Learn all about the Transatlantic accent, as well as how to perfect a Mid-Atlantic accent to sound just like a Hollywood star

Short answer: the Transatlantic accent, also called the Mid-Atlantic accent, is a learned American accent with British-sounding features: no R after vowels, a crisp T, a softer "a" in words like dance and can't, and very careful consonants. Drama coaches and elite schools on the US East Coast taught it, and it was the voice of Hollywood films and radio from the 1920s to the 1950s. Almost nobody grew up speaking it: it had to be learned, which is why you can learn it too. The tips, a feature table and a practice script are below.

Remember the black and white classic movies your parents and grandparents used to enjoy back in the day? You know the ones, classics such as The Philadelphia Story and His Girl Friday? If so, you’ve probably noticed the actors speaking in an unusual way. This way of speaking is known as a Transatlantic accent—and it’s this very accent which we’ll be learning about today.

Transatlantic accents, also known as Mid-Atlantic accents, were amongst the most iconic accents of the early 20th century, yet today they’re largely consigned to the history books. Not entirely, though: actors still use the accent for period roles, and voice artists for an old-time radio sound.

Back during the golden age of entertainment, radio broadcasters and Hollywood actors would speak in an unmistakable manner. Not quite American, and not quite British to the ear, this unique style of elocution is synonymous with the golden age of Hollywood.

Keep reading to learn the history of the Transatlantic accent, what it is, and how to perfect it like so many stars and starlets from Tinseltown.

What is a Transatlantic Accent?

Sometimes known as a Mid-Atlantic accent, the Transatlantic accent came to prominence in the 20th century and was used primarily by actors and broadcasters. It was a very unique accent: basically an American accent with British features, so it sounded like neither one nor the other.

Even if you’ve never heard of the accent before, chances are you’ll be familiar with this way of talking. It was once the gold-standard of accents when it came to movies, theater, and radio presenting. Made famous by the likes of Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn, it’s easy to understand, yet unique at the same time.

Nowadays the accent is considered old-fashioned, yet at its peak it was the height of sophistication. Catchy and unmistakable, it was designed to help make people sound intelligent, educated, and affluent. It was very much a status symbol. Nowadays when people want to flaunt their wealth, they’ll post a photo of their watch or leased supercar on Instagram. Back in the 1930s, people would speak with a Transatlantic accent.

The accent was so popular in fact, that it was even taught at acting school, drama class, and US private schools. We say it was taught because that’s exactly what it was. It isn’t your typical accent. It was manufactured and people had to train themselves, or be trained, to speak in a certain way.

Transatlantic accent features at a glance

History and Origins of the Mid-Atlantic Accent

So, now that we know what a Transatlantic English accent is, it’s time for us to take a journey back in time to the early 20th century, to learn about the history and origins of the Mid-Atlantic accent.

We’d love to be able to give you a clear answer regarding the origins of this unique way of speaking, but sadly we can’t. We can’t, because we’re not 100% sure. Nobody is as nothing has been proven. What we can do, however, is look at what we do know about it.

The accent’s origins can be traced back to the 1910s, to an Australian phonetician called William Tilly, who taught phonetics at Columbia University in New York from 1918. Tilly wanted to create a very clear, consistent way of speaking, and his standard, which he called ‘World English’, sounded close to “proper” British English while belonging to no particular region.

Tilly’s World English caught on with speech teachers and schools in New York in the 1920s. It wasn’t until voice coach Edith Skinner began teaching her students the accent, which she called the ‘Good Speech’, that it really took off and became a great deal more mainstream. Skinner, who had worked as Tilly’s assistant since 1926, taught it at the Carnegie Institute of Technology and later at Juilliard, and her textbook Speak with Distinction (1942) trained generations of American stage actors.

