What city is the best for learning English?

Travis   Wed Jan 30, 2008 8:42 pm GMT
The matter is that California English was originally not cot-caught merged, and only acquired cot-caught-merging later on. However, though, there is little left today of the original English dialects spoken in California, at least from what I have gathered.
Milton   Fri Feb 01, 2008 2:07 pm GMT
''Remember the field study I did? I found one native California speaker--born and raised in Sacramento--who retained the cot/caught merger.''

I bet s/he retained Wales-whales opposition. ;)
Remember that Sactown is the capital city of CA, so you may hear many American accents there...Maybe her parents were born on the East coast, so it influenced her/his accent.
But, those people sound off to other people (Cot Caught unmerged accents can be heard on local tv channels in California and Nevada, but those newscasters were born on the East Coast, and they continue(d) using their unmerged accent. But, it does sound a bit old-fashioned. It's easily spotted as ''BackEast''.
Milton   Fri Feb 01, 2008 2:11 pm GMT
Cities for learning English:

San Francisco, California
Long Beach, California
San Diego, California
Reno, Nevada
Seattle, Washington
Columbus, Ohio
Erie, Pennsylvania
Austin, Texas
Jasper   Sun Feb 03, 2008 8:14 pm GMT
Milton, being a Reno resident, I'd have to beg to disagree.

Reno has its own mini-dialect, featured by a lot of dipthongization of certain vowels; you might want to check out the "chewing-gum" thread.

My vote is San Francisco, or Sacramento, CA. It's one of the few places that retains the cot/caught merger, and doesn't dipthongization the aforementioned vowels.

Southern California has its own dialect. Have you ever heard of the California Vowel Shift? It's most pronounced in S. Cal.
Guest   Mon Feb 04, 2008 12:10 am GMT
I am not so sure that I would put Austin, TX on the list either. Have you ever seen Richard Linklater's "Slacker"? Linklater used mostly locals (primarily from the University) for the characters. Granted, many of the actors were probably from other parts of Texas or different states entirely, but I remember hearing distinct Southern Midland features in most of the dialects.

I don't know enough about Erie's dialect to draw a conclusion, but I would imagine it has more in common with the dialects found in Pittsburgh as opposed to the ones found in Cleveland.
Milton   Mon Feb 04, 2008 1:41 am GMT
''Milton, being a Reno resident, I'd have to beg to disagree.

Reno has its own mini-dialect, featured by a lot of dipthongization of certain vowels; you might want to check out the "chewing-gum" thread. ''


Well, most female newscasters on KRNV ( http://www.krnv.com/ ) have the Californian accent (cot caught merged with the Californian vowel shift). And all young people they interview sound Californian too.
Milton   Mon Feb 04, 2008 1:43 am GMT
''My vote is San Francisco, or Sacramento, CA. It's one of the few places that retains the cot/caught merger''

Only older speakers (60.y.o and older) resist the cot/caught merger in San Francisco.
Milton   Mon Feb 04, 2008 1:48 am GMT
Penny Eckert has done research on San Francisco Bay (Northern California) California vowel shift:

http://www.stanford.edu/~eckert/vowels.html


PS
CVS is way rad ;)
Jasper   Mon Feb 04, 2008 7:29 am GMT
<<Only older speakers (60.y.o and older) resist the cot/caught merger in San Francisco.>>

Dunno, Milton; the only SF-native speaker whom I found retains the cot/caught merger, and is 37 or 38 years old. She has no trace of the CVS, but my understanding is that CVS is only 25 or 30 years old. (I need more subjects!)

It's probably most accurate to assert that the cot/caught merger exists in SF, but is disappearing...

Thanks for the link. :-)
Jasper   Mon Feb 04, 2008 7:34 am GMT
Milton, what a well-researched link! It describes the CVS very well.

By the way, I agree with you that the CVS is very pleasant to hear.
David   Tue Feb 05, 2008 4:54 pm GMT
I recommend:

Denver, Colorado
Seattle, Washington
Indianapolis, Indiana
Phoenix, AZ
Lincoln, NB

What about South Florida? maybe the accent is too varied?

States to avoid:
Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, most of Texas, South and North Carolina, Tennessee, Arkansas,as has already been mentioned, avoid basically all the Southern states. Also avoid the extreme NE.

Like others said, stick with a place in the Midwest/West.

Also, any major city in Canada would be good.
Travis   Tue Feb 05, 2008 5:08 pm GMT
>>States to avoid:
Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, most of Texas, South and North Carolina, Tennessee, Arkansas,as has already been mentioned, avoid basically all the Southern states. Also avoid the extreme NE.

Like others said, stick with a place in the Midwest/West.<<

Obviously you haven't been to the Upper Midwest...

Really - we don't speak GA or anything nearly as close as that spoken in the West here overall.
Jasper   Tue Feb 05, 2008 5:27 pm GMT
I second Travis's post.

The Midwest is out, except for perhaps Nebraska or Iowa.
Guest2   Tue Feb 05, 2008 6:35 pm GMT
Nebraska or Iowa?

I thought that these states are in the Midlands dialect region. Same for most of Illinois and Indiana. (One doesn't have to travel too far south of Chicago to hear the difference.)
Jasper   Tue Feb 05, 2008 7:18 pm GMT
Guest, despite the fact that I did some interesting field work on dialects, I have to confess that I've had little experience with speakers from NE and IA.

I'm just going by what the pros tell us about those two states. (Much of what we know about ANYTHING comes from the knowledge of other people) They're supposed to be the closest thing you can find to General American English. Those dialects are supposed to be absent any trace of NVS, with little vowel-raising and dipthongization of certain vowels.

On a related note: In my field work, the only speaker I found that fit all the criteria of General American English, was a 37-year-old speaker from a small town between Sacramento and SanFrancisco, CO. Younger Californians have adopted the California Vowel Shift, which disqualifies them.