In a new survey taken by Time Out magazine, Brits come out on top as having the sexiest accents in the world.

But do you agree? What accent do you think is the hottest and why?

Is your favorite even on the list?

Here's the list included in the survey and the percentages

British (27 percent)
American (8.7 percent)
Irish (8.1 percent)
Australian (8 percent)
French (7.7 percent)
Italian (6 percent)
Spanish (4.9 percent)
Scottish (4.7 percent)
Latin American (4.1 percent)
Scandinavian (3.3 percent)

That list is missing nearly 20 percent.

perhaps 20 percent didn't care!

Bloody Hugh Grant, again!?!?

The line that said "Canadian (20 percent)" was removed because of, as f-ing usual, the need to avoid showing up the Yanks.

It's missing a few other accents too - but if people have a favorite that's not on the list they should just shout out

Of course, yes

That 27% obviously excludes my own accent (Forest of Dean) which is the antithesis of sexy.
http://sounds.bl.uk/Accents-and-dia...0014XX-0301V0#_


I'd agree with those! :lovestruc

Those are wonderful accents, save for the American*, perhaps. The list leaves off more than I can list, such as all the accents one finds in the Carribean, Africa, the Middle East, across Asia or South America. Seriously, accents are just lovely.

*American is my own, so I barely notice an accent in many cases. In the case of from a regional area of the US, it might sound flat or twangy. Many of the Southern accents are very pretty.

And what would a "sounds Chinese when speaking English, sounds European in Mandarin," accent be categorized as? People tend to focus on the "wrong side of the world" sound, and more recently, me sounding like the wrong gender.

Each country has multiple accents though. I like some British accents but not others. It also differs depending on who is talking.

I have a soft spot for:
British mid northern (e.g. Leeds)
Cameroon
West Indies

But the US of Americans have three or four sub-accents: New York/New Jersey (ugh!!), Southern (depends on who's using it, a Southern Bell is good, or her father with a shotgun at my back is bad), Eastern, and Western. Then there's standard American you hear on television news.

Same with British. You can change British accents just by going from neighborhood to neighborhood. It is so bad that they have a "Standard English" that is that distinct, educated sounding pronunciation that once was all you heard on BBC.

Or Irish - was studying accents for my robot army (seriously...) and I read that if it's Dublin Irish-English it is said one way, and from another part of Ireland another...

I've hardly any knowledge of English accents....

I'm British and I wouldn't even consider it the accent to be the hottest accent IMO (no offence), although there are many different versions of the accent and I have a north west British accent.

The accents I like the most is the French and the Italian accent I even thought Italy and France were the same place when I was a kid because I thought the language and accent sounded very similar, I also quite like the edinburgh accent in Scotland

I suggest you never say this exact phrase out loud when visiting Europe

Scottish is probably my favorite accent when spoken by a man, followed closely by Irish.

Japanese when spoken softly by a man talking to a woman (because it really is different).

I love the different Canadian accents I've heard: BC; Alberta; SK; Quebec (yes, they can and will speak English there); and PEI.

I pretty much flinch when I hear southern accents, most especially Alabama and Mississippi.
Full disclosure, you put me in a room with someone with a southern accent, and I will lapse into something Georgian (the STATE of Georgia...not the country ) in about two seconds.
And it will take me a good couple of hours to lose it. When I was in the military, I spent a lot of time in the south, and dammit if I don't end up talkin' in a southern accent even just thinkin' about the south.

I'm not a big fan of English accents. Maybe it's because I grew up in Northern England with a Welsh/Midland accent. I mean, some are okay, but Manchester, Lancashire, Yorkshire etc. can't stand. at all. The London accent isn't so bad. My boyfriend's family are from a small village next to my hometown and I can't understand what they say sometimes because they literally mumble.

My favourite would be a Scandinavian accent. I have a few friends from Norway and Sweden and their accents are really nice. Also American, a too-southern accent isn't that nice though, but a slightly southern accent is beautiful. The Standard American accent that you hear in sitcoms would be my ideal accent.

I'm surprised "American" even made the list. I just have a general American accent, not southern or northern. Most people around here do even though we live in the South but there are a good number of people with Southern accents too and I like the particular valley accent we have around here.

I think my favorite American accent is southern but I wouldn't say it's sexy. I like Latin and Asian accents probably because I tend to be attracted to those kinds of people most often. I don't like accents when people are actually speaking Spanish though because then I can't understand them.

Russian and Scandinavian accents are pretty cool. Accents from the British Isles are nice but I never hear them in real life, along with the rest of the European accents.

I see your SW Midlands (?) and raise you one Mancunian.


That's Received Pronunciation and is no longer to be found on the BBC for the most part.

Oh man, Stewart! You left out classic Maine, Boston, or Minnesota accents. There's so many more distinct subsets.

Maine:

Boston:

Minnesota:

^^ That's funny, because my parents were from Minnesota, and the speech therapist said if I said I was from Bawston, he would say my speech impediment was just a Boston accent, .Since I wasn't...

Scottish: I worked with a Scottish engineer. I'd go to meetings, and... need a translator. I'm pretty sure he was speaking English, but my Boss, who was from London, had to translate have the time. Usually he was pretty cool about how he did it, by repeating what was said in a casual off the cuff way. "So, Stuart, what what's your opinion of the data connection to the Domaflotcher being RS232 like Scotty said" and that sort of thing.

What do they mean by "American"? There's like 40 different accents in the States! Southern, New England, Southern NJ and Northern NJ, Eastern MD and 3 or 4 different accents in little Delaware alone. None of them are even that sexy. Wtf?

They mean the poll is stupid and wrong.

And there's "Val" or the California San Fernando Accent, made famous some time ago with all the valley girl & surfer dude movies is another accent. My wife spoke val for the longest time.

It took me the longest time to figure out the difference between Australian and British accents. I angered an Australian fellow for mistaking him for a Brit, and right after I had to contritely deal with that outrage, I went right ahead and insulting a Brit by mistaking him for an Australian.

I had the smarts to just ask the South African fellow. "Nice accent, where are you from?"

An accent's an accent innit? I mean there are those awfully awkward sounding accents, but in the environment I'm in, you kind of just get over it. I don't usually have a problem understanding different accents, just some are harder to understand (I just need to pay more attention). I've never really thought about the "hotness" of an accent, but rather of the "pleasantness" of an accent. You know, like how some people have "nice" voices, and others sound like dying cats?

I might have a generic British accent. Possibly. I do know that if you get a real Briton (like some of my friends) to speak and compare me to them, I sound a little off. But thats cos my accent's special It happens to all people in my school- at least those with parents who's native language isn't english; and have been in my school since the start of their schooling. The sibling sounds more like a real Briton, cos he didn't go to my school for as long.

@simbalena Omg, you'd love my talking to friend then! He's from Leeds