My dad grew up in the Bronx but didn’t have a thick accent. His parents were from Brooklyn. I remember my grandfather calling my sister Linder instead of Linda. And most words ending in an “a” were replaced with an “r.”
There are absolutely differences. We can typically tell the differences from the Bronx, to Queens, to Brooklyn, to Long Island... We know the people from our neighborhoods by dialect.
Just a few thoughts on NY accents. I grew up on the border of Queens and Brooklyn, sounding a little like a cross between Jackie Gleason and Christopher Walken. Not having lived there for more than 30 years, I still say "bawl", "cawl", "cawfey," "beetsa", and "bee-uh". Like most natives, we would drop the final R's and sometimes pronounce initial R's a little like V's: "I veally love you." My father would actually say "boids" as in "feed the boids." Although there are tendencies from borough to borough, I think one's ethnic background is at least as influential as the particular borough they grew up in. Many obvious NY speech "cliches" are known to the world via Hollywood, but what is much harder to fake is the musicality of regional accents. Traditional New York speech is the opposite of monotone and highly expressive of attitude, based on regular inflections of tone, rhythm and dynamic emphasis. It's hard to fake and nothing makes me groan more than a phony NY accent.
Anyone from NY will tell you there is a distinct difference between each of the five boroughs, as well as Nassau and Suffolk. Btw she was doing a mix of Staten Island and queens.
No wonder my late mother could not understand our upstairs neighbors who were from Brooklyn! 😊 And that was after we moved from Flushing to Richmond Hill in 1964.
She's very good, but being a native New Yorker myself I'd like to point out one error that she makes that's very common for people trying to have a real New York accent: We DO pronounce the "R" in the middle of words. For example, we never say PEH-son, we say person. We only omit Rs at the end of words. The exception to this rule is if the word ending in R is followed by a word that starts with a vowel. Otherwise, great job!
Indeed, a New Yorker is very possibly going to say the R in PERSON, but it's not because it's in the middle of a word instead of at the end of a word. A New Yorker would likely drop the R in a word like MORBID or CHARMING, which are also in the middle of the word, in a similar position to the R in PERSON. The R in PERSON is more likely to be there for many people from NYC because the R in words like NURSE is the first R to "come back on" for most New Yorkers.
I grew up in the NYC Metro area and spent LOTS of time in the Bronx and Brooklyn and Queens. And I had a very thick NYC accent. Guess I never paid attention, but never heard a difference in the different boroughs. The only thing I ever heard different was the classic Brooklyn pronunciation of words like "joint" as "jernt" or "point" as "pernt" and a word like "earth" as "oith".
The first example sounds like she’s from Boston. p.s. my family has deep roots in the Bronx. There’s a Vyse Avenue named after our family that runs to the Bronx Zoo. There’s also a park called Vidalia that’s named after our family and another family.
That's a Staten Island accent she was doing. I know this because growing up in Bensonhurst Brooklyn we noticed the difference of dialect between us and the people over the Verrazano Bridge. It's like it was almost Brooklyn but they went further with sounds like "Coffee" or "talk". The Brookyn girls used to make fun of them and say " we wa just havin sum cawfee tawk" lol. It's not just white people who sounded like that either. Once you get into a certain neighborhood it slowly molds your personal sound. I had some Black friends who if you talked on the phone with them you would think they were white. Same goes for White people in Bedstuy, they didn't sound white. New York was great because it was such a melting pot. Today its mainly out of towners who claim to be New Yorkers but we can usually tell they're not once they talk.
I am from Brooklyn too, but have lived in Staten Island for about 15 years now. The Staten Island accent is way more nasal and they elongate some of their vowels almost like how Bostonians do. I can tell the difference between who has lived in SI all their life, and who hasn't. lol
Queens here. It sounded more like Jenny from the Block (Bronx). Brooklyn is Leah Remini. There are RUclips videos of JLo and Leah together. Perfect examples of Bronx and Brooklyn.
I have tried to at least soften my NYC accent. I've always thought that I now have a neutral accent, but recently I have been disavowed of that. Especially when I get around other New Yorkers. Anyway, the word that tends to give me away is "here". I'll pronounce it as "heah" pretty often. You can hear (or heah) it in the video when the actress says it. More is another word. I've also said to folks that, in my opinion, the NYC accent is 80% attitude. The teacher keys on that at the end of the video. I've met many people from the Mid West etc., who told me that they always felt intimidated by "aggressive" New Yorkers's speech. Not the case in reality. Guess we feel that we need to be speak UP to be heard!
