Today, we're going to talk about some American accents that you might have heard in movies or TV shows.

And I'm going to show you some wicked good slang that's used in different parts of the USA.

And for sure, I'm going to teach you how you can speak with some of these regional accents as well.

Ready for some fun? Let's do it.

Now, you know, we got to start with the accent from the greatest city on earth, New York, the Big Apple.

Now, there are a few myths about the New York accent. And the biggest one is that such a thing even exists because different ethnic communities have all developed their own versions of the New

York accent. But there are a few things that almost every New York accent has in common.

And number one is the dropped R. So it's not car, bar, far. It's caw, baw, faw.

The R sound at the end of the word is dropped.

Number two is the hard TH sound. So if a word starts or ends with a TH sound, we're going to turn that into a dental D or T. So the becomes the.

What? You never been to the Bronx? Think becomes think. Use your head, think.

Truth becomes true. You can't handle the truth.

And number three is that we're going to change the aw sound in words like walk and talk to aw. Walk, talk. Don't you walk away when I'm talking to you.

Those are the biggest changes, but I'll put some useful links below if you're interested in learning more. Let's move on to accent number two.

Now, hold on, hold on. Y'all coming down to the south now. And I tell you what, we speak a little different down here. Yes, sir. Now, let me guess. You thought that everybody down south speaks real slow, right? Well, bless your heart, because that's a bunch of bulsh.

I mean, that's hogwash. Because right now I'm speaking with a southern twang accent, which isn't slow at all. It's also a little bit nasal and has what we call a rhotic R.

In other words, I'm going to pronounce these words car, bar and farm.

And you could hear that R sound on the end, right? On the other hand, for someone who speaks with a traditional southern drawl, that would be car, bar and far, non-rhotic. And yes, as you can hear, the drawl is typically a bit slower. Besides that, there are two big characteristics of both the southern twang and the southern drawl. And number one is the pin-pin merger.

So for southern accents, the vowel sounds ih and eh are pronounced the same way. So this word is pin, but this word is also pin. This word is bin, but this word is also bin. This is mint, and this is mint. I meant to call you about Ben's pin. The second point is the ih shift.

So in standard English, there's what we call a diphthong in words like my, nice and night.

Can you hear how that I sound is actually two sounds pushed together? I, my, night.

Well, for a southern accent, we cut off that second sound, which gives us my, nice, night.

My, it's a nice night for watching a YouTube video. And don't forget that if you want to learn English with me, you can also join me on Hero Hero for one month, totally free. You'll get access to all my advanced videos and learning materials, and you can also join my weekly live stream where I answer all your questions about learning English. Check the link below for more info, and I hope to see you there. Okay, folks, it's time to pack up the car and head north again, because we are talking about the Boston accent. Now, the Boston accent is notorious for being hard to do, and plenty of movie stars have simply butchered it. So what is it that makes a Boston accent so distinctive? Let's talk about the three biggest elements.

Number one is that the Boston accent is definitely non-rhotic. We're going to drop those final R's. Car, bar, far. Number two is that the ah sound in words like car and yard shifts to ah.

So we have car, yard. I parked my car in Harvard Yard. And number three is the intrusive R.

So the Boston accent not only drops R sounds, it also adds them. If a word ends with a vowel, and the following word begins with a vowel, we add an extra R sound in between those two.

See if you can hear it. Pizza and pasta are my favorite foods. Pizza and pasta.

And if you really want to sound like a native, don't forget to throw in some classic Boston slang.

Our last stop on today's accent tour is the golden state, California. And again, there's a bunch of different Cali accents, but the way I'm talking right now is what we might call a NorCal accent. And as you can hear, it's fairly close to a neutral American accent, but there are some subtle differences. So let's talk about them. Number one is that California accents in general are famous for vocal fry, which is the sound your voice makes when you kind of let it sit in your throat. Can you hear how my voice is a little bit grainy right now? That's vocal fry, and you can hear it all over California. Number two is uptalk. And that's when a speaker ends a statement with a rising tone. Yeah, I lived in San Jose for two years, but it wasn't the right fit. My voice is rising at the ends of both those statements, but I'm not asking a question. That's uptalk.

And number three is what's called the California vowel shift. And this one is tricky because it's a slight adjustment to the pronunciation of a handful of vowel sounds, as you can see in this chart. I'll give you a few examples. I'll do a standard pronunciation and then the California version. Caught, caught. Rude, rude. Time, time. Book, book. It's a small shift, but it's there.

And again, if you want to learn more, check out the description box below. And finally,

California is famous for its colorful slang. Although, as you might imagine, it's more common to hear young people say things like, dude, these tacos are bomb.

And that brings our tour to a close. I hope you feel like you learned something. And if you enjoyed this video, please leave a comment and hit that like button. It really means a lot.

Thanks so much. I'll see you soon.