MorkTheFiddle wrote:Well, a quick stroll down Youtube lane searching on French Accents turned up some videos about different French accents. As usual, no help to me, cause they all sound indistinguishable, except Canadian, to my ears.
I don't know which videos you perused, but I've seen a couple where the speakers are a bit influenced by Parisian French (or media) and have weakened accents. It's better to look at the regional programming when they talk to ordinary people or older folk who aren't consciously attempting to demonstrate any difference.
It's not French. but earlier on I was watching ATV (Antwerp) where the big news in otherwise sleepy Kontich was that the WK cycling passed through. Some of the people they interviewed in the street had thicker regional accents. I remember when I was learning Dutch I would compare accents I thought were similar, rather than those with acknowledged larger differences. I still can't tell all the differences even between places like A'dam and The Hague.
It's some time since I've been properly around France, but even 20 years ago there were a lot of younger people in places like Montpellier and Aix-en-Provence who had accents tending towards a more French standard, especially mobile workers. Speaking of Canadian, do you ever watch the videos from 'maprofdefrançais'? That girl (woman) who teaches Quebecois? She spoke to an Acadian speaker who had the clearest accent I've ever heard on that channel from a Canadian speaker.