Australian English vs. American English: Part One- Accent Differences
In this video, I brought in my friend Chantle from Newcastle, Australia, for an interview to discuss the differences between Australian English pronunciation and American English pronunciation. We go over word lists and specific differences in the vowel sounds, and talk a little bit about the American English IPA symbols.
After that, I have Chantle read some of the longest words in the English language, some of which I can't even pronounce! She then reads the classic tongue twister, Betty Botter, and I try to imitate her Australian accent (very poorly). I end this portion of the interview with Chantle reading a short English passage. In part 2, we will discuss Australian slang, so be sure to check back for that!
Interview Transcript:
Monica (00:00):
People poorly imitating Australian accents. That's the sound. They'll really hit. They'll be like "bike"
Chantle (00:05): Bike.
Monica (00:06): "Start" vs.
Chantle (00:08): "Start"
Monica (00:10): "Start"
Chantle (00:10):
"Betty Botter bought some butter, but she said the butter's bitter."
Monica (00:14):
(fake Australian accent) "Betty Botter bought some-- Betty"-- I can't do it.
Chantle (00:17):
(fake British accent) "Butter! Butter Governor!"
Monica (00:23):
(fake British accent) "Betty Botter bought some butter."
Monica (00:33):
Hi friends. I'm here today to talk to you about the difference between American English pronunciation and Australian English. And so I have a friend here to help me do that. Would you introduce yourself, please?
Chantle (00:43):
Hello. So my name's Chantle and I'm from Newcastle, Australia, which is on the East coast. But I'm currently living in France.
Monica (00:53):
And compared to some of the stronger accents in Australia, how would you say the Newcastle accent is?
Chantle (01:00):
I guess there are two, two to three, main like accents, I guess, you could say in Australia most -- I mean, Australia's a big country -- and so most of the population is like in the coastal area. And so that differs. That, I guess is a lot more like, I would guess like UK English, but in the country towns and, yeah, in the smaller country towns and in the more rural areas they speak a lot more "Bogan." I guess, which is a lot, a lot of slang words and I guess mispronounced words and shortened version of correct English words. So I, yeah. But in terms of like -- I don't think Australia has so many different accents compared to a lot of other countries.
Monica (01:41):
What do you, what do you do for work?
Chantle (01:44):
So right now I live in France and I work at the infectious disease research center. So I do-- I study like the molecular, molecular pathogenesis of Ebola Zaire. Yeah, so I'm just here in France as a research scientist for the last two years.
Monica (02:03):
Cool. So are you fluent in French?
Chantle (02:06):
No. No, no. I never learned a language before coming to France. And so I'm not, my mind isn't geared for language learning and like, I guess because you're an English teacher, like I'm not familiar with all the -- it's just very much hard. It's hard for somebody who hasn't learned a language before to actually -- or is not like an English teacher -- to actually, I think, learn a language. I've really struggled and I'm not particularly fluent at all. I can get by, but I can read a lot more than I can speak or understand. The accent, I can't. They shorten the words and they don't speak correctly as if you'd learn it. Like when you do online courses or you go to-- for an English teaching-- I mean if you go to a French-speaking class it's just not really how you would speak every day living in France. So it doesn't help a whole lot and I've had a lot of trouble getting good French tuition, I guess. So I'm really struggling to use it.
Monica (03:04):
Yeah, that's, that's kind of what I wanted to focus on with my lessons is like casual everyday spoken English. Right? As opposed to like, "How are you today? I am fine, thank you." Which is what so many ESL students learn in their classes. They learn this really hyper-formal English. And when you get into like even --
Chantle (03:26):
The situation or -- yeah, like it's just not how they speak and it's, it's -- they say one word different and I'm lost. I'm totally lost. It, like, yeah. Like if it's not in that exact structure that I learned, I just, I can't cope and I don't know what they're talking about.
Monica (03:39):
Exactly. Yeah, so here I have a list of words and so I wanted to go just through some lists just to kind of establish a baseline of some of the accent differences. And I tried to find the IPA specific to the Australian pronunciation and I couldn't find it. I was like looking for a dictionary. And then of course there's British ones, but the pronunciation's even different from British English. So I'm going to have to do a little more research on that later and see if I can find anything. But, so for now, I just, I have the the IPA for American English up. So just disregard that and just let's go through this list how you normally would. So yeah, let me just hear it. First.
Chantle (04:18):
"cat" "ten" "sit" "dog" "father" "cup"
Monica (04:23):
So between "dog" and "father," are those different vowels for you? That 'o' and that 'a' there?
Chantle (04:30): Yes.
Monica (04:31):
Can I hear it one more time?
