0
SPEAKER_03
I m David Farrier, in New Zealand accidentally marooned in America, and I want to figure out what makes this country tick.
0
SPEAKER_03
Now one of the amazing things about making a podcast about America is that I m slowly getting to see a lot of America, and that means I get to hear a lot of America too.
0
SPEAKER_03
And wherever you end up in America, it sounds different.
0
SPEAKER_03
Americans sound different.
0
SPEAKER_00
He was one of the best pizza guys ever in New York.
0
SPEAKER_03
Someone in New York sounds different to someone in Philadelphia.
0
SPEAKER_00
New York might say they have the best sub sandwiches, hero, stuff like that.
0
SPEAKER_00
Subway, not to offend anybody, compared to the real Italian hoagies, it s not even close.
0
SPEAKER_03
And the Americans in New York and Philly definitely sound different to the Americans in, say, the Everglades.
0
SPEAKER_01
Hell, I was seven, eight years old.
0
SPEAKER_01
I was off on my own, you know.
0
SPEAKER_01
Same with like the fishing.
0
SPEAKER_01
I had a boat before I had a driver s license.
0
SPEAKER_03
And that s different to how locals sound in a small town out of Oklahoma City that had just been hit by a tornado.
0
SPEAKER_03
Where are you from?
0
SPEAKER_03
I m from New Zealand.
0
SPEAKER_03
New Zealand?
0
SPEAKER_03
Oh, man, you ve been walking far, eh?
0
SPEAKER_03
Even up in the attic where we make the show, everyone sounds wildly different.
0
SPEAKER_00
throw up very loudly.
0
SPEAKER_04
I mean, loudly, loudly, loudly.
0
SPEAKER_04
And the dough ferments longer than New York style.
0
SPEAKER_05
Oh my God.
0
SPEAKER_03
I m going to be honest, half the time on this show, I don t know what anyone s really saying, my New Zealand ears desperately trying to filter these strange, wonderful voices all around me.
0
SPEAKER_03
I want to start trying to make sense of this weird mess, and try and find out what the hell everyone s saying.
0
SPEAKER_03
So, get ready to figure out what your tongue s up to, and how you re moving those lips, because this, is the Accent Episode.
0
SPEAKER_02
Five less birds touched down and I never could
0
SPEAKER_03
We re always talking about my accent so much.
0
SPEAKER_03
I thought, why don t we turn the tables and listen to your weird, strange voices that often don t make sense to me.
0
SPEAKER_05
This is really fun.
0
SPEAKER_05
I m very excited for this episode.
0
SPEAKER_03
What s your favorite accent?
0
SPEAKER_03
An American accent that just sounds the best to you?
0
SPEAKER_05
Southern accents.
0
SPEAKER_05
Southerns could feel familiar to me.
0
SPEAKER_05
Yeah, I like them, but I m always so fascinated by Midwest accents when they re really like Wisconsin, right?
0
SPEAKER_05
It s so specific.
0
SPEAKER_05
Or did anyone watch that show with Kate Winslet, um, mayor of East town?
0
SPEAKER_05
Yes.
0
SPEAKER_05
I think it s in Philly or something.
0
SPEAKER_04
Yeah, it s Pennsylvania.
0
SPEAKER_05
Okay.
0
SPEAKER_05
Pennsylvania is so specific.
0
SPEAKER_05
The ones that have these teeny tiny variations.
0
SPEAKER_03
Yeah.
0
SPEAKER_03
And I find some of them sound
0
SPEAKER_03
I guess not coming from here, some of them just sound like I m in a TV show.
0
SPEAKER_03
So whenever I hear a Boston accent, I can t think, oh, that s just a Boston accent.
0
SPEAKER_03
I feel like I m in a show because it s so distinct.
0
SPEAKER_03
And for some reason, I think there s just a lot of things based in Boston that I end up watching and it doesn t seem real to me.
0
SPEAKER_03
And I think I m getting used to LA.
0
SPEAKER_03
I think LA feels sort of normal-ish to me now.
0
SPEAKER_03
And the other thing that s so interesting is that if any New Zealander leaves New Zealand and gets an American accent, New Zealand turns on them.
0
SPEAKER_03
They hate it.
0
SPEAKER_05
Oh, really?
0
SPEAKER_03
They hate it.
0
SPEAKER_03
I think Lorde one time rolled an R on a word and New Zealand was like, uh-oh.
0
SPEAKER_05
New Zealand needs a chill.
0
SPEAKER_03
We do need to chill.
0
SPEAKER_03
Yeah, it s pretty funny.
0
SPEAKER_03
So yeah, there s that aspect to it as well that I find very funny.
0
SPEAKER_03
What would be the one American accent you wouldn t want to have?
0
SPEAKER_05
Oh no, I can t, that s really mean and I m not doing it.
0
SPEAKER_03
Okay, good answer.
