Hey, everyone, Chris one here. This is accent out loud a podcast about one person's take on English language learning accent modification and communication. I'm on my way to work today. We're going to try and figure out today's episode. I want to continue a little bit with that idea that I was practicing in Australian accent turned to pause as I go.Heard it try and give you insight into what I'm trying to listen to and what I notice about an accent just going to drive into work today, but we'll do another podcast and just sort of listen as we go same idea check the episode. I did last week to get the gist of it. Today. We're going to do with something a little bit different. I'm not going to pause necessarily as often. I might just speak on top of the podcast itself over overtop the podcast that we're listening to same speaker. Wendy Zuckerman different episode and the idea is again. I'm going to pause interrupt talk over with the intent of framing up what I hear as a speech language pathologist in somebody's accent and try and give insight into how I see and hear things now because I already have a native English accent to bit different but it's the best thing I can do as a native speaker to try and Proximate how I think or how I perceive what non-native English speakers are going through. Hi, good morning. These are two men. Signs verses from gimlets anaphylaxis. So last time on the last episode I raised some Flags in terms of things that are different between a North American English accent General American General Canadian English accent versus an Australian accent the things that we talked about were sort of the hard R sound so we're not really going to hear part ours. It's more like for example the word bad. There would be more of a bear shark last week was one of the main words and it's more of a shock shock instead of shark. So we're not hearing that hard are sound and then the vowels are a bit more backed. What I'm hearing is more. So open mouth postures more exaggerated mouth movements elongated manipulations of vowel sounds percent specifically when they're going through diphthongs, which is a trend. Titian from one value to another vowel within the same syllable other things that I noticed were the up-and-down exaggeration almost of their International pattern. It's a bit more sing-songy at least the way that I noticed it and there's a lot more raising intonation which sounds almost like a question when she's talking to bit more common now, but it's something worth noting. It might just be against me. It to her but the intention was to analyze how she sounds so if that's specific to heard and that's something that I'm picking off and that's that's something specific to her individual accent. This is the show that piece this is the show that picks enough Alexis. So what I'm doing now is I'm just sort of talking overhead with the intention of immediately practicing and immediately attempting to imitate exactly what I'm when I'm on I'm seeing or what I'm hearing mimicry is one of those things that is in the research and it's a strong proponent for how one builds or developed an accent. We are sort of hardwired as human beings to pick these things up to notice differences in sounds production and there is research to suggest that when I hear an accent different from mine. I will try to accommodate or approximate. What I say to sound more similar to what I hear now the social behavioral evolutionary sort of argument for that might be that by accommodating by almost unconsciously starting to sound like other people who are a little bit more different in terms of how they're they're sound repertoire is that you're building trust your building communication. You're sort of on a sound level. Trying to be similar to the person that you're interacting with and evolutionary wise being similar being sort of having an in-group out-group knows who to who you belong with or who you want to belong with or who you want to align yourself with so I can I can see the argument for that. And so basically I know this is kind of long winded. This is kind of far-fetched, but the idea is I want you to realize what I'm doing when i'm mimicking I think. A lot of times the concern was that people have when they're practicing is they're not fully committing. There's no full commitment or going a hundred percent all into this this sort of communication. So the eye is the want for me is that I can show you what I'm trying to do when I try my Australian English accent my general Australian English accent to hone in on what is going to be effective. Helping you with that communication and what may not necessarily be as effective. I think a lot of times when people are learning a new accent. They don't know how to hone it down or dial it down to its specifically what they need to change or what they can improve with learning in English accent. I think that a lot of times when I ask clients or when I posed the question they can tell something's different. They can tell. Oh, I see I don't sound this way or this sort of thing. It's a bit different but I Don't think they fully necessarily grasp as a whole how many different things are moving all the different moving Parts in an exit. So it's really helpful to have that imitation feedback right afterwards so that you can try it out immediately after a notice the different things involved. Maybe you can get the sounds that you want but maybe the pitch or the delivery or the pacing is not the same. It's all of those are actually key components to an accent and ones delivery. For communication and even amongst native English speakers being a more effective English speaker involves these nuanced pieces of delivery intonation changes in loudness changes in Pitch changes in your ability to not have so many interjections on cause your ability to sound confident when you are speaking versus Rising that tone