Could you distinguish English accent when one sings?

Depends, singers tend to 'impersonate' or 'conform' to a certain accent whilst singing so it can be quite difficult, but there are some exceptions where the singers accent will come through.

To answer the question: Sometimes.

Yes, you will be able to make out the difference but again thats not easier , you need t listen carefully. You can see how it is when you do live chat as well i have experienced this while my <a href="http://www.englishbox.co.uk">English training course</a>.......

(GIBBER, DROOL)

This is a very interesting question; I've often remarked that people's accents tend to disappear when singing. When English people sing, on many occasions it tends to blur into a kind of wannabe American accent: God only knows why!

On the other hand, when I hear foreigners singing, they could on occasions easily fool me into thinking they're native speakers. I suspect this is because they're concentrating more on copying the sounds, phonemes of the song rather than actually thinking about the grammar etc.

I have a French friend who so strong an accent when speaking in English, we both agreed it would be easier to talk in French (it sounds harsh but his English is improving, slowly!). However, when I heard him singing 'Wonderwall', his accent sounded perfectly native - I had to ask him if he was really French!

I came across a singer lately called Arash. I believe he is of Iranian origin, but moved to Sweden when he was younger. In the song whose link I've posted below, he's singing in Russian - whereas he doesn't speak Russian at all, as you can see from the second link, which is of him being interviewed in Russian and needing an interpreter.

*EDIT: Actually, I can't find the second one, but you can get to it by typing Arash Interview into Youtube I think. Or you could just believe me that he doesn't speak Russian, that might be easier!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JO3FbWvgEM

Here are two renditions of the same song. As far as I can tell, the first one is with a US accent, and the second one is with some non-Rhotic accent:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bkDI0wDQfU&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epbCurj5XXo&NR=1&feature=fvwp

An example of bad US-wannabe British accent:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3scXNfqK0Yg

The Iranian-Swedish guy sings with an accent, have no doubt about it.

An awful lot of Americans sing non-rhotically in pop songs, despite being rhotic in interviews etc, i don't know if it's easier to sign without a hard R or not but it's quite prominent in Pop.

You are right RiverWear, even most Americans don't sing EXACTLY as I speak. When I myself sing I sing in a kind of American-British-Australian hybrid, although if I sing a song by somebody else I often just imitate their accent.

Since the popularity of blues-based pop alot of pop has been sung in a mix of Southern and GenAm accent. Prior to that it sounded more like a RP-GenAm blend to me.

Caspian Wed Nov 04, 2009 12:52 pm GMT
This is a very interesting question; I've often remarked that people's accents tend to disappear when singing. When English people sing, on many occasions it tends to blur into a kind of wannabe American accent: God only knows why!

On the other hand, when I hear foreigners singing, they could on occasions easily fool me into thinking they're native speakers. I suspect this is because they're concentrating more on copying the sounds, phonemes of the song rather than actually thinking about the grammar etc.

I have a French friend who so strong an accent when speaking in English, we both agreed it would be easier to talk in French (it sounds harsh but his English is improving, slowly!). However, when I heard him singing 'Wonderwall', his accent sounded perfectly native - I had to ask him if he was really French!

I came across a singer lately called Arash. I believe he is of Iranian origin, but moved to Sweden when he was younger. In the song whose link I've posted below, he's singing in Russian - whereas he doesn't speak Russian at all, as you can see from the second link, which is of him being interviewed in Russian and needing an interpreter.

*EDIT: Actually, I can't find the second one, but you can get to it by typing Arash Interview into Youtube I think. Or you could just believe me that he doesn't speak Russian, that might be easier!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JO3FbWvgEM
====================

That is interesting!
Me have the same feeling when it comes to singing in Chinese!
I can hardly distinguish singers from Taiwan from mainland ones when they do singing!

But when these Taiwanese singers speak in interviews, their (affectedly) sweetie, girlie hence ugly accent is immediately noticeable to anyone!

I sang something in English once, and had someone (from London) guess whether I was British or not. They thought I was, and I didn't even try to put on a British accent. I'm American, btw. But i I sang a popular music song rather than choral music, it might be easier to tell.

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