Australian Accent 1

I would like to start with another video by Amy Walker because this woman is simply amazing.

Ozzie Accent in one word:

CHEEEW

This one, by Gareth Jameson, goes into a bit more detail.

i-sound

like,right.,live

in Austalian this becomes a little bit of an oi, like in oil  -just a little bit though

also a glottal stop at the end as in Oh-oh...

Australian question inflection

Australians tend to go up towards the end of the sentence

a-sound open

no way

becomes an (a)i[ei]-sound

a-sound closed

hat, man, cam

changes into an e(gg) sound

this young lady doesn't seem as -well how shall I put this- not like she is a voice coach

but can't hurt to hear an Australian talking about her own accent

also note the SLANG tag

Australian is a lazy language

don't pronounce the r at the end of words

it is foreva

or the g's

it is fishin

here is another good one with some tongue twisters

"The rain in spain falls mainly on the plain"
"Ask the master to pass the banana"

See ya !

How to do ANY accent

In this video Amy Walker gives some basic advice on how to tackle different accents in general.

In a nutshell

1) be fascinated - not interested - but FASCINATED

2) pay attention and observe

3)analyze

4)practise

5) record and check your rehearsing

Tackle your accent from one of these five categories

1) Pronounciation of consonents and vowels

pay attention to what your mouth, your tongue and breath should do when pronouncing someting like the th sound

2)Melody and melodic patterns

3)Rhytm and stress

bene. Is not Italian when it doesn't sound Italian

4)Grammar and words

bottle-o vs. liquor store

5)The vibe

study people and their surroundings

The difference between putting on an accent or having an authentic accent:If you are empahsizing sounds and this is seperate from how they feel.

So in Amy's words: Get into character!

Australian English 1 // Fun Stuff

G'Day Mate

As I have already spent one amazing year Down Under, the Australian accent is a very familar one.
But I still remember how much trouble I had understanding it in the beginning. Women were ok, but with men, the older the worse, I just couldn't communicate. My first hostmum always had to interprete what her husband was saying....

After one year I had a really strong Australian accent, which was probably due to the fact that I had lived on the countryside. The part of the country where a snake in the kitchen is nothing more than a good dinner-table story. I never realised that I had that accent until my hostdad recorded me and let me listen to my voice. This was a a very estranging experince. As not only my intonation but also my voice pitch was completely different to what I was used to from my "Austrian voice". Nowadays I can still pick up the Ozzie accent pretty easily BUT I want to take this one step further.

My plan is to practise being able to conciously switch to the Australian accent.
So, first I need to identify what is so distinctive about the Australian accent.

Ever heard the phrase "Chuck another shrimp on the barbie?? Check out this old ad ;)

Gotta love stereotypes.... so no worries mate, Paul Hogan will include you into his dinner party.


Another Australian icon is the universally loved Steve Irwin. His catch phrase: Crikeeeyy, big day ahead!

Also a fan of Steve Irwin and a genious when it comes to accents: Julio Iglesias. I promise you, he is hilarious!!

That shall be enough for the Ozzie intro!
Cheers,
Anna

Often it is not so much what you say, but how you say it.

Often it is not so much what you say, but how you say it.

For example, I have got this one friend, who always manages to drag me along to his weird events just because he manages to sound so convincing. He manages to provoke action with his way of speaking.

On a larger scale this also true with accents in a foreign language. When I was studying Physics in Vienna we had one lecture which was partly in English. Of course our professors all were geniouses BUT their thick German accent just made them sound so uneducated. It really crushed their credibility. We actually came up with a name for that - the aesthetic paradox!

Yet even though our professor sounded funny, after listening to him for a while it was clear that he was an expert on his field. And since our field of expertise is languages we really really ought to get down our pronouciation! For the sake of our credibilty!

So I came up with a structured plan to help me improve my pronounciation.

Block 1 - erasing every last bit of German in my English...

Because....unlucky for us, a German accent doesn't sound charming like the French one.

v/w sound
The video by this funny Canadian woman really helped me to get the theory behind the v and the w sound.

Also a good exercise:
Whether the weather be cold, whether the weather be hot, we'll be together, whatever the weather, whether we like it or not.

the/three

Block 2 - different accents

I've decided to challange myself to learn the Australian and the Irish accent.
And maybe some more if these first two work out.