Additional context:
Native speakers of my mother tongue do not all understand each other due to some pretty extreme dialects. Now that I’m in Europe, I’ve noticed multiple instances of people sometimes not understand the dialect of someone from a village 10-20 km away…
In contrast, for example most American, British, and Australian people can just… understand each other like that?? I never thought much about it before but it’s pretty incredible
Edit: thanks everyone, and clearly I didn’t think of certain parts of the UK when I was in the shower and thought of this…
Midwest is classic “broadcast English”. It’s considered an almost neutral accent without a strong sense of place associated with it.
A so-called “neutral accent” is still an accent.
I never really understood it until I met people from Iowa for the first time. They didn’t have an accent in the way that San Diego doesn’t have weather, just a climate.
“Broadcast English”
Interesting term
I’ve always noticed that In movies and TV shows, North American accents mostly sound “normal”. But when I talk to Americans/Canadians in person or online over voice chat, I cannot pinpoint the accents, it just sounds “American” to me.
I almost never hear the
etc.
kinds of exaggerated accents
everyone sounds like someone from CNN to me and then they say they’re from Arkansas or something
West coast people really hear a Midwest accent. I upvoted because it made me laugh.
Yeah lol I will agree that it’s less heavy of an accent, for the most part, but most people can still tell unless you literally talk like a news anchor. Same with West Coast accents tbh.
I thought that was the Mid-Atlantic Accent?
Not for about 80 years…
Never really. Mid-Atlantic was taught in elocution lessons but didn’t really exist outside film and theatre.
Oh I actually thought the comment I replied to replied to your comment about broadcast English xD
I thought it was native to wealthy families from Jersey/Virginia/Maryland. People that grew up in Martha’s vineyard.
Only if they copied the movies. Stewie in the Family Guy speaks in a Mid-Atlantic accent which is why he pronounces his H’s etc.
I’ve always preferred calling it “trans-atlantic” to avoid confusion with that “Mid-Atlantic Region” of the US which is on the East Coast roughly from New Jersey down to Virginia, maybe even the very northern Coastal parts of North Carolina. Some people include New York/NYC but I can’t agree. Ok, maybe parts of New York bordering Pennsylvania.