Chantle (04:33): So "dog" "father"
Monica (04:37):
Yeah. So what happened in American English is in some dialects, these are different sounds, but it's -- what's happened was like a merger of the sounds, basically. So for me, those are exactly the same: "dog" and "father" /ɑː / /ɑː / short 'o.'
Chantle (04:51): Oh, okay.
Monica (04:53):
Yeah. Which is why I added them both on there. And so there might even be -- you know, the term short vowel is actually a misnomer because this little symbol here with the two triangles means it's actually a longer sound. So /ɑː / is a longer sound than /ɪ/. Right? But that's just kind of how we teach kids when we teach them. Yeah. So there's not too much difference in a lot of these. Something that I talk about and something I do when I'm learning accents is talking about resonance. So American English resonance is in the middle of the mouth. Most of our sounds kind of exists there, so it's very, /æ/ 'ha' "cat" "ten." Whereas the Australian resonance is a little bit different. I don't know if you know anything about that. Like when you when you speak, where do you feel kind of like the most vibration?
Chantle (05:37): Tip of the tongue.
Monica (05:43): Yeah.
Chantle (05:44):
Whereas in France it's more in the back of the throat. So --
Monica (05:47):
Yeah. Yeah. And, and my Russian students I think have it a lot down here. My Korean students are kind of a tighter jaw. And so that's one of finer points of accent work that a lot of teachers don't go into is that resonance. So, yeah, for American English, it's in the middle of mouth. I've heard Australia English be -- as described as slightly more nasal than American, but I've also heard that it like pulls back more a-- tighter jaw, but it makes sense that you say tip of the tongue because that's how usually British English is taught, is that the resonance is at the tip. And so there's, there's some similarities and I think definitely some Australian dialects are more nasally than others, I would imagine. Cool. So yeah, let's check out these long vowels, which again, they're not necessarily a long sound, but that's what we call them.
Monica (06:40):
Sorry to interrupt this video, but if you like this lesson, please hit the like button and subscribe to my channel and hit the bell, so you get told as soon as I release a new video. Subscribers, like you help me make more videos like this so you can keep practicing your English.
Chantle (06:59):
"cake" "see" "bike" "bone" "tube" "cube"
Monica (07:05):
Yeah. So yeah, let's look at "cake." Let me hear "cake" one more time.
Chantle (07:09): "cake"
Monica (07:10):
Yeah, so you have a little more of a diphthong than me. So for me it's "cake" /eɪ/ /eɪ/. Let me hear yours again.
Chantle (07:17): "cake"
Monica (07:18):
"cake" So yeah, it has that dip. Cool. Let me hear the second one.
Chantle (07:24): "see"
Monica (07:25):
"see" Yeah. Even that has a little bit of it. For me, it's more of a straight sound. "See" versus "see", right?
Chantle (07:31):
Yeah. Bogan Australian coming into play.
Monica (07:39):
Yeah. I, I haven't worked on my Australian accent very much, so it's not-- it's not perfect. Yeah. How about that long 'i'?
Chantle (07:46): "bike"
Monica (07:47):
Yeah, so that's, that's one of the bigger ones. And I think people with a stronger Australian accent or people poorly imitating Australian accents, that's the sound they'll really hit. They'll be like "bike." Right?
Chantle (07:58):
Well, I've lost some of my accent living in France for two years, so I'm probably not the best Australian at the moment.
Monica (08:06): Yeah.
Chantle (08:07): "bike"
Monica (08:09):
"bike" Cool. How about "bone"?
Chantle (08:12): "bone"
Monica (08:13):
Yeah. And that has it too. "bone" versus "bone." And then this one's interesting the-- this long 'u' there's two different sounds in the the American English. So you, you had that 'y': "tube," "cube" on both of these and we only have it on "cube." And so for a word like "tube" or "Tuesday," "news," these are some of the words that my students that originally learned British English, struggle with in American English, where they don't have a British accent at all. But these are the things that kind of like, hang on a little bit. So they say "Tuesday," "tube," "news." That seems, seems the same in Australian, right?
Chantle (08:56): Yeah.
Monica (08:56):
Like how would you say? "Tuesday"
Chantle (08:59): "Tuesday"
Monica (09:00):
"Tuesday." Cool. Yeah. So that-- this symbol here, I don't know why in the IPA, the the sound for 'y' is actually a 'j' symbol in the IPA. So that's, that's the difference there is /uː/ "oo" versus /juː/ "yoo." "Tube" /tuːb/ versus "cube" /kjuːb/ for American English. Cool. So these are, these are the vowels that we don't have specific names for most of them, so I've just put them under "other vowels." So let me hear it. Let me hear these words.
Chantle (09:31):
"book" "food" "cow" "boy" "banana" "the"
Monica (09:35):
So there's a lot of similarities here. "Book" sounds about the same to me as, as the American accent. Let
me hear that one more time.