As the years passed by and the entertainment industry evolved, so too did the performers and broadcasters captivating their audiences. As early iterations of films and movies emerged, actors needed to enunciate more clearly and be easier to understand. Radio presenters also needed to be easier to understand. As different parts of America had different accents, radio broadcasters needed to find a way of being understood by all Americans. Soon after, news anchors and broadcasters adopted this same approach, as did Hollywood film studios. They decided to make it the default way of speaking for actors.

By the 1930s and 40s, it was the prestige accent of Hollywood and network radio. That’s why, when you watch an old black and white classic or listen to old radio broadcasts, so many people speak in this unique, almost exaggerated hybrid American-British accent.

Not every star used it, though. In Casablanca (1942), Humphrey Bogart kept his own voice and Ingrid Bergman her Swedish accent.

Why Did the Transatlantic Accent Disappear?

While the Mid-Atlantic accent was once the trademark accent for actors and performers in Hollywood and beyond, nowadays you’ve probably noticed how it is all-but extinct. But why?

Whereas actors, entertainers, and regular ole members of the public used to use the accent, nowadays it’s incredibly rare. So, why did an accent go from being seemingly everywhere, and serving as the ultimate status symbol to becoming virtually extinct? Well, there are several reasons.

Following the end of the Second World War, fewer and fewer people spoke in this unique manner. Whereas in the past everyone had been so desperate to fit in, people’s mindsets started to change. Suddenly, people wanted to express themselves as individuals and be unique.

Hollywood changed too. The studio system, which had trained and groomed its actors, broke up in the 1950s, and the industry started hiring actors from everywhere, each with their own way of speaking. General American, the everyday accent of most of the country, took over the screen, and it still dominates today.

Schools and acting coaches began to phase out the accent, instead teaching students to be unique and find their own identity. Method acting, with its natural, everyday speech, pushed it further out, as actors began getting into the “head” of the characters they were playing.

The accent hasn’t vanished completely. Dialect coaches still teach it for period roles, and voice artists and filmmakers use it when they want an old-Hollywood sound: Elizabeth Banks’s Effie Trinket in The Hunger Games is a well-known modern example.

Which Countries Have the Transatlantic Accent?

Considering that the accent mixes American and British features, you might guess that it belongs to both countries. In fact, it’s American, though almost nobody spoke it natively.

The Transatlantic accent is an American invention: a learned accent, taught in elite East Coast schools, drama programs and Hollywood studios, and spoken on stage, on screen and on the radio. Its British-sounding features, like the dropped R and the softer A, are why people outside the US often mistake it for British. Some wealthy families in New England and New York did grow up with a similar upper-class accent, which is part of where the idea came from. Today you mostly hear it from actors recreating the period, and from voice actors who want an old-time radio sound.

Cary Grant Using the Transatlantic Accent

When we think of the perfect Transatlantic accent, there are a few names that spring to mind. For many, the most obvious is Cary Grant using the Transatlantic accent.

Cary Grant is one of the most iconic actors in the history of entertainment. For a great deal of us, he is synonymous with the accent and helped it to really go mainstream. Great examples of Grant using the accent include 1959’s North by Northwest, and 1940’s The Philadelphia Story.

Speaking of The Philadelphia Story, another actor who helped make the accent famous from that movie was Katharine Hepburn. She also used it in 1938’s Bringing Up Baby. Off screen she sounded much the same, because much of her accent was the upper-class speech of the wealthy Connecticut family she grew up in.

Grant had a head start: he was born Archibald Leach in Bristol, England, so his mix of British and American features came more naturally than for most of his co-stars.

Transatlantic Accent Examples: Who Spoke It and Films to Watch

The quickest way to learn the accent is to listen to the people who used it. A few good places to start:

• Cary Grant: The Philadelphia Story (1940), His Girl Friday (1940), North by Northwest (1959)
• Katharine Hepburn: Bringing Up Baby (1938), The Philadelphia Story (1940)
• Bette Davis: All About Eve (1950)
• Grace Kelly: Rear Window (1954), High Society (1956)
• Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers: Top Hat (1935)
• William Powell: The Thin Man (1934)
• Orson Welles: Citizen Kane (1941)
• Vincent Price: House on Haunted Hill (1959)

Transatlantic accent for women

If you're looking for a female model, Katharine Hepburn, Bette Davis and Grace Kelly are the classic choices: the accent itself is the same for men and women, so copy the voice that's closest to your own pitch. For a modern recreation, watch Cate Blanchett play Hepburn in The Aviator (2004).