The first one sounds like Boston 😂😂😂 damn Brooklynn Accents also vary with race If you sound like a 1930s straight talk mobster 9 times out of 10 your a YT guy (Italian/jew) alot of ethnic groups that came here later in the 70s/80s maintained their homeland accents while speaking the english language and the African American accent, totally different
And, of course, there’s more than one African-American accent. We’ll check with a former student to request permission to share on this channel a video in which she describes how she had to turn to a certain very Caucasian midwesterner (who teaches our annual Accents Class) to learn a very specific African-American accent she repeatedly is asked for when auditioning for films.
With so many transplants moving in and the older generations moving out, you hardly even come across anyone under 45 or so that talks like this anyway. Its pretty much dying if not dead already. Also, Ive never heard any non-white person talk with either accent in my life. You can also thank improvements in education as well.
My dad grew up in the Bronx but didn’t have a thick accent. His parents were from Brooklyn. I remember my grandfather calling my sister Linder instead of Linda. And most words ending in an “a” were replaced with an “r.”
There are absolutely differences. We can typically tell the differences from the Bronx, to Queens, to Brooklyn, to Long Island... We know the people from our neighborhoods by dialect.
That’s amazing!
I just wanted to hear a quick comparison...
Got a whole lesson😭
Each year we teach an entire 4-week Accents course.
Me too
@@TheAccentsClassWonderfull! If I know anyone who wants to move into my old hometown of NYC I can reccomend you! 😊
Thank you so much!
Im watching this so i can internally narrate this spiderman fanfic im reading correctly.
50’s born Bronx here…
What are you talking about?
Actually your video is interesting and yes the accents are fading away.
Just a few thoughts on NY accents. I grew up on the border of Queens and Brooklyn, sounding a little like a cross between Jackie Gleason and Christopher Walken. Not having lived there for more than 30 years, I still say "bawl", "cawl", "cawfey," "beetsa", and "bee-uh". Like most natives, we would drop the final R's and sometimes pronounce initial R's a little like V's: "I veally love you." My father would actually say "boids" as in "feed the boids." Although there are tendencies from borough to borough, I think one's ethnic background is at least as influential as the particular borough they grew up in. Many obvious NY speech "cliches" are known to the world via Hollywood, but what is much harder to fake is the musicality of regional accents. Traditional New York speech is the opposite of monotone and highly expressive of attitude, based on regular inflections of tone, rhythm and dynamic emphasis. It's hard to fake and nothing makes me groan more than a phony NY accent.
It's amazing these places are so small and close together and have distinct accents.
Anyone from NY will tell you there is a distinct difference between each of the five boroughs, as well as Nassau and Suffolk.
Btw she was doing a mix of Staten Island and queens.
No wonder my late mother could not understand our upstairs neighbors who were from Brooklyn! 😊 And that was after we moved from Flushing to Richmond Hill in 1964.
She's very good, but being a native New Yorker myself I'd like to point out one error that she makes that's very common for people trying to have a real New York accent: We DO pronounce the "R" in the middle of words. For example, we never say PEH-son, we say person. We only omit Rs at the end of words. The exception to this rule is if the word ending in R is followed by a word that starts with a vowel. Otherwise, great job!
Indeed, a New Yorker is very possibly going to say the R in PERSON, but it's not because it's in the middle of a word instead of at the end of a word. A New Yorker would likely drop the R in a word like MORBID or CHARMING, which are also in the middle of the word, in a similar position to the R in PERSON. The R in PERSON is more likely to be there for many people from NYC because the R in words like NURSE is the first R to "come back on" for most New Yorkers.
@ it’s true, I do drop the R in charming and morbid. Thanks for the correction.
Actually I’m from the Bronx and there is definitely a difference in the way we sound. So he isn’t totally correct
I grew up in the NYC Metro area and spent LOTS of time in the Bronx and Brooklyn and Queens. And I had a very thick NYC accent. Guess I never paid attention, but never heard a difference in the different boroughs. The only thing I ever heard different was the classic Brooklyn pronunciation of words like "joint" as "jernt" or "point" as "pernt" and a word like "earth" as "oith".
