The “Standard American Accent” spoken in the media and generally taught to foriegners is the confusingly named “Midwestern” Accent, which due to internal migration and a subsequent vowel shift, is now mostly spoken in California and the Pacific Northwest.
Interestingly enough, my old Japanese instructor was a native Osakan, who’s natural dialect was Kansai-ben; despite this, she conducted the class using the standard, Tokyo Dialect.
The “Standard American Accent” spoken in the media and generally taught to foriegners is the confusingly named “Midwestern” Accent, which due to internal migration and a subsequent vowel shift, is now mostly spoken in California and the Pacific Northwest.
Interestingly enough, my old Japanese instructor was a native Osakan, who’s natural dialect was Kansai-ben; despite this, she conducted the class using the standard, Tokyo Dialect.