The American accent is 'hotter' than the French, world says (2024)

Why is George Clooney a sex symbol? Must be his accent.

Foreign accents are sexy, but did you know the “American accent” is sexy too? Time Out polled 11,000 people in 24 cities around the world -- including U.S. cities such as New York, Chicago and Los Angeles -- for its 2015 Global Dating Survey. One of the questions concerned “hot” foreign accents, and it turns out a lot of folks believe we Americans talk pretty. How pretty? Here are the world’s 10 most attractive accents…

10. Scandinavian

Sweden's tennis star Bjorn Borg became an international sex symbol in the 1970s not just because he had long, wavy blond hair and ice-blue eyes. It was his voice. Want to sound like Borg? Try the candle test, a Yahoo Answers poster suggests: "If the candle flame is flickering too hard when you speak, you use too much aspiration." Watch the video here for more tips.

9. Latin American

Like Scandinavian, this descriptor paints with a broad brush, encompassing all of Central and South America. The jokey video here attempts to show us how to identify different Latin-American Spanish accents: “An Argentinian sounds like an Italian who’s overly impressed with his Spanish.”

8. Scottish

Sean Connery sounds sexy, right? But Andy Murray, not so much. If you want to sound like the movie star, "set the tip of your tongue far back in your mouth," WikiHow suggests. "When you speak, pull your tongue back toward your throat. Doing this will help you get the harsher, guttural sounds associated with Scottish accents."

The Associated Press

7. Spanish

Sorry, Latin American Spanish speakers, a Spanish accent offered up by people from Spain beats you out -- at least in the Time Out survey. We don’t know why. Maybe Antonio Banderas has something to do with it.

6. Italian

Italians talk with their hands -- surely that has something to do with the Italian accent landing high on this list. Watch the video here for some other reasons.

5. French

French is the language of love, and yet it only comes in at fifth in Time Out’s Global Dating Survey. The video here might be why the accent didn’t make it to first -- or fourth.

4. Australian

G’day, mate! An Australian accent is a dog whistle for anyone seeking good times, beer and sweating. No wonder it’s in the Top 5! In the video here, however, BuzzFeed proves Americans shouldn’t try to do Aussie accents, even if they're sweating.

3. Irish

“We don’t all sound like leprechauns on acid,” the Irish narrator of this Facts video informs us. It turns out there are quite a few Irish accents, depending on whether one is from the north, south, east or west of Ireland. They can be fast, melodic, nasal … or entirely incomprehensible.

2. American

8.7 percent of survey respondents picked the American accent as the hottest in the world. Why? The survey didn’t tell us that. In the video here, Buzzfeed asked foreigners to show us what’s great about American accents. The conclusion: Fuggheddaboud it. Like, literally.

1. British

Which accent beat out the American? The British accent, of course. By which we assume they mean the posh English accent we know from Merchant Ivory films. “Brits have by far the world’s most dateable accents -- according to a blimey-rogering 27 bloody percent of respondents listing hot accents other than their own,” Time Out exclaimed.

The Queen's English rules!

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Do you know when you should consider yourself exclusive with the person you're seeing? After six dates is the answer, according to the Time Out survey. Check out the rest of the results.

-- Douglas Perry