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Q&A How to describe accents?

Simply telling, e.g. he said with a heavy Gujarati accent would be my solution, but you say that isn't enough for you. Which is fair. What is the most characteristic aspect of the accent you...

posted 5y ago by Galastel‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

Answer
#4: Attribution notice removed by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-12T21:57:40Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/47274
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T12:41:52Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/47274
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision by (deleted user) · 2019-12-08T12:41:52Z (almost 5 years ago)
Simply telling, e.g.

> he said with a heavy Gujarati accent

would be my solution, but you say that isn't enough for you. Which is fair.

**What is the most characteristic aspect of the accent you wish to describe?** What would stand out most, and make it most recognisable? Is it the way a certain vowel is pronounced? Or some consonant? Is it that particular words are pronounced differently? I would focus your description on the element that stands out most.

For example, if I were describing the speech of a man from rural Andalusia, I might write

> "The event will commence" - he pronounced it 'commenthe' - "at ..."

Or I might just describe:

> His 'S's and 'Z's were all soft 'Th's, making it hard for me to follow what he said.

Of a woman from France, I might write

> Her English was impeccable, except that her 'N's had a slight nasal quality.

In addition to accent, it might be that a person from one place would use particular words more often than a person from another place. Such distinctions are more related to dialect than to accent, but they too offer a way to convey the location flavour you're looking for.

**What I would avoid is spelling out the accent phonetically** (see also tvtropes [Funetik Aksent](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FunetikAksent)). Unless done very sparingly, it is distracting, and it can be particularly hard to read for English-as-Second-Language speakers, who are, according to [this](https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/11/which-countries-are-best-at-english-as-a-second-language-4d24c8c8-6cf6-4067-a753-4c82b4bc865b/) source, ~70% of all English speakers. Do take a look at the tvtropes link however for some examples of phonetic accent done well (and some examples of it being done badly).

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2019-08-12T13:40:28Z (about 5 years ago)
Original score: 8