How do you lose an accent?

[johnafter909]

I was wondering if anyone here had any practical suggestions, ideas, or vocal exercises that could help someone lose or at least soften an accent.
I'm involved in training a very enthusiastic and eager to learn young person who would be quite an asset to our station if we could just tamper down that person's Yankee accent. The format itself accentuates Southern music in general, so the Yankee accent is not a plus. This person is so young, no bad habits have been picked up yet. If this person could just tone it down an iota, they would be good for the format because of their attitude and enthusiasm.

 

[landtuna]

Actually, I think you mean "adopt a new accent".

Just like learning a new language....

Put on the headphones, select an example of the accent you'd like to emulate then listen, listen listen.

After awhile begin speaking along with the example until you can mimic it.

Repeat as necessary.

 

[johnafter909]

No landtuna, I meant what I said. I don't want this young person to try to "speak Southern", because it would most surely sound phony. I would like to just try and tone down the hard Northern vowel sounds and replace them with softer Southern vowel enunciations.
Your idea of listening on headphones to desired enunciations and mimicing until it's second nature is sound advice, though, so thanks.
I guess on paper it does look like a Henry Higgins/Eliza Doolittle situation..."By jove, I think she's got it!"

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

Maybe what you want is for him to adopt "Chicago Style, Midwestern". That's what we were doing a couple of generations ago. Your people won't know if it is authentic or put-on. Either way it is usually acceptable almost anywhere you go.

I was born in far south Texas. Educated in Arkansas. Moved to the Midwest in quest of my broadcast career. Living in the Midwest I became fascinated by the "Deep South" and Appalachian speech patterns of those who came north looking for good jobs. By the time I left the business, I sounded not like a Southerner or a Midwesterner.... but like a blooming radio announcer! At least that is what people told me. So now I have spent years learning NOT to sound like a radio announcer.

Today I'm a total mess. When I open my mouth you don't know what is going to come out. The Marlboro Man? A Maine Lobster man? A bit of Alabama politician? Maybe some Wisconsin Cheese-head. I ordered a cup of coffee at McDonalds the other night and had to wait for them to brew a fresh pot. The guy on duty asked me if I was from New York.

 

[freqdev]

i think it's a process and formula. first teach this person to be a chr jock. in the business we know that as a puker. if they can master that technique, send them to race tracks and rodeos to be the p a announcer. this will put them around people with the accent you desire, but still a little harsh. finally, make them listen to public radio for a week. the jolt of culture mixed in with the other abilities he or she learned will give you a non affected accent.

 

[Tom Wells]

I'm agreeing with Goat Rodeo Cowboy. I'm from Chicago, but I've traveled so much, and picked up so many things from so many people that I don't know what's going to come out. When I get "worked up" and emphatic about a point I'm making, there's no telling which style will come out. Might be greek immigrant, radio announcer, Alabama sharecropper via the Gary steel mills, but probably not Utah or New Hampshire.
When I crack a mike it often turns into "west Texas bar-fly", much to my dismay.

In radio school, I remember being taught the ideal was "Ohio", if any of us were planning on being on the air, but by that time almost all of us were headed into someting other than radio, not even radio engineering.

 

[Thrills!]

I have a suggestion that might work...be yourself. Whatever you sound like go with that. The listeners can spot a fake and then they will hate on ya. You don't want that. If you got an accent...use it to your advantage. You don't want to sound like everyone else...stand out playa! Good luck to ya!

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

Thrills!: A big part of me is with you all the way on this one. When I was in radio there was this big pressure to sound... well.... "sound right"... whatever that meant. Then the business began to accept voices that were... shall we say: "personalized".

This message was posted in the South Carolina board. I live just across the state line to the south. There is a phrase often heard in this part of the world and it can be aimed at your speech pattern, or it can be aimed at your "socio/political" thinking that you let leak out much like your accent leaks out:

"Yoa ain't frum 'round heah, Aw ya!"​

If the man responsible for the sound of a radio station in South Carolina says: "I have a person leakin' too much yankee sound" don't be too quick to stand on "Everyone should be who he really is."

Now, if you'se guys will get out of my face, I gotta practice saying Jerry Del Colliano's line from yesterday's blog: "I'm Italian and I'm from Nu Jurzey. Ya got a problem with that?"

 

[landtuna]

Now, if you'se guys will get out of my face, I gotta practice saying Jerry Del Colliano's line from yesterday's blog: "I'm Italian and I'm from Nu Jurzey. Ya got a problem with that?"

