The British Accent
The Great British accent proved to be the most difficult of all the accents to imitate – along with the regional Yorkshire and Cockney pronunciations, in particular.
Nevertheless, RP remains the national standard and has traditionally been considered by many to be the most prestigious accent of British English.
Option 1: the American accent
The most popular English accent of them all. Spread around the world by American cinema, music, television and more than 350 million North Americans (including Canadians, eh), this is the easiest accent for most people to understand, whether native speakers or non-native speakers.
Some people believe that RP (Received Pronunciation) is the most standard or general accent in British English. Many EFL (English as a Foreign Language) schools teach it because it is supposed to be the most “polished” pronunciation. It is typically referred to as “Queen's English” or “BBC English”.
People from Newcastle speak a dialect called Geordie, which is one of the strongest and most distinctive accents in England.
British. More than half of respondents (52%) said they like the British accent, a greater percentage than for any other dialect. The British accent in general was the favorite across those who identified as men and women, and was also ranked among the sexiest and most trustworthy.
Irish. The Voquent community has spoken! And this time around, the Irish accent has come out on top with more than half the votes as the world's sexiest accent.
Accordingly, we asked people what the most and least pleasant accent to listen to is. Overwhelmingly, people like the Southern accent best, followed by British and Australian accents. Southern accents tend to be thought of as friendly and welcoming, while British and Australian accents are more exotic.
Geordie. As the oldest English dialect still spoken, Geordie normally refers to both the people and dialect of Newcastle-Upon-Tyne in Northeast England.
Anyone who has heard the Queen's speeches will recognise her distinctive British accent. This is RP – 'Received Pronunciation'.
Today, this means that there are three types of Australian accent. Some people speak with a “general” accent, which is more or less the way it has been for centuries. Other people speak with an accent that is closer to RP English. The third group of people have a “broad” Australian accent.
The Mainstream Australian Accent is a distinct accent produced by native English speakers in Australia. It's a tough accent to replicate, even for actors in Hollywood.
The standard British accent is something called received pronunciation, or RP. Geographically, people who speak with this accent live in the southeastern part of England. This is traditionally a “posh” part of England, so this accent is considered to be upper/middle class.
And Swedish accents are thought to be the most “intelligent” and “trustworthy” (24 percent and 15 percent, respectively).
According to Americans, the place in the US with the strongest accent is Boston, with 23% of people choosing this response. Another 16% say the Southern coast has the strongest regional accent, while New York and Texas were tied, with 13% saying these states had the strongest accents.
Let's face it, most of us are suckers for a sexy accent. According to a recent survey conducted by the popular dating website MissTravel.com, over 2000 American men and women regard Australian accents as one of the sexiest in the world.
The British accent was voted the absolute hottest on earth, coming top in countries as far-flung as Sweden, China, India and the USA. A British brogue was particularly desirable in Asia, with South Korea and Malaysia also finding UK accents too hot to handle.
The New Zealand accent has been rated the sexiest in the world, and that's sweet as bro! With almost 7000 languages in the world and even more varieties of accents and tones, the Kiwi accent came out on top in an extensive poll conducted by Big 7 Travel in April.
The 'Brummie' accent is considered to be the ugliest accent in the British Isles, according to a new poll from YouGov. The UK and Ireland has a massive range of accents for such small islands - we have the same amount of dialects as the whole of North America- including Canada, Bermuda and Native American dialects.
Australian English can be described as a new dialect that developed as a result of contact between people who spoke different, mutually intelligible, varieties of English. The very early form of Australian English would have been first spoken by the children of the colonists born into the early colony in Sydney.
If you find the British accent difficult to understand, it's likely you'll find the Aussie accent even harder to grasp as, for the most part, Australia is a melting pot of all the different regional dialects of British English.