0
SPEAKER_05
You think LA has an accent?
0
SPEAKER_03
Yeah, it s sort of stone and slow, and everyone says like, it s more dialect, but people say like a lot.
0
SPEAKER_05
Oh, like valley or surfer, I guess?
0
SPEAKER_03
Yeah, it s like I m watching Point Break.
0
SPEAKER_03
Everyone s just like a bit like, yeah.
0
SPEAKER_04
Do you have the inclination to repeat an accent if you re hearing a really strong one?
0
SPEAKER_03
Yeah, actually, this is interesting.
0
SPEAKER_03
When I was watching a lot of Friends, I ve talked about this a little bit, I started picking up a bit of their accents, I guess, which was a bit American.
0
SPEAKER_03
I really idolized Ross.
0
SPEAKER_03
I thought he was really cool, even though he was quite annoying.
0
SPEAKER_05
I was going to say he doesn t really have an accent, but maybe it s a T.
0
SPEAKER_05
Yeah, I don t even know what it is.
0
SPEAKER_03
I just remember I started to talk a little bit like his accent.
0
SPEAKER_03
Try it.
0
SPEAKER_05
Let s close our eyes.
0
SPEAKER_03
Oh, no, no, I couldn t.
0
SPEAKER_03
I couldn t do it now.
0
SPEAKER_03
It was just something that happened at the time.
0
SPEAKER_03
If I could, I would.
0
SPEAKER_03
It was this weird thing where I just people called me out on it at school.
0
SPEAKER_03
Why are you talking funny?
0
SPEAKER_03
And it was because I was watching so much Friends and I thought they were so cool.
0
SPEAKER_03
I had that cat called Chandler Bing, started talking like them.
0
SPEAKER_05
They were so cool.
0
SPEAKER_03
They are so cool.
0
SPEAKER_03
Ross says his real New York accent comes through once in a while in Friends.
0
SPEAKER_03
Doesn t say what he s actually trying to be in Friends.
0
SPEAKER_05
No one is trying, I think you re a little confused in that you think everyone has an accent.
0
SPEAKER_03
They do.
0
SPEAKER_03
Oh yeah, every American has an accent.
0
SPEAKER_03
No.
0
SPEAKER_03
Yeah, absolutely.
0
SPEAKER_05
I mean, we have an American accent, but we re not doing either Southern or Californian or Boston.
0
SPEAKER_05
There s also general... There s mixtures of things.
0
SPEAKER_05
Yeah.
0
SPEAKER_03
But generally you ll have an accent from where you re from, kind of, like where you grew up, but that will absorb, right?
0
SPEAKER_05
Yeah, but you re saying he s trying to do an accent.
0
SPEAKER_03
He s not, he s just being him.
0
SPEAKER_03
I was just reading Twitter, it said an accent that comes through is New York.
0
SPEAKER_05
Right.
0
SPEAKER_03
As if he s trying to talk it down slightly.
0
SPEAKER_03
But you think that s just David Shrum s voice?
0
SPEAKER_03
Is Ross s voice the same thing?
0
SPEAKER_03
That s his voice, that s what I m saying.
0
SPEAKER_05
All these actors, they re just talking the way they talk.
0
SPEAKER_03
Oh, and friends they are.
0
SPEAKER_03
Yeah.
0
SPEAKER_03
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
0
SPEAKER_05
They re not doing like character work.
0
SPEAKER_03
Yeah, they re not character work.
0
SPEAKER_03
Oh, no, no, totally.
0
SPEAKER_03
I don t know what the fuck that answer was saying.
0
SPEAKER_03
It was just like, oh, I didn t even know.
0
SPEAKER_05
A lot of theater actors, which he is one, learn to give very standard American.
0
SPEAKER_03
So maybe that s what it was saying, like he s got more of a New York accent in real life, but in Friends, he maybe tries to make it a bit more standard.
0
SPEAKER_03
Is that what they maybe meant?
0
SPEAKER_05
Well, he probably speaks standardly at this point in life, but maybe in his early age, he had more of a New York accent because that s where he s from.
0
SPEAKER_05
So he s probably diluted that over time.
0
SPEAKER_05
And then certain words, I have that.
0
SPEAKER_05
I mean, I m from the South.
0
SPEAKER_03
Yeah.
0
SPEAKER_03
So your voice has changed, like your accents changed over the years, do you think?
0
SPEAKER_03
Since you moved to LA?
0
SPEAKER_05
I mean, every now and then I ll have a Southern pop-up, but it s not, for me, I speak very standard American accent, I think.
0
SPEAKER_03
Yeah.
0
SPEAKER_03
You sound, yeah, I guess it is standard.
0
SPEAKER_05
What do you think it is?
0
SPEAKER_03
I think you kind of talk like someone from LA.
0
SPEAKER_03
It feels like LA, but maybe I m getting LA confused with standard American.
0
SPEAKER_03
It s got like a lilt to it or something.
