We’ve all seen it. Accents that make you want to cringe (apologies to poor Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins for using him as an example here). But how amazing it is when we are completely fooled! How glorious to be engaged with a character and story that uses a dialect to enhance the experience. How do the Meryl Streeps of the world do it?
continue readingExamining habits
“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” (Aristotle)
The way we speak is habitual. The concept of habit runs deeply through the work of voice and speech training. This is especially true in theatre, where the idea moves beyond speech into other elements affecting actors’ performance.
In this post, we are simply dipping a toe into the basics of habits: what they are, why we need them, and how to change them if we wish.
continue readingEveryone has an accent (including you!)
I have been surprised lately to hear so many people insisting they do not have an accent. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Everyone has an accent!
continue readingFifty blog posts on voice, speech, accents, and presence
I just learned that I have made 50 posts on this page over the past few years. These posts cover everything from “diaphragmatic” breathing to allergies to vocal health/injuries to projection to learning accents to hoarseness to owning a room. In case you missed any, here’s a complete list:
continue reading5 everyday words that make a foreign accent more (or less!) pronounced
One of the keys to sounding natural in any language is rhythm. Emphasis and stress are often at least as important as getting the correct speech sounds. The five common words below have special pronunciation rules that affect the whole rhythm of a sentence, and make a huge different in the way a speaker’s accent/speech is perceived. The words are:
continue readingThe 100 most common words in English
Many of my clients work to sound natural when speaking English. This list of the 100 most common words of English (according to the Concise Oxford English Dictionary, 11th edition) makes great practice material.
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