at the end, right? Getting that pitch at the end to literally give the cues of a question when you don't really necessarily mean a question. I know for one myself. I tend to be a largely apathetic person. I don't really necessarily make my emotions as exaggerated as I think other people would appreciate when I'm communicating. So as a result, I do come off a pathetic monotone at times. So one thing that I can do as a communicator, even if I'm not necessarily feeling more emotional is to intentionally change. My pitch change my pacing change my loudness so that people really get the breadth of in depth of my communication and pick up on the nuances that I want them to pick up on to be a better effective communicator. full axis within the last few decades one of America's favorite snack foods to Public Enemy Number One. You really hear the number one. Not number number. Has died after having an allergic reaction to peanuts peanuts peanuts in the classroom means lunch boxes are kept in the according according. According another thing that I want to talk about was I talked about twang last week, but it wasn't really I didn't have a great definition of it. And so I loved a little bit deeper looked online see what researchers and Voice coaches and things like that are saying about Twain and twang reflects an actual anatomical difference to the vocal tract. So it's an interesting. Because I don't think at least from a speech-language pathology point of view when I'm focused on whether or not a child is able to pick up a certain sound properly or a adults is able to regain some of the communication. They might have lost after a stroke twang is not a high priority. I can definitely see it being an impactful thing for a voice coach. For a actor for anyone who is on that upper echelon of communication who is trying to tweak how confident they might sound or how commanding the voice that they have but twang is not something that I've typically dealt with now from The Voice coaches from the research about it twang appears to be the lowering of the epiglottis. What it essentially mean we backtrack a second. I believe all this is a flap inside the throat you can look it up online. Basically, it's not that important for your purposes. But essentially what what my understanding of it is they're opening the throat as essentially a better resonance chamber for your voice. So just like when you think of an instrument and how the the shape of the instrument you're playing paternity particularly your brass instruments your trombone, maybe even your wind instrument. So your trombone your tuba your saxophone the shape of that brass instrument determines the overall sound of it the larger the belle of the in So I'm thinking tuba versus trumpet, for example, the larger the shape the more deep or low base that that sound necessarily my count what trumpets things with narrower in shapes might do to compensate these you have to use more breath. You have to use a louder more effort forcing that are through and that generates your louder sound. But my understanding of twang is it considerably a vocal technique that is used to increase the efficiency of your sound in the sense that you are able to generate a louder sound able to generate a more full-bodied sound and able to generate a resonance in the throat or in the yeah in the throat space which facilitates that loudness. Now sometimes with that increased resonant people apparently can miss characterize that as nasally which is what I briefly alluded to when I mentioned it last week, but it's not actually nasal. It's more throat bass. Anyways, it was something it was something interesting for me. I thought I might as well share it and we'll just keep going on. Go to CDC. According to the CDC us have peanut allergies one points for possession and quadrupled since the 90s with data data. So it's data. Sometimes I hear more data, depending on where you are in the English-speaking world. You might get a bigger difference daytime. It's almost her that a sound is so elongated for me it so dragged out compared. It's like half a split second longer for all her vowels. She really takes a little bit more time and it comes across as more emphasis when I'm saying it to myself by my gut instinct is to say data or data, but data if I'm going to say it that way she almost as data there's and maybe it's her broadcast. Invoice maybe it's her podcasting voice that wants her to fully enunciate her sounds and so there's maybe a longer duration for each of those sounds but it's something worth noting according to the monkey a peanut Saturdays. So so you can hear the exact comp different comparison. So and so there's a lot more exaggerated transition of her initials vowel sound to the final vowel sounds so sad so and I'm almost like really a nun saying set out sort of an upwards tense. I feel it in my cheeks when I'm saying so and then I really round my lips and protrude my lips at the end of that set out versus what? Save myself. So I go straight or very quickly towards that final lip position and the overall duration of the vowels are much shorter, but you can notice when I'm trying to imitate quite shortly after I sometimes don't catch all the sounds. I sometimes don't catch all the words. That's fine. I think what you really want to get into that rhythm of is being immediately afterwards repeating what she's saying. I'm trying with the same intonation trying it with the same sounds that you're hearing and really trying to dial in that rhythmic characterization that she has on those words in that sequence. I don't care. It's not as important whether you hit this word that word in the whole overall presentation of it that is important. And I think sometimes there is a misplacement of all your efforts where you might get bogged down on specific words and I think we want to get past that the frustration is necessary