English Dialects

- May 22, 2016

Everyone

Education

( 237)

Description

Do you pronounce the /r/ in 'arm'? Do you call a shelf a 'sheuf'? And what on earth is a 'hoddy-doddy'? There is extensive variation in English dialects: this is why your answers to such questions will allow this app to localize your broader dialect region on a map of England.

Did your home dialect change over time? Our algorithm is based on historical data from the Survey of English Dialects. If it guesses where you are from correctly, your home dialect has probably remained stable over the past decades. If the guess is far off, however, it is probably because of dialect change.

- Can we localize your dialect based on your pronunciation of 26 words?
- Record your dialect and listen to recordings of other users and to historical dialect recordings!
- Choose a pronunciation variant, e.g. 'sheuf', and discover where in England it is used...or choose a place and explore its dialect!

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If problems occur with the app, please delete it and install the most recent version. Or contact us – info@englishdialectapp.com – instead of leaving a negative review. We cannot reply to it on the App Store.
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Reviews

3.3

237 total

5 73

4 44

3 45

2 23

1 52

Victor Dewsbery

Interesting, but about 100 miles out. As a "Coventry kid", I was surprised to be placed west of Cardiff. I checked the sample data for Meriden and Nuneaton, and the vocabulary choices and pronunciation examples were very similar to mine. Is South Wales really so very similar to the Midlands?

Jane Mycock

I found it a fun quiz to do. It caused me to think about how I say things and how others do. The app did not place my dialect because I am from Southern England but lived in Glasgow, and moving has modified my accent - this app showed me how! I recommend reading press articles about the research to find how this app developed and continues to develop. Great that the app now includes Scottish, Welsh and Irish accents.

Conor Murphy

Fun and interesting Although disappointed with my result (given outskirts of London when I live near Cambridge) I had fun. Maybe nuanced terms for speaking to friendly strangers could be used to pinpoint locations e.g. 'duck' - Stoke, 'Mate' - London/south east, 'chuck' - Leicester(?) as a few examples. However, the heat map seems pretty useless if the whole country is red

David Purchase

I'm an accent mongrel It wasn't very accurate for me but then I've lived all over the UK. Moving from the shires to the West Country while still youngish probably hasn't made it very easy to guess. Couldn't reflect that in the post quiz survey.

Hugh Crook

All this analysis is based on how people think they sound words which in reality might not be the case. I have been surprised in the past hearing my recorded voice sounding quite different to how I imagined.

Dave Weston

It was 50 miles out, which isn't too bad but the app definitely needs a social media sharing function. You will definitely get more uptake and downloads if people can then dhare on social media the results.

User reviews

Victor Dewsbery July 4, 2016

Jane Mycock May 26, 2016

Conor Murphy May 26, 2016

David Purchase June 13, 2016

Hugh Crook June 1, 2016

Dave Weston May 27, 2016

Susan Kay-Attwood February 12, 2017

Hmm entertaining but didn't really get mine or my husband's. I'm from Sheffield living in Guildford, it put me in Stockport. He's mostly from Aylesbury living in Guildford and it said he was from Dorset. Were confused on the pronunciation choices for butter and house tho didn't really have the right one.

Peter Flower May 27, 2016

Fun It was a fun quiz, but it thought I came from Bridport. Very similar accent to the West Midlands.

Pratik Gupte May 26, 2016

The app itself is fine. It can't be expected to know that Indians might use it and be placed in Wales, of all places. :)

dan sterry May 27, 2016

Fun but not even close It didn't manage to even get close with the region I'm from . Saying that however my dad is from north Wales and my mother is from Essex so I do speak a bit different from people in my area

Gemma Higgins May 29, 2016

Interesting! As a lover of accents and dialects, I found this really interesting and it placed me 15 minutes down the motorway from where I grew up!

Dave Cu May 26, 2016

Perfect I've not lived there for 30 years but the 3 options circled my home town. Bullseye

Ben Jones July 6, 2016

Great research tool into dialects of English in UK. Not the most accurate atm (placed me in Llangollen, I'm from Abergavenny; it got that I'm from Welsh borders though), but the more data it collects, the more accurate it will become!

Tom Briggs May 26, 2016

Not accurate People complaining that it's not accurate, that just means that a) you speak differently to those around where you come from, b) not many people from near you have done this and submitted their results once they have finished, as this is also researching, not only trying to guess where you have come from, so the more people that do this, so long as you speak similarly, the more accurate it will be.

Makai Lawson June 11, 2016

Fun quiz to see how your dialect compares to others. As an England-residing American I can't comment on the accuracy but it was fun to explore the map and see what results people near where I live returned.

Jo T Jones April 23, 2017

Very interesting- highlighted something I didn't know I said and got really close to where I grew up.

Christine Farmer June 4, 2016

Miles out in guessing my dialect's origins. When I stated where my dialect came from the app still placed me on the map in my present geographic location. Fun to do but too limited to be taken seriously.

Allison Mc May 27, 2016

This app is fun and interesting. Not sure why it didn't offer skelf as a variant of splinter

Simon Hayton May 30, 2016

Good fun! Interesting app - result was as accurate as it could be since my accent is pretty generic.

Anne Marcantonio June 4, 2016

Very interesting, and one of the suggested places of origin was within 3 miles of where I came from!

Helaina Hiles-Sinclair June 4, 2017

It was ok, but not close. When the app asked for feedback, the map function (to chose where I'm from) did not work.

Natasha Boyer April 25, 2017

Having a swamp Yankee accent, it pegged rather close to the location where my ancestors migrated from England/Scotland.

David Newton May 31, 2016

Highly accurate And there was I thinking I'd lost all traces of my local accent...

Peter Maddox December 31, 2016

Interesting I would have liked to supply more specific information in the research section as being forced to choose specific answers probably makes my answers misleading.

Jerry Weeks April 23, 2017

Interesting, got me wrong but then I grew up in Africa and lived in Denmark for 12 years.

Sam Yusufzai February 19, 2017

No Australian accents on this one! Its like, only the U.K speaks English mate!

Edward Hall November 28, 2016

Not quite where I live, but fun. Title.

Cazaam May 25, 2017

It got me right based in how I pronounce House more like Haas.

Adam Wilson November 11, 2016

Great Fascinating. Especially fun for a Canadian girlfriend to finally understand why I sound like I do.

Toby Hawkins May 26, 2016

Pinned my location down to within 10 miles. Pretty impressed.

EM F April 29, 2017

Fairly accurate.

Bill Hollis December 30, 2016

Mr B. Very interesting.

Stuart Moran June 1, 2016

Nailed it

Weaponized Asparagus October 21, 2016

Brilliant

Maximilian Koch March 29, 2017

Nice

Adam Bracegirdle April 11, 2016

Entertaining but some poor implementation I'm from all over so it's no surprise it wasn't hugely accurate for me. What annoyed me was it doesn't have options to share, and doesn't save results. I was going to take a screen grab, but the was this accurate question was in the way. Said no and it closed my results. Lost for ever. Poor app design.

T Horn April 13, 2016

fascinating! based on my answers today, it correctly chose the areas my families lived, before emigrating to the US all those years ago.

Audrey A May 12, 2016

Interesting but got wrong result I liked the app but i got completely the wrong result saying my accent is from Henham but im from London. Weird.

Feai Shadow February 23, 2016

Decided I was from the Lake District. Nope, not even close. Fun app though

Sarah Lathom-Sharp February 2, 2016

English Dialect App which tries to guess where your dialect is from by giving you words to select from, and choosing those which are closest to yours.