0
SPEAKER_03
I don t know.
0
SPEAKER_03
It s like a good accent.
0
SPEAKER_05
Hmm.
0
SPEAKER_05
I don t know.
0
SPEAKER_05
I don t think I have an LA accent because I didn t grow up here.
0
SPEAKER_03
Yeah.
0
SPEAKER_03
Maybe you ve absorbed bits of it as you ve been here, do you think?
0
SPEAKER_03
Or do you think you ve lost the Georgian though?
0
SPEAKER_05
Because I grew up in the suburbs, I never really had a Southern accent, but there are words I ll give you up.
0
SPEAKER_05
I used to say y all all the time.
0
SPEAKER_05
I don t anymore.
0
SPEAKER_05
Bring that back.
0
SPEAKER_05
I don t even know where it went.
0
SPEAKER_05
I don t know.
0
SPEAKER_05
I didn t do it on purpose, but it did go away.
0
SPEAKER_04
It s not going to come back though because of pronouns.
0
SPEAKER_04
I feel like I use y all now instead of you guys.
0
SPEAKER_05
Oh, that s interesting.
0
SPEAKER_03
Oh, just as a, yeah, catch everything kind of a phrase.
0
SPEAKER_03
Yeah, y all bring y all back.
0
SPEAKER_03
I miss it.
0
SPEAKER_03
Y all s good.
0
SPEAKER_05
I like hearing it from an outsider that you think we have.
0
SPEAKER_05
Well, I do hear Rob s.
0
SPEAKER_03
Rob doesn t sound like LA to me.
0
SPEAKER_03
You sound like LA.
0
SPEAKER_03
Rob sounds like Chicago.
0
SPEAKER_05
You do sound Chicago.
0
SPEAKER_05
Do you hear it or can you not hear your own?
0
SPEAKER_03
I can t really hear it now.
0
SPEAKER_05
Really?
0
SPEAKER_03
That s the other thing, none of us will even like listening back to our own voices.
0
SPEAKER_03
That s always a weird thing to do as well.
0
SPEAKER_03
And maybe that s just because we don t like hearing our odd little accents or something.
0
SPEAKER_05
Do you think I sound LA?
0
SPEAKER_04
No, I don t think you sound Georgian though.
0
SPEAKER_05
No, I don t.
0
SPEAKER_04
I can hear it a lot in Canadians.
0
SPEAKER_04
There s like certain vowels that it s like, Oh, you said, sorry.
0
SPEAKER_05
Yep.
0
SPEAKER_05
Or aboot.
0
SPEAKER_05
Yeah.
0
SPEAKER_05
And Dax has words for sure that are very Midwestern.
0
SPEAKER_03
Yeah.
0
SPEAKER_03
I mean, you all three of you sound so, so different to each other.
0
SPEAKER_03
It s great.
0
SPEAKER_03
I mean, it s distinctive and wonderful.
0
SPEAKER_03
It s a great thing.
0
SPEAKER_05
My mom has a strong Southern accent.
0
SPEAKER_05
You talked to her.
0
SPEAKER_03
Yeah, I did.
0
SPEAKER_03
She s got a great voice.
0
SPEAKER_05
So yeah, I never sound like her.
0
SPEAKER_05
I ve never sounded like her.
0
SPEAKER_05
Cause suburbs dilute you.
0
SPEAKER_03
I hit the street, as I like to do from time to time, and I wanted to talk to a bunch of Americans about different accents.
0
SPEAKER_03
And I went up to Griffith Observatory, so you get a lot of different Americans coming from all over America to the one place.
0
SPEAKER_05
Yeah.
0
SPEAKER_05
Did you go to PB&J?
0
SPEAKER_05
Not this time, no.
0
SPEAKER_03
It was shut.
0
SPEAKER_03
From Trails?
0
SPEAKER_03
Yeah, from Trails.
0
SPEAKER_03
It was closed.
0
SPEAKER_03
I was just wondering what you think the best American accent is.
0
SPEAKER_05
You couldn t even understand me.
0
SPEAKER_05
The best American accent is just Southern.
0
SPEAKER_02
No, no, no.
0
SPEAKER_03
What are your accents?
0
SPEAKER_03
What are you?
0
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, I m from LA.
0
SPEAKER_02
I m from the Bay Area.
0
SPEAKER_02
I m from Chicago area.
0
SPEAKER_03
What do you think is the best American accent?
0
SPEAKER_03
If you were stuck on an island and you had to listen to one American accent for ten years, what would it be?
0
SPEAKER_02
I like myself, you know, so mine.
0
SPEAKER_02
Specifically my voice.
1
SPEAKER_04
I think they re all good.
1
SPEAKER_00
Minnesotan.
1
SPEAKER_05
What does that sound like?
1
SPEAKER_00
Minnesota?
1
SPEAKER_00
Yes!
