What site has classic examples of English dialects?

Question

Is there a site that has one sound file for each dialect of English? I'd like to be able to tell the difference between the various Canadian and British dialects, mostly.

I just feel bad that all British people know exactly what the difference is between a Liverpool and a South London accent is, and I have no idea. And darnit, I want to be able to tell if someone is Canadian, because I never can unless they say "about."

I've been to a lot of sites that have good sound files, but I'm never sure if the person exhibits the classic speech pattern of the region they state that person is from.

Any help would be great! Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

Dialects are specific to a certain locale. In one language, you can have many dialects. Only if you live in Liverpool or South London, then can you tell them apart, because they might use vocabulary in this certain area and not anywhere else.  I understand what you are trying to say. When other people speak to me in Chinese, I have to listen very closely to each word being said in order to figure out the specific dialect or sub-dialect. When written it will tend to be the same, when you speak it, you can tell by the minor differences, which can only be detected if you know at least two or more dialects. That's how I determine if someone was not speaking Mandarin nor Cantonese in Chinese. I think the same logic could be applied to other languages & dialects, also.   That's the same logic I used to determine a New York accent from an accent of say Texas or somewhere in the Southern U.S. Another example: the word "can't": where in Am. Eng. you say "kaent", it's "kahnt" in Br. Eng.