Monica (09:44): "book"
Monica (09:44):
"book" Yeah. So it's that sound down in the throat? How about "food"?
Chantle (09:50): Food.
Monica (09:51):
Food? Yeah. So that's almost-- I talk about sometimes with the resonance change, even though the pronunciation of the specific sound doesn't change that much, where you place the sound in your mouth kind of changes it, right? So American resonance would be middle: /uː/"oo" "food", right? Versus pushing it forward. More: "food" "food."
Chantle (10:12):
Yeah. I'm pushing it forward. Tip of the tongue.
Monica (10:17):
"cow" I definitely heard more of a difference there. So let me hear that again.
Chantle (10:21): "cow"
Monica (10:22):
"cow" Yeah. So that has more of a dip than, than the American English. How about "boy"?
Chantle (10:28): "boy"
Monica (10:28):
"boy" That's very similar. And "banana"?
Chantle (10:33): "banana"
Monica (10:34):
"ba-- banana" Yeah. So your short 'a' here-- American English, we have this kind of nasally /æ/ sound banana, which is like the bane of my students' existence. Like: /æ/. So the symbol is the same as a short 'a' just like "cat" /kæt/ but the sound is really quite different in the general American-- "banana" Yeah. And so these little upside down 'e's here are the schwa: /ə/. And so those sound basically the same in Australian English and American English. It's just the unstressed /ə/ "the." Cool. Now the fun part r- controlled vowels. These are where we're going to see some of the biggest differences.
Chantle (11:20):
"bird" "teacher" "door" "ear" "bear" "berry" "pure"
Monica (11:26):
Yeah. Yeah. So the one that stood out the most to me was definitely "bear." So can I hear that again?
Chantle (11:33): "bear"
Monica (11:33):
"bear" Yeah. So you don't even-- this is another tough one. All of these 'r' sounds are really, really tough for non native speakers to get to that /ɚ/. Right? So I always teach my students-- it's like at the end you have to get to that 'r' for the American accent, right? "bear" /ɚ/ But in that way an Australian accent might actually be easier for some non-native speakers because they could just go "bear". And then they don't have to go to that 'r' /ɚ/ sound. Yeah. So let me hear "bird" again.
Chantle (12:06): "bird"
Monica (12:06):
"bird" 'bir' Yeah, it's almost like the difference is so slight. It's almost kinda like hard to put my finger on
what it actually is. Yeah. So let me hear "teacher."
Chantle (12:18): "teacher"
Monica (12:19):
"teacher" Yeah. So, 'uh.' So you don't, you don't ever really come to that final 'r' sound, right?
Chantle (12:25):
No, I mean some, yeah, I guess more it's British to say "teacher," but we just-- "teacher" is how we say it in Australia. So I guess that's more of our Bogan way of speaking compared to the English. But yeah, like I would just say, I would say "teacher."
Monica (12:40):
"teacher" Yeah. Cool. All right, let's go to this list now.
Chantle (12:46):
Okay. "little" "girl" "water" "squirrel" "rural" "roof" "comfortable" "mischievous" "clearly"
Monica (12:55):
Interesting. Okay. So "little" has what we call a 'flap t.' So when it kind of sounds like a soft 'd,' sound "little." So it's interesting that you-- you do the 'flap t' for "little," same as American English, but not for "water." We do it for "water." And it sounds like a 'd', but you had "little" and "water," right? With a 't'-- more of a pronounced 't' sound?
Chantle (13:18): 'water'.
Monica (13:21):
Does that feel-- does that sound weird to you, to do the flap 't' there?
Chantle (13:25):
It does a little, yeah, like "water" "water. Yeah. I mean, we say it both ways. I kind of-- I think when I-- I'd
say it differently depending on the day, either "water" or "water."
Monica (13:35):
Yeah. We have that a lot. With any 'nt' words like "internet," "painting." We'll drop the 't ,' or sometimes
it'll come back "painting" "internet." How do you say those words?
Chantle (13:48): "painting" "internet"
Monica (13:49):
So you keep the 't.'.
Chantle (13:51): Yeah.
Monica (13:52):
Interesting. Yeah, "comfortable" sounded pretty much the same, which was surprising. Some people will say "comfortable," but that is just a mouthful. And then, fun fact about-- I recently learned this word over 50% of the population (by one of the sources I looked at), pronounces it "mischievous." But that's actually a mispronunciation. I used to pronounce it that way too. So we think that the 'i' is here because so many words end with 'i-o-u-s." But it's actually "mischievous" is like the correct pronunciation.