1
SPEAKER_00
It s a little bit like that.
1
SPEAKER_00
It s got a little bit of an upturn.
1
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
1
SPEAKER_00
Yeah?
1
SPEAKER_00
Yeah?
1
SPEAKER_05
What s the best American accent, do you think?
1
SPEAKER_00
I like Brooklyn, a good New York, tough gangster style.
1
SPEAKER_00
That s quite funny.
1
SPEAKER_00
I m a Canadian.
1
SPEAKER_00
Sorry.
1
SPEAKER_05
Do you have a favourite American accent?
1
SPEAKER_11
Not really, because I don t really, I don t really know.
1
SPEAKER_02
the best American accent, probably say a Texan accent.
1
SPEAKER_02
What do you like about that?
1
SPEAKER_02
It establishes strength.
1
SPEAKER_02
I don t know.
1
SPEAKER_02
It s just compared to like how we talk in LA with like, like, like, like them.
1
SPEAKER_02
It s just like, I don t know.
1
SPEAKER_02
It s very tough.
1
SPEAKER_02
What s your accent?
1
SPEAKER_02
I m a Californian accent for sure.
1
SPEAKER_02
Like typical LA person.
1
SPEAKER_02
I say the in front of the freeway names.
1
SPEAKER_02
I say like, like 25 times, like,
1
SPEAKER_06
I actually quite enjoy New York accents.
1
SPEAKER_06
I quite like the pronunciation of some of the vowels and stuff, so I would say New York.
1
SPEAKER_13
And where s your accent from?
1
SPEAKER_06
I m actually from Iceland.
1
SPEAKER_13
I think the best American accent is something in the South.
1
SPEAKER_13
It sounds very cultured.
1
SPEAKER_13
It sounds American.
1
SPEAKER_13
I would say L.A.
1
SPEAKER_13
is also good, just because I live in L.A.
1
SPEAKER_13
and that s the accent I hear often.
1
SPEAKER_13
But I would say something in the South.
1
SPEAKER_13
You know, when you hear someone like Matthew McConaughey speak, it does something, you know.
1
SPEAKER_13
It s the best.
1
SPEAKER_13
It s the best.
1
SPEAKER_13
What s your accent?
1
SPEAKER_01
Well, I m from Chicago.
1
SPEAKER_01
Most people say they don t hear an accent when I talk.
1
SPEAKER_01
Maybe the best one so far, I like South, like New Orleans.
1
SPEAKER_01
I like New Orleans accent.
1
SPEAKER_12
I think the best American accent is the New England, like the sort of the old New England, like Maine, like not Boston.
1
SPEAKER_12
Boston s great.
1
SPEAKER_12
But that sort of like classic New England accent, I think, is the best one.
1
SPEAKER_12
It s great.
1
SPEAKER_12
Where s your accent from?
1
SPEAKER_12
So I m originally from the North.
1
SPEAKER_12
I m from Montana.
1
SPEAKER_12
So people say that we have sort of a Midwestern meets Canadian accent.
1
SPEAKER_12
When I go around America or even, I live in the UK now, people oftentimes think that I m Canadian with inflections and tone and things.
1
SPEAKER_12
But yeah, I think Montana s a bit different in that regard.
1
SPEAKER_12
But we don t- It s a good accent.
1
SPEAKER_12
We don t say we have an accent.
1
SPEAKER_12
We just sound like we re from Montana.
1
SPEAKER_05
What do you think is the best American accent?
1
SPEAKER_05
The best American accent?
1
SPEAKER_05
Southern, of course.
1
SPEAKER_05
What s the worst?
1
SPEAKER_05
Probably Boston.
1
SPEAKER_05
Where do you think my accent s from?
1
SPEAKER_01
Don t know, and I hate to guess.
1
SPEAKER_05
Can you pick where my accent s from, out of curiosity?
1
SPEAKER_05
British.
1
SPEAKER_05
Where would you think my accent is from, if you could guess?
1
SPEAKER_05
You can each guess.
1
SPEAKER_09
Australian.
1
SPEAKER_06
New Zealand?
1
SPEAKER_06
Yes, I was going to say Scottish, but that s wrong.
1
SPEAKER_06
That s so wrong.
1
SPEAKER_05
Kiwi.
1
SPEAKER_06
Correct.
1
SPEAKER_00
I knew it.
1
SPEAKER_05
People found that really difficult to get my accent.
1
SPEAKER_05
I got two people out of maybe 20 said New Zealand.
1
SPEAKER_11
I m really bad at accents too.
1
SPEAKER_05
I find it so hard to know.
1
SPEAKER_11
It s hard to know.
1
SPEAKER_11
They re hard to do.
1
SPEAKER_11
There must be some sort of fun thing online where you can listen to a bunch and pick.
1
SPEAKER_11
I think this could be a fun game.
1
SPEAKER_11
Also, this is interesting to me.
