Can you fake accents?

[Asthaloth]

(not even french, which I studied for 7 years! ).

To be fair I studied French for five years and the only thing I can say is; Bonjour, Jemappelle Philip (Wildly mispelling it in the process, obviously)

[shapu]

My french consists of "Bon jour, je suis le grande fromage. Où est la salle de bains, s'il-vous-plaît?"

[Paul]

My french consists of "Bon jour, je suis le grande fromage. Où est la salle de bains, s'il-vous-plaît?"

Trés bon.

[shapu]

What'd you call me?

[Paul]

In a past life, you were squeezed out of vache mamelle.

[shapu]

Believe it or not, I *do* know that one.

[Paul]

I was just testing.

[Medusa]

Where I used to work I would get asked where I was from (obviously I didn't sound Australian enough). After spending some time living with American exchange students I've picked up some of the American tweaks. I can also 'fake' various accents but I usually can't keep them up for very long and then I start slipping in and out of different accents.

[Cassi]

I can't fake an accent to save my life. I quite often have people asking me to do an English accent (after they do their appalling American accent -- don't believe Brits who say they can do American accents, kids, chances are they can't!) and I just refuse. It's that bad.

I can't even control my accent, which is a pain. All I can do to sound more/less American is choose my words more carefully...

[Kugetsu]

Um... I don't really fake them, but sometimes, when I'm talking, apparently some (and probably badly done, I would imagine) accents slip out and people point them out sometimes. I've never really heard them myself, though. If I were to try to do one, I wouldn't be able to do it, and it wouldn't sound anything like it (it would be bad, even for a badly done fake accent).

I am sort of interested what would be an "American" accent, since there are so many differences between Southern (even the differences between the generic "Southern" accents), Boston, Chicago, Californian, New York(...ian? xD), etc accents, that it seems odd to have one that's called "American". From my experience, I live in Illinois, and there are people with Southern accents, the Chicago accent (obviously), some accents that I can't even really describe, and, well, what I would like to call a "lack of an accent", but obviously that's not true.

Or are all of those, collectively, considered American accent?

[Mongrel]

I am sort of interested what would be an "American" accent, since there are so many differences between Southern (even the differences between the generic "Southern" accents), Boston, Chicago, Californian, New York(...ian? xD), etc accents, that it seems odd to have one that's called "American".

Well, there's sort of a general "American" accent that you hear in movies and on television, the one you hear as "American" and don't categorize it beyond that. You can pick out more specific accents, but if you imagine the generalized sound without the little signs of more specific locations, that's probably what an "American" accent is supposed to be.
I imagine it's no different from England, where there is one general "English accent" that people(particularly the uninitiated like me) hear, but many many different accents within that area.

[Cassi]

I am sort of interested what would be an "American" accent, since there are so many differences between Southern (even the differences between the generic "Southern" accents), Boston, Chicago, Californian, New York(...ian? xD), etc accents, that it seems odd to have one that's called "American". From my experience, I live in Illinois, and there are people with Southern accents, the Chicago accent (obviously), some accents that I can't even really describe, and, well, what I would like to call a "lack of an accent", but obviously that's not true.

Or are all of those, collectively, considered American accent?

When faking an American accent, when I can tell what they're going for (I often can't), it usually seems to be either a generic Southern or a New York. But yea, I often can't tell what the hell they're trying to do...I suppose there's that kinda "generic" American accent which you get on a lot of tv shows, and that's probably what they're trying to imitate if they aren't going for a more specific one.

...I have no idea if any of that made sense.

(Moongewl says it slightly better than me, and also makes a good point with the whole generic "English" accent thing, too.)

[Anoohilator]

The two words I can say with a Scottish accent are 'I'm SCOTTISH'

Same, but I can also say "LAMBORGHINI"!

[Helena]

I can do a passably rubbish American (don't even ask what type, I don't know), a pretty good cockney, and a kind of English-countryside girl accent. The cockney slips out sometimes because my mum grew up in East London / Hackney (if ya didn't know, that's where cockney started) and because that's just the way people talk round here... (in the North West London XD) and the country accent comes from my other relatives living around Colchester & Cornwall.

But... Some people say my American is good. And... I reply that they have hearing problems. Also, a lot of imitations of English accents aren't much good. Some people forget we do not say mall = shopping centre or something, (can't even SAY that word ), sidewalk = pavement, yard = garden, oh yeah... we don't have Target, Limeted Too or 7-Eleven or Sevemn-11, whateve it is.

[Asthaloth]

We have about a billion Starbucks in Nottingham though.

They say that the English accent is sexy (I find this hard to believe frankly) but if so that means my accent is.... Sexy^7!

(The accent of my home town is a mix of two others, plus my mothers influence (Glossop) my fathers influence( London somwhere + Army + Boarding school) And then influences from post move.
So Sexy^7.
Awesome.
(Even if every one of those accents is what basically amounts to hick)