“Whatever other speech you grow into….your dialect stays alive in a sort of inner freedom, a separate little self.”
Ted Hughes, Poet, cited in Corcoran 1993:114
Tag Archives: voice lessons
Accent Tip #2
Connect your words together when speaking, as though like train carriages. This helps the listener to hear your ideas rather than your words.
Imagine that each sentence is almost like one long word, a ‘train of thought’.
If you speak in separate words then your meaning becomes broken up, and harder to follow. This dilutes the power of your ideas.
Accent Tip #1
Rhythm
Listen to the rhythm of the way people speak. Whatever the language or the accent, tune your ear into their overall rhythm. Imagine it like a drum beat. Where are the strong beats and where are the weak beats? Then mimic what you hear using a pattern of made up sounds, tapping the finger on the table to emphasise the strong beats
Strong beat – “Dum”
Weak beat – “di”
Standard British Example: John Keats – To Autumn
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
di Dum di Dum di Dum di Dum di Dum