1
SPEAKER_11
I think I m learning something.
1
SPEAKER_11
I always thought the excessive likes, which I am definitely- I do that as well.
1
SPEAKER_05
It s a problem in New Zealand.
1
SPEAKER_11
It s a huge problem.
1
SPEAKER_11
I thought that was more age, like of an A. I just- It is a generational thing.
1
SPEAKER_11
I thought, I didn t think it was LA.
1
SPEAKER_05
In New Zealand, it s definitely a younger person thing, but I think that s been picked up off social media from probably from America, because that s what we re plugged into.
1
SPEAKER_11
Right.
1
SPEAKER_05
But how did it take off here?
1
SPEAKER_11
Yeah, when it s such a... I think it s generational.
1
SPEAKER_05
Is it instead of saying, um, pretty much.
1
SPEAKER_11
Yeah, so we had Valerie Friedland, a linguist on Armchair, and it was such an interesting episode talking about all of this and these, what I call vocal tics.
1
SPEAKER_11
And yes, she said different generations have evolved.
1
SPEAKER_11
They ve turned words into other words, basically.
1
SPEAKER_11
And like is, there s a word for it that I obviously forgot.
1
SPEAKER_05
You re waiting, your brain is ticking over and so your mouth blurt something out, right?
1
SPEAKER_11
Yeah, it s sort of a transition word.
1
SPEAKER_05
I mean, I m mortified sometimes when I listen back to this show, because I like to think that like was okay.
1
SPEAKER_05
Okay.
1
SPEAKER_05
I like to think I d eliminated it.
1
SPEAKER_11
I know.
1
SPEAKER_05
And then sometimes, especially if I get excited and animated, the likes just start like coming out like all the time.
1
SPEAKER_05
And it s like, oh my God.
1
SPEAKER_05
And if I m interviewing out in the field and I m a bit nervous, the likes are piling up.
1
SPEAKER_11
Yeah.
1
SPEAKER_11
But you know, we edit those out.
1
SPEAKER_11
So if you re hearing them, that s just one random that crop in.
1
SPEAKER_05
Oh God, it s constant.
1
SPEAKER_11
It is for me too, especially when I m editing the fact checks.
1
SPEAKER_11
I find it very embarrassing for myself.
1
SPEAKER_05
Yeah, I had a mentor in New Zealand in the newsroom, John Campbell.
1
SPEAKER_05
And whenever I would come up with a like, he d like grab my arm.
1
SPEAKER_05
I just did it again.
1
SPEAKER_11
It gets out of hand when you re overthinking it.
1
SPEAKER_11
Okay, did you find the game?
1
SPEAKER_05
Okay, guess my U.S.
1
SPEAKER_05
accent.
1
SPEAKER_05
It s a BuzzFeed one.
1
SPEAKER_08
Please call Stella.
1
SPEAKER_08
Ask her to bring a sandwich with her from the store.
1
SPEAKER_03
Oh, it s the same.
1
SPEAKER_08
Six spoons of fresh snow peas.
1
SPEAKER_08
Five thick slabs of blue cheese.
1
SPEAKER_03
It sounds like that Bale Bonds guy you talk to in Oklahoma.
1
SPEAKER_11
You think that s Oklahoma?
1
SPEAKER_11
I would say more, I would say like, I would say Georgia.
1
SPEAKER_05
Our options are Florida, South Carolina, Texas, or Arkansas.
1
SPEAKER_11
Oh, okay.
1
SPEAKER_11
South Carolina.
1
SPEAKER_04
No, that s wrong.
1
SPEAKER_04
I m going Arkansas.
1
SPEAKER_11
Arkansas is correct.
1
SPEAKER_11
Wow.
1
SPEAKER_11
Well, you already knew it wasn t South Carolina.
1
SPEAKER_04
I wouldn t have, that was too far east.
1
SPEAKER_04
Okay.
1
SPEAKER_11
No.
1
SPEAKER_11
Okay.
1
SPEAKER_04
Listen to this.
1
SPEAKER_11
Please call Stella, ask her to bring those things with her from the store.
1
SPEAKER_11
Brooklyn.
1
SPEAKER_05
So the question is, which regional food represents this woman s hometown?
1
SPEAKER_05
A Brooklyn pizza, a Maine lobster roll, a Los Angeles taco, a Louisiana baguette.
1
SPEAKER_05
I don t know how to say that word.
1
SPEAKER_11
Baguette, yeah.
1
SPEAKER_11
Okay, Brooklyn pizza.
1
SPEAKER_05
Yeah, that s easy.
1
SPEAKER_05
Correct.
1
SPEAKER_05
She s from Brooklyn.
1
SPEAKER_05
Okay, here we go.
1
SPEAKER_05
Next one.
1
SPEAKER_07
Please call Stella.
1
SPEAKER_07
Ask her to bring these things with her from the store.
