accent. It just sounds wrong on him.

Yeah, I'm far too used to Hugh Laurie playing some idiot toff, watching him as a hard-nosed, cynical, American doctor was very strange at first!

[Reeve]

Yeah, I'm far too used to Hugh Laurie playing some idiot toff, watching him as a hard-nosed, cynical, American doctor was very strange at first!

Yeah, idiot toff is a much better description of Wooster for sure.

[Deleted]

Most Scottish accents on TV and in films are terrible exaggerated stereotypes. People rolling r's so much they sound like a pirate. Murrrrderrrr. You probably sound Scottish to someone not from Scotland, or even not from your region in Scotland. I often think of Glaswegians as having incredibly thick Scottish accents; but you just as easily get thick accents in Aberdeenshire, where I'm from, but since I'm used to hearing that accent, I don't have difficulty with it and just associate it as 'Normal'.

When it's just a guy doing his own voice, like on comedy panel shows like Would I Lie To You were there is this one scottish comedian that's on it sometimes, he sounds so incredibly Scottish to me. Logically though, I should find the english voices odd and the Scottish one normal, but it's the other way around.

[Usagi Senshi]

Accents don't bother me as its easy to understand all English speaking weirdos around the world.

<---Yank that runs an Aus/NZ guild with a couple Brits mixed in.

Yeah.....

[Deleted]

When it's just a guy doing his own voice, like on comedy panel shows like Would I Lie To You were there is this one scottish comedian that's on it sometimes, he sounds so incredibly Scottish to me. Logically though, I should find the english voices odd and the Scottish one normal, but it's the other way around.

It's likely the juxtaposition of having a panel filled with English people, and having one Scottish person, so you hear all the English talking similarly, then the one Scottish bloke comes in and his different-ness is amplified by the lack of other Scots abouts. Could be talking completely bollocks like.

[Kerath]

Yeah, idiot toff is a much better description of Wooster for sure.

Not to mention his roles in Blackadder http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_%28Blackadder%29

[Reeve]

Not to mention his roles in Blackadder http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_%28Blackadder%29

Is Blackadder as worthwhile as Jeeves and Wooster?

[Deleted]

Just thought that I'd link this. Now this is my Brother, so obviously he's going to sound the same as me. Just a random video, but it shows the voice. Does this sound Scottish to you? And I guess, if anyone else is Scottish, does it sound weird to you?

[Kerath]

Is Blackadder as worthwhile as Jeeves and Wooster?

Definitely.
My favourite series are Blackadder II and Blackadder goes Forth (set in Elizabethan England and the trenches in WWI respecitvely).