How to Do a Transatlantic Accent

Now that we really know more about this accent, the last thing we need to do is actually learn how to master it for ourselves.

Here are a few handy hints and tips on how to do a Transatlantic accent:

1. Drop the R after vowels

One of the most effective things you can do when perfecting a Mid-Atlantic accent is to drop the R after vowels, unless the next word starts with a vowel. This feature is known professionally as ‘non-rhoticity’ and is arguably the most recognizable feature of the accent.

As an example, rather than saying water with an R, you would instead pronounce it as “WAW-tuh”. Park would be pronounced “PAHK” (similar to a Bostonian accent).

2. Emphasize the letter ‘T’

Another way to really help your Transatlantic accent to stand out is to place a greater emphasis on the letter ‘T’ when speaking. Instead of an American “wadder”, you’d say “WAW-tuh” with a real T. Heater would become “HEE-tuh”.

3. Work on those vowels

If you really want to make your Mid-Atlantic accent pop, you’re going to need to work on your vowels. By this, we mean changing the way that you pronounce a few of them:

• In words like party and car, the ‘A’ becomes a long, open ‘Ah’ with no R: party → “PAH-tee”.
• Round the short ‘O’ a little: hot and not are short, with slightly rounded lips, not an American “haht”.
• In words like dance, can’t and ask, use a softer ‘a’, halfway between cat and father.

4. Emphasize Your Enunciation

Try to place a stronger emphasis on your enunciation when speaking. Really focus on pronouncing each consonant cleanly and crisply.

Make sure that with any words which end in an ‘NG’ you really emphasize this. You wouldn’t say singin’—you’d say “Sing-ING”.

5. Keep the ‘Y’ in new and tune

After T, D and N, add a small ‘Y’ sound: new → “nyoo”, tune → “tyoon”, duke → “dyook”. Modern American English dropped it, which makes it one of the easiest ways to sound old-Hollywood.

6. Say ‘WH’ as ‘HW’

Breathe out a little before the W in which, when and what: “hwich”, “hwen”. In this accent which and witch are two different words.

Transatlantic Accent Practice Script

Read this out loud slowly three times, then record yourself at normal speed:

Darling, I simply can’t stay. The car is waiting, and Father will be perfectly furious if we’re late for the party. Which reminds me: do bring that new tune you were humming, the one about the water and the stars. Honestly, it was a marvelous evening, wasn’t it?

What to listen for: no R in Darling, Father, party, stars, marvelous; a linking R in car is and water and, because the next word starts with a vowel; the softer A in can’t; a crisp T in party, water, late; the Y in new tune; the “hw” in which; and every consonant finished.

Words that show off the accent: water, party, dance, can’t, rather, which, new, Tuesday, darling, marvelous.

Conclusion

So, there you have it, the ultimate look at the Mid-Atlantic accent, and some useful tips on how to do a Transatlantic accent just like a Hollywood actor from cinema’s golden era.

Transatlantic accents may not be as popular as they once were, but actors and voice artists still love them, and learning one is a great way to make your voice stand out.

After practicing your Transatlantic English accent, record the script above and see how you did by heading over to our Vocal Image Accent Test, to find out which part of the world the test thinks you’re from.

Want to go fully British instead? Here’s how to do a British accent, seven changes with a practice script. More accents, and how to tell them apart, are in our guide to English accents.

Sources

• Wikipedia — Good American Speech, the accent's history, features and best-known speakers
• Wikipedia — Edith Skinner, author of Speak with Distinction (1942)