We all know that vocal accents are not created equal. Influenced as we are by popular culture, social stereotypes, and other factors, you’d be hard-pressed to find someone who doesn’t prefer the posh, rounded tones of Benedict Cumberbatch over the rasps of the ‘roadman’ accent.
Language learning app Preply has conducted a survey on the most attractive accents to Hongkongers, and the results speak for themselves. The British accent has been voted as the sexiest foreign accent when speaking English, with just under 50 percent of all respondents picking it as their top choice. (They must’ve just been thinking about the BBC received pronunciation (RP) accent, or the Queen’s English from binge-watching The Crown, because have these people heard a Scouser? The Mancunian accent? The Glaswegian accent??) To no one’s surprise, the French accent comes in as the next sexiest among the foreign accents with 31 percent of votes, followed by the American accent with 28.4 percent of votes.
What’s most interesting in this survey is that the Hong Kong accent has been ranked the highest among the Asian accents for being the sexiest while speaking English. With 43.1 percent of votes, this puts our local sultry tones firmly in the second spot for the world’s most attractive accents, ahead of other foreign tones like Italian, Japanese, and Korean.
There’s a bit of a gender divide when it comes to preferences. While the British and Hong Kong accents were consistently ranked first and second for both women and men participants, women ranked French in third place, followed by American, whereas these are reversed for male participants. Italian then came in fifth place for women, while men’s fifth choice for accents was Japanese.
We love that national pride pulled through, but do you agree with these rankings for sexiest accents? See below for the list of top 10, and visit Preply’s website for more details.
The sexiest accents for Hongkongers when speaking English
- British accent
- Hong Kong accent
- French accent
- American accent
- Japanese accent
- Italian accent
- Australian accent
- Singaporean accent
- Chinese accent
- Korean accent
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