The first example sounds like she’s from Boston. p.s. my family has deep roots in the Bronx. There’s a Vyse Avenue named after our family that runs to the Bronx Zoo. There’s also a park called Vidalia that’s named after our family and another family.
That's a Staten Island accent she was doing. I know this because growing up in Bensonhurst Brooklyn we noticed the difference of dialect between us and the people over the Verrazano Bridge. It's like it was almost Brooklyn but they went further with sounds like "Coffee" or "talk". The Brookyn girls used to make fun of them and say " we wa just havin sum cawfee tawk" lol. It's not just white people who sounded like that either. Once you get into a certain neighborhood it slowly molds your personal sound. I had some Black friends who if you talked on the phone with them you would think they were white. Same goes for White people in Bedstuy, they didn't sound white. New York was great because it was such a melting pot. Today its mainly out of towners who claim to be New Yorkers but we can usually tell they're not once they talk.
I am from Brooklyn too, but have lived in Staten Island for about 15 years now. The Staten Island accent is way more nasal and they elongate some of their vowels almost like how Bostonians do. I can tell the difference between who has lived in SI all their life, and who hasn't. lol
Queens here. It sounded more like Jenny from the Block (Bronx).
Brooklyn is Leah Remini. There are RUclips videos of JLo and Leah together. Perfect examples of Bronx and Brooklyn.
I have tried to at least soften my NYC accent. I've always thought that I now have a neutral accent, but recently I have been disavowed of that.
Especially when I get around other New Yorkers. Anyway, the word that tends to give me away is "here". I'll pronounce it as "heah" pretty often. You can hear (or heah) it in the video when the actress says it. More is another word.
I've also said to folks that, in my opinion, the NYC accent is 80% attitude. The teacher keys on that at the end of the video. I've met many people from the Mid West etc., who told me that they always felt intimidated by "aggressive" New Yorkers's speech. Not the case in reality. Guess we feel that we need to be speak UP to be heard!
was suprised to learn there is 9 dstinctive accents of nyc , includes even their central medias precised pronunciation american accent nyc variant
Brilliant. Now I see, why I (somewhat subconsciously) always tend to fall back to a kinda "queensish" accent... when I wanna intimidate someone 🤣
“Want” in Brooklynese is “Wo-ahnt”…. It two syllables. I’m from Brooklyn.
A little correction at 3:34- You are saying "what do you know about me", A Queens or even a general old school NYC'er would say "waddaaya noo boud me?
You have got me rapt, caught up listening, focused. Wow!
That first accent sounds like a Boston accent?
Hey idk if your going to see this but when will u have another opportunity to teach another accent class?
Yes. We teach it once per year. Next class will be taught during the month of April, 2023. Hope you’ll be joining us.
What about the nasally sounding accent like the receptionist from Ghostbusters or Marisa Tomei in My Cousin Vinny?
Definitely elements of the Bronx stereotype that we're talking about here!
I’m from Queens and I thought Marissa Tomei did a great job.
Then you've got Dennis Franz passing off his Chicago accent as a Noo Yawk accent on NYPD Blue.
Lol sounds like Christopher Walken.
And then there’s the Long Island (pronounced “Long Guy-lund”) and across the Hudson… Don’t get me started!!
Probably the thickest accent going in the NYC area! Whew! Fuhgeddaboutit!
Siento que la Brooklyn me quiere quitar la billetera XD
Like the accents from the movie Newsies
Long Island Lady
The first one sounds like Boston 😂😂😂 damn Brooklynn
Accents also vary with race
If you sound like a 1930s straight talk mobster 9 times out of 10 your a YT guy (Italian/jew)
alot of ethnic groups that came here later in the 70s/80s maintained their homeland accents while speaking the english language
and the African American accent, totally different
And, of course, there’s more than one African-American accent. We’ll check with a former student to request permission to share on this channel a video in which she describes how she had to turn to a certain very Caucasian midwesterner (who teaches our annual Accents Class) to learn a very specific African-American accent she repeatedly is asked for when auditioning for films.
With so many transplants moving in and the older generations moving out, you hardly even come across anyone under 45 or so that talks like this anyway. Its pretty much dying if not dead already. Also, Ive never heard any non-white person talk with either accent in my life. You can also thank improvements in education as well.