unnecessarily focused on one specific sound or one specific Target and what is really more important. Is the overall delivery as well? Yes, the single individual words are important. It's important to get the right sound. It's important to write the right pitch, but it's also the overall delivery beyond the individual sound. It's the piecing. It's the word choice. It's the evaluation of what are words that are worth saying slower so that their communicated more effectively versus what are the words that you say quicker? Because maybe they're not as important words. It's of a peanut because of a pain nut sack. So today's and today's mini episode were asking. What is going what is going on with all these peanut allergies. Is there any thing parents can do about it? And what is we'll get to all that story. So story you have that are now the reason you have that are that hard are sound that you really do here. It says because it's beginning the second syllable story. You can hear if you had to if you don't know the concept of syllables. It's basically how many beats to a word how many claps if I had to say over if I had to clap out a word another way that you can think of it is if you could not say any sounds if you had to hum, so hmm, if you had to hum out the words how many humps are there so in story There's huh? There's two if it was car. Hmm one and so building your understanding of syllable structure of your sounds that you're learning in sort of rhyming. Those are all going to be helpful for figuring out that piece. So with the word story because the are is important at the beginning even for people who drop ours or don't have such a hard R. So I'm talking about British people. I'm pretty sure most British accents drop the are some American accents less General Canadian American accents. We will produce that hard are but that's when you might hear the different so story everyone's going to Say it because the r is the beginning of a second syllable, but maybe four star the word star. You won't hear it. You might get more of a stop stop. Is it a star? So for the word Starbucks and might be Starbucks Starbucks versus Starbucks Starbucks is a pediatrician. And Allergy researcher and King's College London long day. Thanks. Gideon Gideon told us the back in the 90s, but she says that word nine knees it's really nasal. That's what I'm picking up. I mean right now mine is pretty nasal to but it's more allergies and nasal congestion, but that will change the way you sound but for it, maybe that Twang and maybe that needs ality that I'm hearing when she's particularly saying 90s. Duchess we're seeing more and more kids more and more have that more and more that are is not as hard. Geez. I like cheese really very weird and very soon. I'm not going particularly, maybe make him marry because it doesn't matter for him severe allergic reaction the cheeks willing diarrhea vomiting swill beer wine difficulty breathing loss of consciousness. And so and so In the late 90s together allergy got together about these kids getting these all these kids getting these nasty. Some have some very clear advice nasty. Again, that's that bat a sound said of nasty-ass T nasty. It's more of a back of the most sound. And so as I'm going through this these are the things that keep coming up the trends and these are the trends that you really have to dial in when you want to put on an accent. So North American General American English accents have Trends or have characteristics that yours may not so for example, if a British person wants to learn a general American accent, they're going to have to learn to produce that are sound all the time that hard R sound. The time and if they're not doing that then that makes that accent less believable. So like I said before if you want to start knowing what one of the characteristics of your specific accent that you want to achieve that needs to always be on the Forefront of what you need to do differently when you're thinking of speaking out loud in English and you want that English accent that General American accent. You need to know the criteria. Syria of what is different what is different in your English accent to theirs and you need to be able to Rattle it off and you need to be able to think about it as you're speaking don't feed her these peanuts don't feed your babies peanut need two thousand and the Year 2006 came out pretty a trick came out with guidelines Justice. A lot of babies shouldn't be eating nuts Chuckles. I'll tell the three years old and they said Ice was particularly advice peanut allergies food and other food allergies or execute actions. We know that that's the route that goes on to goes on energy and extremely common in babies. Which eczema is common in babies what the peanut butter. You telling your patients that he is a woman stole my patient search. I was giving that advice to my own family and Tall well family as well. It seemed intuitively true and totally true avoiding peanuts by avoiding peanuts cooling the baby holding the baby Jesus and so after those guidelines in 2000 came and 2000k most doctors across the u.s. And You don't give your babies peanuts. And the world chugged along for years. I got made into movies wizard Britney Spears shaved her head Britney Spears, Britney Spears shaved her head and during the 2000 lot happened during the 2000s. Peanut allergies peanut allergies didn't go away banished not about us from the kitchen. That about is didn't say She's walking kids who weren't eating what you're eating peanuts coming up still becoming allergic to tell you and so I think the way that you imitate helps to establish what you expect is going to happen and predict what is going to happen when you are talking this way and the intent is if you can spontaneously know. All what you need to do differently to talk this way. You've got your accent. You've got the accent you want. If you