accent

«accent» in Mova's school dictionary: the way people from a place or country pronounce a… — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 5 sentences of Mova's corpora that use it.

part of speech

noun (an accent, accents); verb (accent, accented — rare)

meaning for a pupil

1) An accent is the way people from a place or country pronounce a language: a Scottish accent, an American accent. tree →

2) An accent is extra force on one part of a word when you say it, called stress. tree →

3) An accent is a small mark above or below a letter that changes its sound, as in café. tree →

4) An accent is a small detail that stands out, like an accent colour. tree →

sense in the lessons

In everyday life everyone has an accent, and accents tell where people grew up; making fun of an accent is unkind. In English lessons, knowing where the accent (stress) falls helps pronunciation: PRE-sent (a gift) and pre-SENT (to show). In music an accent is a note played louder. Phrases: a strong accent, put the accent on, accent mark.

examples

• She speaks with an Irish accent. tree →
• My cousin from Texas has a different accent. tree →
• Café has an accent on the e. tree →
• Everybody has an accent. tree →
• The accent is on the first part of «table». tree →
• He copied the teacher's accent and everyone laughed. tree →
• The room is white with red accents. tree →
• Learning a new language, you might keep your own accent. tree →
• The accent falls on the second syllable of Ivan, on the first of Popyalof. tree →

note

Countable. An accent is not the same as a dialect: an accent is only about sounds; a dialect also uses different words and grammar. English rarely uses accent marks, but words borrowed from French or Spanish keep them (café, piñata).

In the corpora

• Voice assistants turn sounds into words and then guess what you meant; accents and background noise can confuse them.
• Accents shape what we hear.
• Rhymes can change with accent: in many northern English accents «cut» and «put» rhyme.
• An accent is the way words sound; any dialect, including Standard English, can be spoken in any accent.
• Teasing that hurts and goes on, about looks, bodies, accents or what someone likes, is bullying.

Trees and pragmatics

Every meaning and example of «accent» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.