Chantle (14:28): *overlapping speech*
Monica (14:35):
I did! My whole life I said "mischievous." And then I read this thing and it's like: actually it's
"mischievous." And I was like, oh, my whole-- my whole life is blown up.
Chantle (14:43): [laughing]
Chantle (14:44): [explosion sound]
Monica (14:48):
"I was today years old when I learned..." Cool. All right. This next one... Sorry.
Chantle (14:58): Oh, what?!
Monica (14:59): Just for fun!
Chantle (15:02):
"incomprehensibilities" "antidisestablishmentarianism" What the hell is this one? "sesqui..." "sesqui..." Now, hold on cause that's not French. So I can't go... [several attempts to say "sesquipedalianism"] Oh my God... "pneumo..." "pneumonoul... tram... micross..." Is this a word?
Monica (15:35):
These are real-- these real English words. So I googled "the longest words in the English language."
Chantle (15:41):
"pneumonoul... tram... micross..." "micross-cuss..."
Monica (15:42): "microscopic... sili..."
Chantle (15:46):
So that, okay, that's a "microscopic... sil... volcano... conosius..." Nah!
Monica (15:52):
I can't help you there. I just thought it would be funny.
Chantle (15:57):
What does that mean?
Monica (15:59):
I'ts some sort of a lung disorder that comes from inhaling something specific. It's like a medical... scientific... thing.
Chantle (16:05):
I should know how to say that, then.
Monica (16:08):
I know! I thought maybe!
Chantle (16:08):
I couldn't get "microscopic" when it was separated on two words like this-- on two lines. I've got no
hope.
Monica (16:17):
And then this second one, have you-- had you not heard this one before?
Chantle (16:21): No.
Monica (16:22):
I had a friend growing up and she would be like, "the longest word in the English language is 'antidisestablishmentarianism.'" And I don't know if it was on a TV show or where she got that from, but it was like a thing, in America at least. And it turns out that's not the longest word in English, but it's, it's up there.
Chantle (16:39):
What's this third one? "ses..." How do you say that?
Monica (16:44):
"sesquipedalianism..." Possibly, I don't know.
Chantle (16:47):
Okay. Nah. Wouldn't have said that.
Monica (16:50):
Here we have one of my favorite tongue twisters. I've already done a video on this for American English, but I would like to hear how it sounds in (an) Australian dialect.
Chantle (16:58):
"Betty Botter." "Betty Botter bought some butter, but she said the butter's bitter. If I put it in my batter,
I will make my batter bitter. But a bit of better butter will make my batter better."
Monica (17:14):
No, it's good. Yeah. So, so it's a good-- so you don't do the flap 't's there. So when I say it, it's: "Betty Botter bought some butter." So all of those 't's changed to 'd' sounds in the general American accent. So, so let me, let me try to do the Australian accent. So let me hear, just like the first line of that.
Chantle (17:31):
"Betty botter bought some... butter."
Monica (17:37):
Okay. So... (Fake Australian accent) "Betty Botter bought some-- Betty..." I can't do it.
Chantle (17:55):
(fake British accent) "Butter. Butter governor!"
Monica (17:55):
(fake British accent) "Betty Botter bought some butter" Yeah. Yeah. My Australia's really rough. So let
me try one word at a time. So do the-- Betty.
Chantle (18:02):
Sure. "Betty Botter bought some---" Sorry. "Betty Botter bought some butter."
Monica (18:09):
"Betty Botter bought some butter."
Chantle (18:14): "Butter."
Monica (18:16):
"Butter" Abysmal. Abysmal. Yes. I apologize.
Chantle (18:21):
Reading time: "The other day I went down to the store and bought a few things that I needed. When I got finished, I went back to my car, but it wouldn't start. I had to call my friend to come give me a jump start, but unfortunately it still wouldn't start, so I had to call a tow truck. When I got to the mechanic, he told me the transmission blew. Fixing it was going to cost more than the car. I guess it was time for a new car anyway.
Monica (18:49):
Cool. Thanks. Yeah, so, it sounds like the rhythm of Australian English sounds closer to American English to me than maybe the rhythm of British English. Just like the way that it flowed when you read it. And so the differences aren't that vast. It's, it's pretty subtle in some of the sounds. Can I hear the word "transmission"?
Chantle (19:13): "transmission"
Monica (19:14):
"transmission" Yeah. So I think that's back to like the resonance, like a lot of the sounds aren't particularly different, but there's just a slightly different placement in the mouth. How about the word "start"?
Chantle (19:26): "start"
Monica (19:27):
"start" Yeah. So that's the one that we lose that that very crunchy 'r' in the general American "start" versus...
Chantle (19:37): "start"
Ready to perfect the American accent and learn to be more fluent in English? Contact Monica to find out more about online English lessons!
