Transcript
New Jersey is a big place. New Jersey is close to New York. It’s close to Philadelphia. So you get a broad range of different kinds of accents in New Jersey. We’re going to go for more of a north Jersey accent. So kind of on the more New Yorkish tip. So let’s work on this oral posture. So the lip corners move back and forth a lot. The tongue is high. And sometimes it’s so high that you get some of that nasal quality to the sound, like that. So you want to slide through that sound. You get a ha, ha sound. The ah sound becomes ouah. So maul, thought becomes maul, thought. Coffee and often become coffee, and often. And notice that I used that t in the word often. And that sometimes pops up in a Jersey accent. Often.
My home state, Florida. I’m from Florida, and it has two syllables where I come from. Florida. Some people say Florida. But if you’re from New Jersey, it’s Florida. The ih sound sometimes turns into an ah sound. So animal, hairy, married turns into animal, hairy, married. And again, you hear that nasal quality to the musicality. The ah sound also becomes a diphthong. So ah, as in glass. Dirty. You hear those two sounds. Glass. Fast. So unlike the New York accent, there are r sounds at the ends of a lot of words. Like there, care, player. Or in a New York sound, you might hear there, care, player.
There’s not a lot of pitch variety in this accent, and although it’s got a lot of similarities to the New York accent, it’s not such an urban sound. So it’s a little bit softer in its musicality. But don’t take my word for it. Listen to some north Jersey accents, and see if I came close. And discover the accent for yourself. Crawl in through the oral posture and see what you can learn.