Shouldn't that be: "I'm Italian and I'm from Nu Joisey. Ya gotta problem wid dat?" ;D

 

[Tom Wells]

Now, if you'se guys will get out of my face, I gotta practice saying Jerry Del Colliano's line from yesterday's blog: "I'm Italian and I'm from Nu Jurzey. Ya got a problem with that?"

Shouldn't that be: "I'm Italian and I'm from Nu Joisey. Ya gotta problem wid dat?" ;D

And ya can't just say it, ya gotta sayit LOUD, like the other person needs a hearing aid, and sound like you're agitated, except you're not.
You just wanna make sure they can hear ya.

 

[landtuna]

Now, if you'se guys will get out of my face, I gotta practice saying Jerry Del Colliano's line from yesterday's blog: "I'm Italian and I'm from Nu Jurzey. Ya got a problem with that?"

Shouldn't that be: "I'm Italian and I'm from Nu Joisey. Ya gotta problem wid dat?" ;D

And ya can't just say it, ya gotta sayit LOUD, like the other person needs a hearing aid, and sound like you're agitated, except you're not.
You just wanna make sure they can hear ya.

Ya. Always tough to hear over the sirens and gunfire.

 

[aunti-terrestrial]

Weighing in as a female jock, here. As a former military kid, way back sometime in the last millennium, I picked up some bad habits from all over the map along the way; drawing out certain words in a mid-Atlantic manner, rounding the hard 'r' from New England (shuah, instead of sure), stretching out vowels like they do on the Florida/Georgia line, a big old hodgepodge of bad habits. I started thinking about broadcasting before I was out of high school, and once I realized that any sort of accent or mangled pronunciation was going to hold me back, I started practicing. I still do. It's actually kind of compulsive. I don't believe any on-air jock should be happy with what Mother Nature gave you. She needs to replay her airchecks, and yes, as Landtuna suggested, put the headphones on and tape herself practicing the correct ennunciation for problem words every day. There's no magic bullet, except for this one: she has to want to work on changing it. The way you describe her, I'm sure that's the case.

One step at a time. Pick out three words that make you cringe every time, and make her make you a tape of her saying it correctly. Give her a week to get that tape right. I believe that, in that week's time, you'll probably see some improvement in those as well as in other words. That's just a beginning, but if you give her the tools, she can start teaching herself from there.

The best advice I can give you is to tell her to never stop practicing, and never stop listening to voices she admires.

Best to you, and to that poor little child about to embark on a radio career. I'm glad she's got somebody willing to work with her; she's lucky.

 

[Thrills!]

How many people do you suppose told Wolfman Jack, you gotta change your voice to something like all the jocks? I'm not saying totally accept what you got, but work on it and you'll get better. As for airchecks, you need to let someone else listen to them. Someone who's gonna find the flaws and help you correct them. Good luck getting into radio at these uncertain times. If there is anything I can do to help you. please holla at yo boy! You get better by doing it. So turn on the mic, get on the breeze and flow....

 

[freqdev]

thrills, you make a good point but there is not time to change an accent. voice automation can read copy with no accent (like the local forecast on the weather channel) and communicate the message. just type and playback.

 

[thatwasradio]

Took me FOREVER to shake an accent, but fortunately I had good coaching from experienced broadcasters in Charlotte, plus I was 16 and able to grasp onto new concepts a lot easier; I was given aircheck tapes of jocks on CHR stations with "neutral" or "midwestern" accents and was told to emulate their pronunciations. Not only did it work after about a dozen listens to the same tapes over and over, but it taught me good radio and tight-board operation at a young age. BTW, I listened to those tapes ALL the time, on the way to school, at home, while falling asleep, while in the shower, etc.

 

[True Grit]

I think it's something that comes with time and experience. I have airchecks when I was just beginning in '79 and besides just plain sounding more professional 25+ years later, whatever trace of a Maine accent is gone, not that it was that bad. No longer in the biz (as of Cumulus cuts last fall) but even near the end, there's just something about a microphone in front of my face that made the 'radio voice' instinctively kick in. In normal conversation I could/can still slip into the "ayuh, cah, Bah Hahbah" but it was never an issue when I was OTA...unless production required it, of course

 

[Tom Wells]

I want to know why I grew up next to Chicago, and "ayuh" was a regular word there in the 60's.

 

[vchimpanzee]

An accent never hurt the "Car talk" guys.

I first learned to talk near the Virginia border in North Carolina, and my physician (one of three, actually) said I talked like a Yankee.

And yet when I started college, my economics professor, who sounded like he was from up north, said if I wanted to be a business major, I needed to lose my accent.