New York City Accent Essentials

There are always variations in accents, especially as you move from a heavier to a lighter version of an accent. No matter the degree of the accent, or which borough or region you're from - Brooklyn, Bronx, Queens, Long Island, Staten Island, and even Yonkers and Northern New Jersey - there are specific sounds that are really helpful when you're learning a New York City accent.

NYC Accent Placement

So there's there's a quality to a New York City accent overall that will help you: The placement of a NYC accent is a bit forward overall.

Whether you're looking at like a really strong sort of Italian Brooklyn sort of sort of stereotype or whether you're looking at something that's a little bit more Bronx or something along that line, there's a forward quality to these that will affect all of the sounds.

That's why it's important to start with placement and intonation. This quality immediately affects all of the sounds and the overall feeling of the accent, and if you don't have this, it ain't gonna sound New York.

Now when you get to some variations in the accent, it can also have a back, resonant quality or perhaps a very flat sound to it, but that forward placement is present for all of the accents of New York City - an essential for actors to learn up front.

Specific Sounds in All New York Accents

When we're talking about specific sounds within a New York accent, one important element is recognizing that a New York accent historically is non-rhotic, meaning that you will tend to drop an R after a vowel.

So in a word like here, you will tend to say something more like "he-ah" - and "ovuh" for over, and "muthuh" or even "mudduh" for mother.

Now this is changing over time! 

Sometimes, instead of the R being gone completely, it may be very soft or light. And compared to many American accents, even a New Yorker who brings their Rs on, they will tend to be a lighter R.

If you do a heavier R, you're going to tend to sound something more like you've got a Chicago accent, or something like that. That hardness of the R, the quality that you might think of as a Southern accent or a West Texas accent.

That sort of strong or hard R sound will not be present in New York accents.

There are there are other sort of consonant-related things like "dropping the G" goin' and doin' and bein'. And the th's sounding more like D's and T's: "these things" may sound like "deez t'ings." Those can happen, but they're non-essential because many New Yorkers don't necessarily do that.

The Most Important Vowel Element in NYC Accents

What is absolutely essential - and this is true whether it's a lighter New York accent or a heavier New York accent. This is true whether you're talking about a white speaker or a black speaker or an Hispanic speaker. This is something that is across the board for New Yorkers that you've got to be aware of.

And this is something I go into detail with in a number of video and blog posts - but it's non-negotiable!

This is what I call Hell's Corner vowels.

You need to know what happens with words like FATHER, LOT, CLOTH, and THOUGHT. These are four Lexical Set words that I've adapted slightly from linguist JC Wells.

In my own Midwest American accent, I don't round FATHER or LOT, but I do slightly round the vowel in CLOTH and THOUGHT.

That same split happens for New York City accents, but they're much more extreme.

There is a lot more rounding. It's a tighter sound. It's not quite as open. It may even feel so rounded that it almost feels like it's an OH vowel... You can hear all of this in the video above.

Hell's Corner is absolutely essential for actors who are learning accents. You've got to understand what's up with these four kinds of words. And for NYC accents, this is specific element is the King of New York.

There's a bunch of other things that happen with New York accents, too, but most of them are the kinds of things that happen with most American accents. So there there are absolutely some other things that happen in New York accents, but they're the kinds of things that most Americans do. They're also the things that don't stand out quite as much.

Tutorial for Actors Learning a New York Accent

If you really want to do a deep dive on this accent, you can find the New York City accent training at Accent Help, including my voice guiding you through that accent. 

You'll hear a bunch of other voices as well, and there are a ton of native speakers because it's all designed for actors who are trying to learn these accents.

And I'm constantly gathering more dialect recordings and adding them to that because part of what I'm really trying to do is to help actors to do accents in general, and also to be able to do them more authentically. So that's why native speaker recordings are absolutely essential for trying to reflect the way that people actually speak. 

You can find over 50 different accents for actors here at AccentHelp.com.