The Speech Accent Archive

The Speech Accent Archive is an audio database of different accents maintained by Steven H. Weinberger of George Mason University.

In, presumably Steven's words, this is his project in a nutshell:

"Native and non-native speakers of English all read the same English paragraph and are carefully recorded. The archive is constructed as a teaching tool and as a research tool. It is meant to be used by linguists as well as other people who simply wish to listen to and compare the accents of different English speakers."

According to my friend Justine,

"One of my actor friends showed me this website and I am now in love! It's this really awesome site that displays accents from all over the world! And every person says the exact same thing. It also tells you how long they have been speaking English, their age, male/female, and what they say is translated into IPA so you can see the sounds they use. It's just a really awesome linguistic and accent page!"

Enjoy listening and immitating, I sure did. Thanks to this website, I am just now beginning to understand what I sounded like in 3rd grade.  It's too bad I still can't immitate my parents' accents, thereby foiling all hopes for stand-up comedy. *Sigh.* 

(From my actor friend Justine, pircutre by zippercut)