Accents are pretty weird things. Everybody has an accent, and it’s not difficult for us to talk in our own, but it can take a lot to learn other accents accurately and be able to speak in them.
I’ve always been an accent type of gal. I’ll randomly switch from my own accent to British to Indian to Aussie to Russian to Scottish to Ella Marija Lani Yelich-O'Connor knows what else (ha). The research behind this habit has originated in the caves of random life experiences and seeped its way into my cerebral sponge from movies, exchange programs, the internet, other human beings (if you can believe that), etcetera. I’ve never had to learn an accent for any purpose other than wanting to do so. Until now...
As a pig in Shrek the Musical, I’m supposed to be German. Let me just say that being German is pRETTY GOSHDARN DIFFICULT THANK YOU VERY MUCH. I hardly even have three lines, but I feel like I’ll be able to better impersonate my character if I put myself in a German accent mindset (think in German, sing in German, etc.) (also, German is kind of a classic, you’ve gotta be able to do German) (also, it's way more fun to be German than American, let's be honest with ourselves here, kids).
I watched a few videos of some Germans speaking English, and then a video of a British voice actor doing a German accent, and then listened to the International English Dialect reading whatever whatever website. Even after all of this, I still manage to sound Indian, Russian, or French when trying to sound like I'm from Deutschland, although I do admit my German accent is now only slightly worse than okay.
Anyway, as a person who’s generally alright at accents, this has been a new challenge (that I 100% brought upon myself because I could do an accent that sounded enough like German to get by in saying lines before I even embarked upon this journey).
Not-so-side-note that I thought I’d point out: The German accent is really pleasing and beautiful. It can sound harsh, especially when one is actually speaking German, but even then it has this good… GAH, I don’t know. I like it a lot. In English, which is mostly what I have been listening to (actually, all of what I’ve been listening to), it can sound sweet or comical (and surely many other things as well) either/any one of which is alrighty-okay with me.
A mini German-accent lesson from someone who clearly doesn't know what she's doing at all:
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| a little chart of consonants that I found on the top of my head |
Other points:
Vowels are a nice Ice Mocha Blended between British and American. Kind of.
Earlier today, my friend advised me to speak like I was complaining, which sounds eh but helped me a surprising amount.
Germans don’t speak with their mouths open very wide, which is a useful thing to keep in mind.
At the end of the day when you come home to me and you're another day older and all is said and done, and when you’re simply much too tired to remember all of these rules thank you very much, there’s always that coughing up phlegm thing. You know what I mean. You know exactly what I mean.
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