Dialect coach Erik Singer
Region: US
Thursday 17 July 2025 20:39:54 GMT
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fat girl cute dress :
Oh my god is THIS why I can pick out non-Americans doing American accents 100% of the time?? I knew it was something with the vowels but I could never quite track it down!!
2025-07-17 21:52:57
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theirreverentreader :
ohhhhh....is this why Brits get annoyed by the way we say Graham? Because they hear us saying gram, but we hear the gra-um variation?
2025-07-18 00:40:17
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KitKat :
WAIT. So this is why Brits say taco with that really nasal a? Also, why my Austrian grandma said salsa with that same a her whole life?
2025-07-18 05:14:13
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Ryan :
I feel like I owe you tuition now
2025-07-17 21:06:36
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corinne :
when teaching young children to read with synthetic phonics, we call this the "whiny a" sound. many British programs do not have this, so you can end up with little Americans reading with tiny British accents if you don't proactively teach it lol.
2025-07-18 11:20:14
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Connor :
Australian accents are a bit of a wildcard on this. It seems to vary regionally anyway, but at least in my own speech, I have this split, but far fewer sequences are in the ‘tram’ set. In my own speech it’s also a little inconsistent (not sure if this part applies to many Australians — I tested it on my mum who moved from a different part of the country, and our vowel sets were different). “can” as in ability often finds itself in the “trap” set when stressed, while “can” as in the container always finds itself in the “tram” set. And then “can’t” is impacted by the trap-bath split (which is incomplete in my dialect), so all three have different vowels for me
2025-07-22 02:40:47
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Sam :
I had a Canadian professor who pronounced my name with the “trap” A and it always sounded so slightly odd to me. I didn’t know this was why.
2025-07-17 20:53:55
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Lachlan :
Australians mostly have a trap/tram split
2025-07-27 10:32:49
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gullettky :
Couldn't get enough of the YouTube vids; stoked to have found your page here!
2025-07-18 03:23:51
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amber :
Ohhhhhh my gosh, this is why my first name (Amber… you may have noticed) sounds like that!! Because that æ never sounds right when a non-American says it 🥲
2025-07-19 20:28:44
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susieisabirdbrain :
I have a friend who baffled me because she pronounced Mary marry and merry differently and I pronounced them the same. We grew up in the DC area, but her family was from New York and Boston and mine was from Cleveland. That question showed up on that New York Times widget that asked you a bunch of questions to guess where you’re from. How does that apply here?
2025-07-18 02:27:51
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Ray Houston :
I absolutely LOVE language!
2025-07-21 09:36:39
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Caulchella2 :
As a North American it drives me nuts when some of us pronounce “hand” and “family” and things like that with the same ‘a’ sound as “lap” and “cab”
2025-07-17 22:45:49
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jasoninparis :
Love the shibboleth reference
2025-07-19 08:37:38
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sting rae :
Do the English vs American pronunciations of gram vs Graham have to do with this?
2025-07-17 20:57:08
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Turbo :
There's also down in the south where we say something like "sayund" for sand.
2025-07-18 00:56:00
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katelikesbees :
I actually think in at least my Australian accent, lap and land are pronounced differently too. Just a different kind of different to how Americans pronounce them, if that makes sense
2025-07-25 04:11:06
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Dashric🇳🇱 :
The way Americans say Amsterdam is like aymsterdaym
2025-07-24 17:02:09
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JR Hilt-ski :
As an elementary school teacher, this drives me crazy! Trying to teach kids to sound out “man” is so hard!
2025-07-18 01:16:54
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Jordan Kay :
In my accent those two sounds are separate phonemes. “Can” the verb and “can” the container are minimal pairs for me
2025-07-18 07:58:44
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Daniel :
Could you talk about Mary, marry, merry, and the differences between American and British pronunciations?
2025-07-18 04:07:30
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solomon_tsingmangel :
Pretty much
2025-07-19 02:55:31
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Felix Trench :
This was really helpful, thank you. As a British actor, I'd love to know why the sound in 'world/girl/early' is difficult for me in American. The most daunting word I commonly come across is 'earlier'.
2025-07-22 16:21:29
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alpensterben :
what about Australia?
2025-07-25 21:55:28
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John Daly :
I have a question: what academic field would this video fall within? Is it just phonology? would it be called comparative phonology or something as you are contrasting different accents?
2025-07-18 01:47:17
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