Accent and pronunciation

Hi Jackson;

To me, pronunciation applies to a single word. It is the sounds, tones, and relative emphasis on certain parts (syllables) of the word when it is spoken.

An accent is a pattern of speaking a language that is characteristic of a group of people. e.g. He speaks with a southern accent.

Certainly pronunciation can change with accent. The British pronou

Thanks a lot, Alphecca.

But isn't then accent also about sounds? Or, does it also include vocabulary peculiar to a place? How would define 'accent' as compared to 'pronunciation'? I personally find American more straightforward than the English. Someone once told me that it could be really difficult to learn to speak in English accent but American is easy because it doesn't have that

Jackson6612 Someone once told me that it could be really difficult to learn to speak in English accent but American is easy because it doesn't have that arrogant feel to it.

There are a lot of very different accents in the UK. You can't really say what English sounds like if you don't specify the accent you are talking about.

The words "accent" and "d

I agree Kooyeen. My example was a gross oversimplification. Dialects are natural to all languages. Dialects are formed when a local community of speakers develops their own unique way of speaking a language. I lived in The Netherlands for a while - the natives could tell exactly what region or city a person was from by the way they spoke. The dialects in the British Isles are very distincti

What do you notice when you utter a single sound? Pronunciation, pitch and pitch contour. If you take any singing/voice lessons, they ask you to "humm" on various tunes. This aspect is accent; the position of articulators, etc is another one that is dealt in pronunciaton books.