Types of English accents: how to tell 14 of them apart
Short answer: there's no fixed number of English accents. Every country, region and city has its own, and so does nearly every first language that people bring to English. Most people mean a few big families: North American (General American, Southern, New York, Canadian), British and Irish (RP, London, Northern English, Scottish, Welsh, Irish), the Southern Hemisphere (Australian, New Zealand, South African) and the Englishes of countries like India. Below are 14 of them, with the three sounds that give each one away.
14 English accents and their tells
| Accent | Where you hear it | Three tells | Test yourself |
|---|---|---|---|
| General American | most of the US; American film and TV | R said after vowels (car, hard) · T between vowels softens to a quick D (water → "wadder") · cot and caught often sound the same | American accent test |
| Southern American | the US South, from Texas to the Carolinas | I flattens toward "ah" (ride → "rahd") · pin and pen sound alike · vowels stretch into two parts: the drawl | accent test |
| New York | New York City and around | R often dropped after vowels (car → "cah") · a tall "aw" in coffee and talk · the A in bad differs from the A in bat | accent test |
| Canadian | Canada | about and house start higher, close to "uh-boat" (not "aboot") · cot and caught merge · sorry with a long O: "sore-ee" | Canadian accent test |
| RP (Received Pronunciation) | southern England; the BBC, period dramas | no R after vowels · a long "ah" in bath, dance, can't · a rounded O in hot | British accent test |
| London and Estuary, including Cockney | London and the South East | T swallowed in the throat (bottle → "bo'le") · in Cockney, TH becomes F or V (think → "fink") · L before a consonant or at the end of a word turns vowel-like (milk → "miwk") | British accent test |
| Northern English | Manchester, Yorkshire, Liverpool, Newcastle | a short A in bath and grass · cup rhymes with put · long, flat vowels in face and goat in many areas | accent test |
| Scottish | Scotland | R pronounced, traditionally as a light tap · loch with a throaty CH · pull and pool sound the same | Scottish accent test |
| Welsh | Wales | a sing-song rise and fall · a tapped R · consonants between vowels held a little longer | accent test |
| Irish | Ireland | R pronounced · TH often a soft T or D (three → "tree") · a musical, lilting intonation | Irish accent test |
| Australian | Australia | no R after vowels · day sounds close to "die" to American ears · statements can rise at the end | Australian accent test |
| New Zealand | New Zealand | the I in fish moves toward "uh" (fish and chips → "fush and chups") · yes sounds like "yis" · ear and air often merge | accent test |
| South African | South Africa | no R after vowels · the I in bit or this can sound like "uh" · a long "ah" in bath, as in RP | accent test |
| Indian English | India and the Indian diaspora | T and D made with the tongue curled back · V and W often sound alike · an even, syllable-by-syllable rhythm | Indian accent test |
These are tendencies, not rules. Accents vary by city, age and social group, and plenty of speakers mix features.
Types of British accents
The UK alone has dozens of accents, often changing within an hour's drive. Besides RP, Estuary and Cockney, the best known are Scouse (Liverpool), Geordie (Newcastle), Mancunian (Manchester), Brummie (Birmingham), Yorkshire, West Country (the South West, one of the few English accents that keeps the R after vowels), Welsh, Scottish and Northern Irish. To learn the standard southern one, see how to do a British accent.
Curious which accent people hear in your English? Take the free accent test
15 secAccent vs dialect: what's the difference?
An accent is how you pronounce words. A dialect is the whole package: pronunciation plus vocabulary and grammar.
| Accent | Dialect | |
|---|---|---|
| What it covers | sounds, rhythm, melody | sounds plus words and grammar |
| Example | car without the R, in London or Sydney | y'all in the American South; wee for "small" in Scotland; I'm after eating for "I've just eaten" in Ireland |
| Can you change it on purpose? | yes, with practice | yes, but it's a bigger job |
That's why a Scottish newsreader can speak perfectly standard English with a clearly Scottish accent: standard dialect, regional accent.
Does everyone have an accent?
Yes. "No accent" really means "an accent my listeners are used to". General American and RP feel neutral because they dominate broadcasting and textbooks, not because they're accent-free.
People who learned English as a second language have a foreign accent too, shaped by the sounds of their first language. That's why a Spanish speaker might say "e-speak" and a German speaker "vorld". These are some of the easiest accents to identify, and our accent test recognizes more than 120 of them from a single phrase.
Which English accent should you learn?
If you're learning English, pick the accent you hear around you every day, at work, in your city or in the media you watch. General American is the most widespread in film, TV and online; British RP is the standard in many British textbooks. Both are equally "correct". What matters far more is being easy to understand, and that comes from a few key sounds plus word stress, not from copying one accent perfectly.
Guides in this section
Pronunciation
- 60 hard words to pronounce: silent letters, the -ough trap, TH, R and L, with IPA and a printable PDF.
- 45 commonly mispronounced words: everyday words everyone gets wrong, from espresso to Illinois.
- Minimal pairs: 96 word pairs like ship and sheep to train one sound at a time.
- How to pronounce tricky words: 33 words, one page each, with audio, IPA and the American and British versions, from gyro and Nguyen to Worcestershire and either.
Learn an accent
- How to do a British accent: the seven changes that make it believable, plus a practice script.
- American accent training: the eight sounds of General American and a 4-week plan, with New York and Southern tips.
- How to do a Scottish accent, an Irish accent and an Australian accent: seven sounds and a script for each.
Change your accent
- Accent reduction: classes, a coach or an app: what each option costs, how it works, and what to fix first for your language.
From the blog
- The Transatlantic accent: Hollywood's learned accent, and how to do it.
- British vs American English: words, spelling and sounds.
- The TH sound: the sound that gives away more learners than any other.
Prefer something structured? The Accent Reduction Challenge in the Vocal Image app takes you through every English sound, and the Mastering American Accent book covers American pronunciation step by step.
What accent do people hear when you speak?
Read one short phrase — AI names your accent and the sounds that give it away. Free, no sign-up.
FAQ
There is no fixed number. Linguists describe dozens of distinct accents and hundreds of local ones: in Britain alone, accents can change noticeably within a short distance. Most lists group them into families such as American, British, Irish, Australian, New Zealand, South African and Indian English.
Sources
- Wells J. C. — Accents of English. Cambridge University Press, 1982: the standard reference on the accents in the table
- IDEA — International Dialects of English Archive: free recordings of English accents from around the world
- Wikipedia — List of dialects of English
- Wikipedia — Accent (sociolinguistics): accent vs dialect
All articles