1
SPEAKER_07
Six spoons of fresh snow peas, five thick slabs of blue cheese, and maybe a snack for her brother, Bob.
1
SPEAKER_05
That s so standard to me.
1
SPEAKER_05
Okay, so your options are California, Colorado, Michigan, or North Carolina.
1
SPEAKER_11
California.
1
SPEAKER_03
I m going to go Michigan just because it sounds normal to me.
1
SPEAKER_11
Let me hear it one more time.
1
SPEAKER_03
Michigan s close to the Midwest for me.
1
SPEAKER_03
So if it sounds regular.
1
SPEAKER_07
Okay.
1
SPEAKER_07
We also need a small plastic snake and a big toy frog for the kids.
1
SPEAKER_07
She can scoop these things into three red bags and we will go meet her Wednesday at the train station.
1
SPEAKER_05
You still think North Carolina?
1
SPEAKER_03
No, Michigan.
1
SPEAKER_05
Michigan.
1
SPEAKER_05
Okay.
1
SPEAKER_05
It is California.
1
SPEAKER_11
Yeah.
1
SPEAKER_11
That sounds like me, I think.
1
SPEAKER_05
Yeah, it does sound a bit like you.
1
SPEAKER_05
Orange County.
1
SPEAKER_10
Orange County, very rich.
1
SPEAKER_05
Okay, here we go.
1
SPEAKER_05
Okay, we ll do a couple more.
1
SPEAKER_10
Please call Stella.
1
SPEAKER_10
Ask her to bring these things with her from the store.
1
SPEAKER_10
Midwest.
1
SPEAKER_10
Six spoons of fresh snow peas, five thick slabs of blue cheese, and maybe a snack for her brother Bob.
1
SPEAKER_05
Okay, options.
1
SPEAKER_05
Which of these baseball teams is from this woman s hometown?
1
SPEAKER_05
The Washington Nationals, the Philadelphia Phillies, the New York Yankees, or the LA Dodgers?
1
SPEAKER_10
I ll play a bit more.
1
SPEAKER_10
We also need a small plastic snake and a big toy frog for the kids.
1
SPEAKER_10
She can scoop these things into three red bags
1
SPEAKER_10
and we will go meet her Wednesday at the train station.
1
SPEAKER_03
Can we get the teams again?
1
SPEAKER_03
Yeah.
1
SPEAKER_05
The Washington Nationals, the Philly Phillies, the LA Dodgers, or the New York Yankees.
1
SPEAKER_05
Philadelphia.
1
SPEAKER_11
You think Philly?
1
SPEAKER_11
Yeah.
1
SPEAKER_11
I m going Washington.
1
SPEAKER_05
Okay, it is... It s Philadelphia.
1
SPEAKER_11
Wow, good job, Rob.
1
SPEAKER_05
Yeah, Philly.
1
SPEAKER_05
All right.
1
SPEAKER_03
That was just process of elimination.
1
SPEAKER_11
That s kind of subtle.
1
SPEAKER_11
This is great.
1
SPEAKER_05
Okay.
1
SPEAKER_05
Now, how about this accent?
1
SPEAKER_05
Take this one in.
1
SPEAKER_09
Okay.
1
SPEAKER_09
Please call Stella.
1
SPEAKER_09
Asked her to bring these things with her from the store.
1
SPEAKER_09
Six spoons of fresh snow peas, five thick slabs of blue cheese.
1
SPEAKER_05
Okay.
1
SPEAKER_05
So the question s complicated.
1
SPEAKER_05
The question is, is this nice lady from Texas?
1
SPEAKER_05
Yes, or definitely not, but she s from a Southern state, but definitely not Texas.
1
SPEAKER_09
Oh, let me hear it one more time.
1
SPEAKER_09
We also need a small plastic snake and a big toy frog for the kids.
1
SPEAKER_09
She can scoop these things into three red bags, and we will go meet her Wednesday at the train station.
1
SPEAKER_09
Wednesday.
1
SPEAKER_09
I don t think it s Texas.
1
SPEAKER_03
Yeah, I don t think it s Texas either.
1
SPEAKER_03
I think it s Southeast.
1
SPEAKER_04
It s Texas.
1
SPEAKER_11
No.
1
SPEAKER_05
Yeah, I mean, look, BuzzFeedNews.com, they re pretty good.
1
SPEAKER_11
Do they say Wednesday?
1
SPEAKER_05
It says she s from Texas?
1
SPEAKER_11
I think they say that in Mississippi.
1
SPEAKER_11
Wednesday.
1
SPEAKER_05
OK, last one.
1
SPEAKER_05
Could be here all day.
1
SPEAKER_05
All right.
2
SPEAKER_03
Please call Stella.
2
SPEAKER_03
Ask her to bring these things with her from the store.
2
SPEAKER_03
Six spoons of fresh snow peas, five thick slabs of blue cheese, and maybe a snack for her brother Bob.
