Grammar and words is next. By that, each accent is different to... now, do I say different 'to' or different 'from'?
Do I say, am I gonna 'have' a shower, or 'take' a shower?
Now, those are minutia of grammatics. Grammatics, is that a word? I don't know!
[laughs]
Grammatical minutia. If I'm from another country, where they're used to
structuring things grammatically like this, and then I'm trying to learn
English and it's structured, you know, that way, because English, I might, when
I'm trying to learn in and I'm concentrating on the words it might end
up being back in the structure, the grammatical structure, that I understand,
that I remember. Which is why things often get switched in English when we're listening
to foreign speakers. So, if you're studying a foreign language accent the
more you can learn about that language, the more you'll understand why certain
things will be substituted. Yeah. And then for the actual meaning of the words
You know, if I said,
[British accent] "Would you like some pudding?"
Do I mean, like, jello instant chocolate pudding? Or, do I mean would you like some dessert. You know, pudding.
Or if you go to Australia and you're looking for a liquor store you won't find one until you
go to a, you know, a Bottle-O. Or, if you want a drugstore you won't find a
drugstore until you go to a chemist, you know. So, knowing the different words
that different people use. I mean, and even just within the U.S. people use
different words to mean different things, you know, so paying attention to that.
If you're fascinated by that start there. So, we have pronunciation of consonants and
vowels, the melody of the line, the rhythm and stress, the grammar and word meaning,
and then the fifth category I call the vibe, because you can't separate out the way a
person speaks or a character speaks from the person, you know. I don't just speak
the way I speak. Speech is an expression of who I am, who I think I am,
who I want you to think I am, how I feel, you know, all of that. So, it's, you know,
it's part of an attitude, there's part of the times, the zeitgeist of the times.
If you look at,
[1930s Announcer accent] You know, if I'm an announcer in the 1930s and I have to speak
into a microphone that has a very limited pitch range, fidelity range, you know,
then I better speak and this sort of pattern. And it has to be sharp and clear,
if you want to understand what I'm saying.
[Standard American accent] Yeah. Or, if you look at films from the 1970s, 'Dog Day Afternoon' or 'Saturday
Night Fever', they aren't just accents, New York accents, they're New York accents at
that particular time, from those particular characters, and how they're
feeling. Yeah? So, there was an attitude in the 1970s that doesn't exist anymore.
Or, the 1930s, or the 40s, or the 90s, you know, that doesn't exist anymore. So,
it's constantly changing, and you can't separate out the way a person is moving,
and feeling, and expressing, and talking from, you know, if I'm talking,
if this is the most fascinating thing to you, you could be looking at how
certain, you know, which different muscles I need to tense, how I'm moving,
you know, try somebody on! You're looking down the street and you see this person and you
think, "How do they, you know...?", get into it, try it out, try it out. And consider your
source as well, because the difference between when it sounds like someone
is putting on an accent, and where it's authentic, it feels authentic, is if
the emphasis for them is on how they sound, and it's separate from how they
feel and who they are, then it won't ever feel true. But if it is centred in the
truth of this person, and how they feel, and what they're thinking, then even if
it's bizarre, you know, we've all met someone who we couldn't believe that was their real
accent but it was, you know.
[imitates man who never opened mouth to speak] I'll never forgot, I met a man who actually talked like
this, and I had no idea what he said because
the whole time I was thinking...
[Standard American accent] You exist! I couldn't believe it.
[imitation] He would never open his mouth. His jaw was really just tight like this. He had his snifter of brandy,
and I went, oh my God...
[Standard American accent] It was amazing, but he was a real person, you know. So, study people.
Be fascinated, and choose the thing that is the most fascinating to you, start there
and move on from there. It takes thousands of hours, it's not going to
happen overnight. You can start overnight and you'll get
better, and you'll get better, and you'll get better, but practice, practice
practice. Record it, listen to your recordings, show them
to other people if you can grab an authentic speaker of the accent that you
want to learn, and have them work with you, sit down and work with you, that's a
really good thing, you know, because they can they can tell you whether or not it
sounds true, or, you know. But really it's just about you honing your own skills
and you learning from a place of what you are interested in, and expanding from there.
So, all the best in your pursuits,
remember we've got: Be fascinated; pay attention and observe; analyse, break it
down; practice, practice, practice, rehearse, pay attention to your rehearsing, don't
just go off and rehearse and then forget to check back in your source, because you
could end up somewhere else in some other thing that you've been practicing really
hard but it could be totally wrong. Remember the vibe.
All the best in everything you do.