An accent is a pronunciation pattern characteristic of a region or a social class. generic American accent: car (k-ah-r) generic British accent: car (k-ah) A dialect is a language variation with characteristic grammar and vocabulary differences. generic American English dialect: I don't have any gasoline. generic British English dialect: I haven't got any petrol.

People can speak the same language and have a different accent. For example, my English cousin and I (a Canadian) both speak English, but we have very different accents. Dialects involve the same language but use different idioms, vocabulary and sometimes sentence structure. For example, people here in Newfoundland have a dialect that might not be understood by other Canadians. They say you have "come from away" when you are not a native. They say you are "crooked" when you are grouchy. When something smells bad it is "fousty". Hope this helps

Hi. This is my personal reasoning 1) A **dialect is a non-official language in a state A dialect can also be represented by many smaller variations (sub-dialects). Some states have more than one Official language (eg Finland) In some states, dialects can be used in bureaucracy also (eg Spain) 2) An **accent is a regional tendency to a particular pronunciation of specific sounds → Therefore, up to a certain point, dialects and accents are the one and the same. 3) However, if I switch from my native Dialect to the Official language, I can still keep a lot of the dialectal accent. ► So, Accent can remain as a regional trait still in the Official language. It's a "nuance". An **accent can also be "imitated" to recall social stereotypes (a "sociolect") -- if russian people in Urals pronounce O as A, they pretend to be more "evoluted", since this is the typical accent of West Russia (and Belarus) -- the "Valley Girl" is a female stereotype in the U.S.A., that can be recalled by features as: Vocal fry and HRT (High Rising Terminal) 4) Of course, I can also learn how to speak the Official language in its Standard accent. Therefore, an Official language is but "a Major dialect with a Standard accent", see point 2 Conclusion: due to the social contexts behind official languages, we could say that - a dialect and its accent can be the same thing -- up to one point - a dialect has only one accent because it is not an official language - an official language can be spoken with many dialectal accents - an official language also has its standard accent which can be learnt as well bye

To me, there is no specific difference. Accent, Dialect, and Language are just nominal points on a continuum of difference. As the others have said, typically an accent has slightly different pronunciations for some sounds, and a few different words. A dialect has a greater difference in sound, and a lot more different words. A dialect can be considered a different language when it has substantially different sounds, and many different words. And at the other end of the spectrum, there are languages that are completely different, like Chinese and English, where the only similarities are loanwords. But when are two different ways of talking different accents, different dialects, or different languages? That's when it gets complicated, particularly when, as A☤P (Manu) mentioned, politics gets involved. There are no fixed rules. In the west, we consider Cantonese to be a different language to Mandarin. But in China, they consider it a different dialect. I guess that's because they like to promote the idea of unity. On the other hand, Portuguese, Spanish, and Italian are widely accepted as being different languages, yet in some ways, the differences between them are less than the differences between some dialects. The same is possibly true with some of the Scandinavian languages. Are American English, and British English different accents? Or different dialects? I think they are accents, but some people might say they are dialects.