So I took the Harvard Dialect Survey  without any expectations thinking that It wouldn’t be able to pinpoint my location (since I speak with a “Filipino accent”) but lo and behold, it was actually correct (well, mostly)

(I took the quiz twice, this was my second result. My first result said that my dialect is most similar to that of Los Angeles. I was actually really surprised that both results were consistent and accurate).

Speaking of my accent, I learned English in the Philippines from pre-school up to 4th grade (approximately 12 years) so when I moved to California I simply spoke the way English was taught to me.  (example: I put a strong emphasis on the letter ‘v’ making it sound like a ‘b’. I used to say “I lab you” instead of “I love you”) Anyways, I took the survey with that mindset and chose words the way I would normally pronounce them. The survey results, however, was able to tell that I live somewhere near Southern California. It might be because I am just oblivious to how I am speaking but maybe my language is actually changing the longer I live in California.

Among everything else, what this survey told me is that region has a really large impact on how you speak a language!