can spontaneously determine what and how words should be said and deliver them in a way that is similar to what you're imitating. Then you've got the X in that you want. But I think people don't necessarily practice accents this way because it's quite an overload of stimuli. You have to hear you have to listen to what you're saying. You have to listen to what they're saying. You have to get into the habit of move. Wing that mouth quickly to this different shapes that you're trying exploring the different soundscape and what ends up happening is you get a little bit better and a little bit better. And if you do that over a month, maybe then maybe you can pick it up that way magic to them. Hello Jake to them was written from listening really from listening patients to my patients to you over the same field. I just don't understand. And she not hanging out. Yeah. So what was going on Gideon found the answer answer answer. So that's an interesting one and some verses on Sir. So answer sounds more British UK and maybe that's where the differentiation between British and Australian comes I think for an untrained ear. They do sound similar. They're certain characteristics that are similar between the two obviously if you asked an Australian person or a British person, they might say that they don't at all the same but there is an example of what I would think on Sir might be more British, but it you get answer answer which is more Australian, but it's interesting because you also get answer instead. Answer which has the hard R sound the hard our sound would determine that it's a North American accent. So it's kind of a mishmash between the two it's not quite fully British, which would be more on sir. And it's not quite North American which would be answer. So it's more of an answer a middle ground. Anyways, I got to my I got to my workplace. It's four minutes and 30 seconds into the podcast and I've talked for now 30 minutes. And so the idea behind it is just sort of you can You don't need to look far for stimuli for practice for things that you can do. I've driven to work. I've got 30 minutes of practicing an accent that I'm I don't know how to do and the next thing that I would want to do out of this is okay after I've imitated it for a bit perturbed a script try and use what you've learned or what you think in Australian English accent might be and then maybe hear it back from an Australian English person. So for example, I know TED Talks online you can print the transcript. So if you find an Australian English speaker in Australian English presenter product transcript tape yourself saying that transcript before you even heard it from them. Tape yourself. See what you say. How you think in Australian English accent person might deliver it here how they actually deliver it and then you can compare and contrast which words the delivery how they said it how you said it. Where did they pause? Where do they not pause? Did they always have this Rising intonation or was Rising pitch questions when they talk or is that more specific to Wendy's argument that we've been hearing about? A little bit today and that's how you slowly slowly slowly build your accent. And I think it's important enough for me to try and do this myself because I don't know an Australian accent. This is just what I'm doing to try and pick it up on the side. So it would be really cool. I think an inspiring if I could learn in Australian accent or general its Australian accent and be able to demonstrate to you. Yeah at the beginning of his shit I couldn't do it but maybe gradually over time they got better it got better. I tweaked it a little bit and now it's decent Australian accent. So that'll be something I'm going to put in my Looks to do I'll keep recording as I go keep practicing show you what I got and hopefully you get some information on this. Anyways, see you next up if you like what you're hearing or even if you aren't let me know. I know this podcast can be something great educational for long. I'm here to listen. So give me your take your likes your dislikes and maybe we can make this into something that'll help. A lot of people leave a rating on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts. Once I figure out how to read the reviews, I'm sure it'll help.
Australian English accent - Part 2. Go back and listen to the previous episode for a basic explanation of the premise. Join me on my car drive to work. I listen to an Australian English accent and provide commentary on what I notice, trying my best to imitate parts of it, highlighting what is salient to me as a speech language pathologist. I know my Australian English accent sucks but I'll work on it to give you the confidence to work on your English accent if improving your communicative clarity is a goal. We can suck together and start the process of growing. Imagine 1 year down the road how much better we'll all be! About the Show: AccentOutLoud is your weekly source for English  communication, insights, experimentation, and inspiration. Every  Thursday (and sometimes more) I'll share my personal take on English  communication, tips of English communication and what I think is  important in clear communication. If you have an interest in improving  your English communication, learning a speech-language pathologist's  perspective on the field, or just want a uniquely interesting podcast,  you're sure to find something useful in each episode. It's my hope that  you'll become a fan and gain a better appreciation and understanding of  what is involved in your accent as a result! AccentOutLoud is  proudly made by me, a one-man team from Lucid Accent Consulting. Feel  free to get in touch for any thoughts, ideas, or feedback  Check out my newsletter - brief.lucidaccent.com Check me out  on Instagram - www.instagram.com/LucidAccent/ Check me out on Facebook - www.facebook.com/KrisWanLucidAccent/ 