What is American English?

American English is the variant of Shakespeare’s language that we read and hear almost every day. It is the type of English that is usually best known to us because it is present in television series, movies, advertisements, magazines … It is part of our daily life.
And what are the characteristics of American English ? Well, although the United States is a relatively recent country in terms of world history, American English evolved as a result of colonization and as it separated from its origins (British English).
The best thing to learn is to live a total immersion experience.
We often say that American English is simpler than other variants, for the simple reason that it is part of our daily lives. In fact, who hasn’t heard of Ernest Hemingway , CNN, or The New York Times ?
Through American novels, movies, series, and telecommunications networks, you can not only learn English, but also venture into the ins and outs of American culture.
Little by little you will realize that British and American English differ in small details, especially in terms of spelling and vocabulary: “color” (US) vs. « Color» (BR), «theater» (US) vs. «Theater» (BR), «sweater» vs. «Jumper» (BR). Over the years, American English has developed its own identity and has become unmarked from other variants.
After all, be that as it may, English is and will continue to be an extremely spoken language in the world, so mastering it will be great for you to understand the world around you even better.

Variants of American English: What is American English?

Even within the same country there are very different accents and different vocabulary is used. Thus, in the United States we can know from which part of the country a person is from the accent they have, since the accents of the north and south, east and west are clearly differentiated.
Therefore, the variants of American English can be divided into five large groups.

The southern accent: What is American English?

This way of speaking extends to the states that are located in the southeastern area of ​​the United States, from Florida to Texas and includes, roughly, the states of Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee, Alabama Mississippi, Arkansas, Louisiana and Texas .
The southern dialect is characterized by lengthening the word in , making it sound like ” iiun “, by using y’all instead of you (plural), or by pronouncing the letter “r” more forcefully as in sir. In some words, when there is an interdental letter (such as d) between two vowels, they fail to position the tongue between the teeth, so the / d / sound ends up transforming into another vowel, as in madam , which would be pronounced / meiam /.

The Great Lakes accent: What is American English?

It is also known as the interior accent, as it spans parts of the interior of the United States. It includes the states of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, Iowa, West Virginia, and Missouri.
Do you know the Great Lakes area? Photo: kmaland.
A very characteristic accent since it radically changes the sound of some vowels. Thus, the sound / a / is replaced by the diphthong that sounds similar to / ia /. Thus we have that cat (cat) is pronounced / quei-at /.
The “o” is pronounced / a /. So pop becomes / pap /. The ‘i’ becomes / u /, which results in kid being pronounced / kud /.
The change in vowel sounds may seem like a mess on the surface, but the ear gets used to it fast.

The Boston accent

It is called the Boston accent but it extends beyond the borders of this city, since it is spoken throughout the state to which this city belongs, Massachusetts, as well as the New England region, which includes the states of Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Vermont and Maine (and also Massachusetts), and also includes the state of New York.
The most characteristic thing about the speakers of this area is that you do not pronounce the final “r” of the words ending in -ar. Thus, instead of park , yard or car, we will hear / pahk /, / yahk / or / cah /.
In some words the letter “o” is pronounced / ah /, as in / Bahston / (Boston).
The New York accent
In this case we refer to the accent of New York City, which is located in the state of New York. As we just mentioned, this area has a Boston accent, but New Yorkers have a particular accent nonetheless.
The / o / sound is slightly modified and sounds more like / aw /. So we will hear / cawfee / or / dawg / instead of coffee or dog .
And they also do it the other way around. The / a / sound becomes / o /. For example, the word talk is pronounced / tok / but New Yorkers will open the vowel wider when pronouncing it.

The Canadian accent

When we talk about American accents we tend to think and refer solely and exclusively to the accent of the United States, but we must not forget that there is also another English-speaking country on the continent. This country is, as you know, Canada, which has its own accent.
Canadian flag.
The main characteristic of the Canadian accent is that they pronounce the diphthong -ou as / u /. Thus, you will hear that words like around or about are pronounced / arund / and / abut /.
Similarly, the accent varies depending on the area of ​​Canada, just as it varied in the different states of the United States.
Newfoundland accent is spoken in the northeast of the country , whose pronunciation has many similarities with the pronunciation of the inhabitants of Scotland and Wales, since this area to the northeast was colonized by people from these regions of the United Kingdom.
Now that you know the various accents in English, what have you learned in school? What type of accent is your way of speaking English closest to?