The California Accent | Valley Girl Talk to Surfer Slang
Published 2023-11-14
In this video you will learn all the ways we speak in my home state of California. You will learn various ways to achieve the stereotypical valley girl accent, made famous by Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian, and new vocabulary words used by chill Californian surfers.
I will also provide a brief history about how our accent developed and teach you how our accent compares to the rest of the US and the UK.
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The Californian Accent:
- Valley Girl Talk
-Creaky Voice/Vocal Fry
-Upspeak
- 6 Pronunciations of 'T'
- Rhotic R
California Vocabulary:
1. Awesome
2. Totally
3. Dude
4. Sick
5. Hella/hecka
6. Like
Geography + Abbreviations:
1. LA (Los Angeles)
2. SD (San Diego)
3. OC (Orange County)
4. SB(Santa Barbara)
5. SLO (San Luis Obispo)
6. SF (San Francisco)
7. norcal + socal
8. Yosemite (pronunciation)
Sources:
"The Californians" skit from Saturday Night Live:
Ā Ā Ā ā¢Ā TheĀ Californians:Ā StuartĀ HasĀ CancerĀ -...Ā Ā
Using "like" as a filler word: Clueless RSVP Video
Ā Ā Ā ā¢Ā CluelessĀ |Ā "whatever"Ā (RSVPĀ SpeechĀ )Ā ...Ā Ā
Dude + Totally from Finding Nemo:
Ā Ā Ā ā¢Ā SQUIRTĀ -Ā FindingĀ NemoĀ ...Totally...Ā Ā
US Map:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Map_of_USA_with_stā¦
All Comments (21)
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Great presentation. I'm an 83 year old linguist, 3rd generation Californian. Very accurate summary of our styles of speech here. Thanks forvyour contribution.
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I wanna add that Californians put like emphasis on words in a sentence after a pause. They say things like: "Dude, we went to the BEACH and we saw a lot of SHARKS on the coast, so we were like totally scared to SWIM" or "I'm sorry, I can't DO that right now, you know? I'm HELLA busy"
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I AM a Valley Girl!! I grew up in Granada Hills. the valley was my stomping grounds. I thought I invented that way of speaking. I'm 66 now
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I LOVE this video! I need a Californian accent for a role for a musical.
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I've noticed these patters, but ti have them explained is so interesting! Brilliant!
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I went to jr. high and high school in a suburb of Seattle in the late 90ās/early 2000ās and we all said hella. I never knew it was considered NorCal slang! I still say it all the time, though I notice younger generations donāt really use it as much. Something else I noticed watching this is that, even though I was born in socal and moved to Washington state when I was 10, I say the words totally, rad, awesome, dude, and like way more than my coworkers and friends. Like, hellllllla more.
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I love this! My kids grew up in Northern CA and of course say "hella" all the time (my students do, too!), but one thing that I think is interesting is how people use hella in a variety of functions in the sentence. For example, just last night my son said "I"m gonna study hella," meaning "I'm gonna study a lot"!
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The best video on YouTube about California accent š„
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Actually quite informative--but you also have an underlying accent that perhaps may be from the upper Midwest. You say example as if it were "exampil", and you also have a bit of the "iya" sound, as in "Hi--I'm Kiyathee" (Cathy). Anyway, it's all fascinating--and thanks for sharing!
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Thank you teacher for the explanation about the californian accent.
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Thank you, Cali. That was a totally awesome English lesson
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I totally love this awesome video ā¤ thanks a bunch !š
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You best teacher i never had!
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You toadally explained whyyyy the accent that Paris HilTon uses annoys the daylighs out of meeee, awesome! Thaaank youuuu !!
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I honestly feel called out and attacked. Haha Iām born and raised in SoCal and grew up going to the Grapevine (or Central Valley) where thereās more of a southern dialect, but Iāve donāt almost all the stuff you talked about and I donāt know if I like that. šš thanks for sharing!!!
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Merry Christmas to youšš
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I was so lost the first time I saw that skit, aside from how we talk about directions and highways. I realized there's some truth to how we speak though. I always called it "lazy tongue" and sounds just come out how they come out. There's definitely a mush mouth sound too. Not "What are you doing here?" but more like "Wha aryu doing ere" Bay Area and NorCal are slightly different. There is no highway talk like us, and much less vocal fry.
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Thanks Amy good to see you againš
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Native Californian here, and never heard anyone who really speaks like the people in the SNL Californian sketches.
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Nice one dear Amy. Thank you so much.
