American accents: Key differences to Australian, English, South African
Usually it’s us Aussies copping flak over the way we pronounce certain words, but in this video, an American took centre stage.
When it comes to accents, it doesn’t take long for foreigners to mock the way Aussies pronounce certain words.
We are commonly known for raising our voice at the end of a sentence with an emphasis on the last word – like asking a question, even if we’re not.
Or in some cases, not even finishing the word at all. For example, instead of saying “beer”, some of us just drop the “r” altogether and pronounce it as “biii”.
While our style continues to baffle many – including an American woman who created a 10-minute YouTube video titled, “Weird Australian habits I never realised I had” – another video has emerged, this time making fun of their take on certain words.
Well-known YouTuber “Korean Billy” invited four people from different countries – “American Jon”, “British Sam”, “Australian Walter” and “South African Chantelle” – to have a go at pronouncing 10 different words with the clip attracting half a million views.
RELATED: How are Aussie accents really formed?
But there was one word in particular that caused a bit of drama – “Zebra”.
“This is my word guys, my word,” South African Chantelle yelled with excitement.
“I always used to have fights about this, it’s a ‘SEYbruh’,” she demanded before repeating it again.
UK Jon and Aussie Walter also pronounced it similarly, but with more of an emphasis on the ‘Z’, however when American Jon had a stab, South African Chantelle held her ears in agony.
“Oh it hurts my ears,” she said after Jon pronounced it as “ZEEbruh”.
“Of course you say ‘ZRbruh’ because you have ‘zed’, but we don’t have ‘zed’, we have ‘zee’, so it’s ‘ZEEbruh’,” American Jon explained.
Chantelle then responded by saying, “You don’t have real zebras either, so you have to say it like we say it!” she again demanded.
“I don’t think that’s how it works,” he responded.
RELATED: American lists the ‘bizarre’ things that confuse her about Australia
It wasn’t the only word that caused the others to have a dig. The way he said “aunt”, pronouncing it as “aent”, also got some good laughs.
“So many ants in my backyard,” British Sam said, to which Jon responded, “yeah, it’s the same pronunciation”.
It didn’t end there, American Jon copped it some more, even admitting he was “going to be alone again” with the way he was about to say “vase”.
The moment he pronounced it as “veis” the others looked stunned before Korean Billy said it sounded “very nasal”.
The others then shared their version, with UK Sam and Aussie Walter both pronouncing it similarly.
But of course us Aussies have more of a drag, ie “vaaz”.
“Australians say it similar to the UK because Australia and South Africa, we learn the same style of English, so were always going to be against … not against, but like different to America,” Aussie Walter explained.
But American Jon wasn’t having any of that.
“You know it’s not that I’m different. I’m unique,” he said, before Walter said, “No, you’re different”
The one word us Aussies do agree on with the Americans, to an extent, is “vitamin”.
Except we replace the “t”, for a “d”.
“Stronger together,” American Jon joked as he fist bumped Walter.
The others found our version odd.
The word “pasta” had all three participants turn on British Sam.
“PAAstuh,” American Jon said, adding “the reason I feel this is correct is because of what he’s about to say,” turning to British Sam, who then said “PAstuh”.
South African Chantelle was gobsmacked.
“It hurts me when I hear that because to me, the British pronunciation is so like regal feeling but ‘PAStuh’ sounds like you’re spitting it out,” American Jon said.
British Sam just sat there and took it before saying, “I’m just not from the posh area so I say ‘PAHstuh’.”
The last word had everyone divert their attention back onto American Jon was “daughter”.
“So in this case it’s gonna be ‘DAAter’,” he said.
A stunned British Sam erupted in laughter before telling American Jon how it should be said, like “Dootuh”.
He agreed, saying “I like that one”.
The video has attracted thousands of comments, mainly from Americans not happy with Jon being picked on.
“English speakers mock American pronunciation for 11 minutes straight,” one YouTube user wrote.
“It honestly annoys me so much when people are rude to Americans because of the way they pronounce things, we can’t help it. It’s not like I chose this accent,” another frustrated user said.
“At least American English is consistent. We use the hard ‘r’ no matter where it is placed in the word. Everyone else only uses the hard ‘r’ in the middle of the word,” another said, adding, “Take a word like ‘proper’ for instance. Funny how the ‘proper’ English speakers break their own rules within the same word lol.”
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