2
SPEAKER_01
The question, I do like how Buzzfeed does this.
2
SPEAKER_01
When this lady walks her dog, what does she see?
2
SPEAKER_01
Does she see a barn in Oklahoma?
2
SPEAKER_01
These train tracks from Indiana?
2
SPEAKER_01
This boat in Mississippi?
2
SPEAKER_01
Or this tree in South Carolina?
2
SPEAKER_01
Indiana.
2
SPEAKER_03
Let me hear it one more time.
2
SPEAKER_03
We also need a small plastic snake and a big toy frog for the kids.
2
SPEAKER_03
She can scoop these things into three
2
SPEAKER_01
Okay, so you think train tracks in Indiana is what she sees when she goes on a walk?
2
SPEAKER_01
What are the other options?
2
SPEAKER_01
There s a big red barn in Oklahoma.
2
SPEAKER_04
Oklahoma, maybe.
2
SPEAKER_01
There s a tree in South Carolina.
2
SPEAKER_01
Or there s a boat in Mississippi.
2
SPEAKER_04
It s not Mississippi.
2
SPEAKER_01
I don t know South Carolina well enough.
2
SPEAKER_04
I need to hear it one more time, I m sorry.
2
SPEAKER_01
No, it s all right.
2
SPEAKER_01
I mean, I have no clue, so this is fascinating for me.
2
SPEAKER_03
Please call Stella.
2
SPEAKER_03
Ask her to bring these things with her from the store.
2
SPEAKER_03
Six spoons of fresh snow peas, five thick slabs of blue cheese.
2
SPEAKER_04
It s five thick slabs that doesn t sound southern.
2
SPEAKER_04
The old age is throwing this off, I think, too.
2
SPEAKER_04
Yeah, that makes me think it is South Carolina, like it is a southern.
2
SPEAKER_01
I m going to go Indiana still.
2
SPEAKER_04
All right.
2
SPEAKER_01
Okay, the correct answer is Mississippi.
2
SPEAKER_01
It was the boat in Mississippi, apparently.
2
SPEAKER_04
This is not true.
2
SPEAKER_04
Wednesday was Mississippi.
2
SPEAKER_04
This is not.
2
SPEAKER_01
It says, this dear lady s southern twang is from Mississippi, which also falls under the umbrella of Southern American English, according to linguists.
2
SPEAKER_04
Wow.
2
SPEAKER_04
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_04
Well, then I wonder what the difference between South Carolina and Mississippi.
2
SPEAKER_04
To me, Mississippi is extremely Southern.
2
SPEAKER_01
Right.
2
SPEAKER_04
That s why this doesn t seem right.
2
SPEAKER_01
It didn t seem that intense.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_01
Maybe the oldness was throwing us.
2
SPEAKER_01
I think that s it.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, ageist.
2
SPEAKER_01
When you get old, your voice does do different things.
2
SPEAKER_04
Why would they do that?
2
SPEAKER_04
They should have had the same lady do all of them.
2
SPEAKER_01
Do all the accents.
2
SPEAKER_01
Well, what a journey.
2
SPEAKER_04
That was fun.
2
SPEAKER_04
I love games.
2
SPEAKER_01
Alright, I put together a little documentary trying to understand the accent.
2
SPEAKER_01
Would you like to listen to it?
2
SPEAKER_01
Yes.
2
SPEAKER_01
Okay.
2
SPEAKER_01
I did some googling and experts say when it comes to speaking English in America, there are roughly 30 different dialects.
2
SPEAKER_01
That s a lot considering there are about 160 English dialects on planet Earth total, meaning that about 20% of them are found in America.
2
SPEAKER_01
Dialects are a combination of accents, how words are said, along with vocab and grammar, like how some Americans say pop and others say soda.
2
SPEAKER_01
I don t want to get into the weeds of vocab, that s a different episode.
2
SPEAKER_01
In this episode, I want to explore how Americans say things.
2
SPEAKER_01
Accents.
2
SPEAKER_01
Not only do I want to understand what Americans are saying, I want to better understand myself.
2
SPEAKER_01
I d love to just know your name and what it is that you do.
2
SPEAKER_01
I m Joel Goldies and I m a dialect coach.
2
SPEAKER_00
So I principally work with actors in the entertainment industry.
2
SPEAKER_00
And I ll also often work with people who are in the corporate world or have some highly motivated reason to change their accent, whether they re not being well understood at work or they do a lot of public speaking, attorneys, doctors.
2
SPEAKER_00
Sometimes I had one guy who found he was not making himself easily understood in emergent situations.
2
SPEAKER_00
He s a OBGYN.
2
SPEAKER_00
So it s a real
2
SPEAKER_00
spectrum of folks that I work with.
2
SPEAKER_01
Folks, such an American word to use when talking about people.
