Had some trouble connecting to the site. I was able to take the 25 question version, and it pegged me as being near Michigan, which is pretty accurate since I grew up in northwest Ohio. Toledo was listed as fourth most likely city. Not bad, considering I wasn't even sure which answer to choose for many of the questions.
English dialects and accents have actually been an area of interest to me recently, because I've been experimenting with some Vocaloid (computer software as singer) software. Working with phonemes really made me think about how I pronounce things. One of the software products I bought contains a "pronunciation guide" which I find unintentionally humorous. Almost all of them are correct options according to the dictionary, but it is really news to me! Here are some examples from that guide which do not match my dialect (the unofficial phoneme labels are my own because the international ones aren't on my keyboard, the examples are from the guide):
(short a): pat, cat, bag. 2 for 3. I use long a for bag.
(short o): lot, dog, soft. 1 for 3. I use an "au" sound for dog and soft.
(ur): poor, sure. 0 for 2! My "poor" is the same as "pour" which is the same as "pore". My "sure" nearly rhymes with "were" or "fur". Two very different sounds, and neither is the one they are trying to demonstrate. I had to really think about whether I ever use a distinct "ur" sound. I came up with "lure".
Maybe I'm just the weird one though. But I'd bet most people from Michigan and Toledo will agree with me!
More or less similar to the dialect of the test taker (map colors generated based on the test).
English dialects and accents have actually been an area of interest to me recently, because I've been experimenting with some Vocaloid (computer software as singer) software. Working with phonemes really made me think about how I pronounce things. One of the software products I bought contains a "pronunciation guide" which I find unintentionally humorous. Almost all of them are correct options according to the dictionary, but it is really news to me! Here are some examples from that guide which do not match my dialect (the unofficial phoneme labels are my own because the international ones aren't on my keyboard, the examples are from the guide):
(short a): pat, cat, bag. 2 for 3. I use long a for bag.
(short o): lot, dog, soft. 1 for 3. I use an "au" sound for dog and soft.
(ur): poor, sure. 0 for 2! My "poor" is the same as "pour" which is the same as "pore". My "sure" nearly rhymes with "were" or "fur". Two very different sounds, and neither is the one they are trying to demonstrate. I had to really think about whether I ever use a distinct "ur" sound. I came up with "lure".
Maybe I'm just the weird one though. But I'd bet most people from Michigan and Toledo will agree with me!
(09-28-2013, 06:41 PM)LavCat Wrote: The link did not work for me, however I was intrigued by the map: more or less similar to what?
More or less similar to the dialect of the test taker (map colors generated based on the test).