2
SPEAKER_01
And as he just said, I m speaking to Joel Golds, a man whose entire job is to help people take on other accents, including the American accent, which is why I wanted to have him on this episode to break down what makes up an American accent.
2
SPEAKER_00
The American accent is very peculiar in that we treat sounds in certain ways that don t happen in lots of other accents around the world.
2
SPEAKER_00
But one sort of cliche is that the American accent tends to be expressive on vowels and diphthongs, the two vowels together.
2
SPEAKER_00
Whereas you might say an English accent is much more reliant on consonant sounds.
2
SPEAKER_00
Where s your accent from?
2
SPEAKER_00
What is your accent?
2
SPEAKER_00
What part of America is this?
2
SPEAKER_00
I grew up in Northern California in the San Francisco Bay Area, just north of that in Sonoma County, a little town called Sebastopol.
2
SPEAKER_00
When I went to grad school, all the seven members of my class and I had to read and record this story that I now use to collect accents.
2
SPEAKER_00
So it s got all the sounds of spoken English.
2
SPEAKER_00
There s several of these stories out there, sounds and sound combinations.
2
SPEAKER_00
And my professor said, OK, you ve got a little bit of this, typically California, and you re dropping consonants at the ends of words.
2
SPEAKER_00
I think I did a thing that I actually heard in a clip of Rob speaking that you sent me, where instead of saying running,
2
SPEAKER_00
with an mm on the back of the tongue going up, I would say runny and make an EEN kind of sound.
2
SPEAKER_00
I ve found that s very typical of sort of the Southwest US, the Bay Area, certainly Southern California, Arizona, but it s with accent stuff, a lot of it gets shipped out because of the media.
2
SPEAKER_00
So there are things that people do all over the country that they may be learning from TV, film, TikTok, YouTube, this kind of thing.
2
SPEAKER_01
Giant networks like Netflix, alongside social media, are changing how the American accent moves and shifts.
2
SPEAKER_01
Traditionally, accents follow geographical boundaries like hills and mountains, much more so than actual state boundaries.
2
SPEAKER_01
In America, they re being dictated the most by settlement patterns.
2
SPEAKER_01
That s why there s more accent diversity on the East Coast.
2
SPEAKER_01
It was settled first.
2
SPEAKER_01
People have been there longer, and there are more people packed in, and accents have had time to form and change.
2
SPEAKER_01
In the middle of America, you get similar accents across multiple states, and by the time you hit the West Coast, there are far less accents.
2
SPEAKER_00
You might say the Pacific Northwest, maybe Seattle or Portland, where there s not a lot of discernible differences.
2
SPEAKER_00
It used to be called General American.
2
SPEAKER_00
Then a bunch of speech people realized that you can t say general, so it s now called so-called General American.
2
SPEAKER_00
region-free, you could call it a broadcast accent.
2
SPEAKER_00
So that s fairly middle of the road.
2
SPEAKER_00
And then accents maybe of the barrier islands in the Carolinas, very strong accents that were influenced by English sailors that came over and then have been isolated from the mainland for centuries.
2
SPEAKER_00
These accents have been allowed to develop there without a lot of influence from outside.
2
SPEAKER_00
But typical phrases people from there are supposed to say, hoitoiters.
2
SPEAKER_00
I think it s somebody who comes from outside as a hoitoiter, a high titer, I would say.
2
SPEAKER_01
Before I talked more to Joel about the American accent, I wanted to double-check his qualifications when it came to accents in general.
2
SPEAKER_00
So the biggest thing I ve worked on recently is The Woman King with Viola Davis, who took me with her to South Africa.
2
SPEAKER_00
I had coached her as Michelle Obama in the Michelle Obama section of The First Lady, which was a series on Showtime and ended up coaching the whole cast of that and then ended up coaching almost the whole cast of The Woman King.
2
SPEAKER_00
And that was a very exciting thing to do.
2
SPEAKER_00
Very wonderful to be in South Africa.
2
SPEAKER_01
I d never thought about this before, the idea of someone on set helping actors prepare to sound a certain way, to speak in a certain accent.
2
SPEAKER_01
I went back and watched some clips on YouTube, and listened a bit harder to Viola Davis in Woman King.
2
SPEAKER_02
Train hard, fight harder.
2
SPEAKER_01
They fear no one.
2
SPEAKER_01
And then Viola is Michelle Obama.
2
SPEAKER_02
I want you to punch this pillow as hard as you can.
2
SPEAKER_02
Obviously you re mad.
2
SPEAKER_02
Trust me, I understand.
2
SPEAKER_01
To my untrained ear at least, the accent sounded solid.
2
SPEAKER_01
Joel knew his stuff.
2
SPEAKER_00
The other big thing I ve done recently was a musical called Come From Away, which is set in Gander, Newfoundland, this tiny town on the big island in the northeast of Canada, to which 38 jet planes were grounded on 9-11 when the US airspace was closed.
2
SPEAKER_00
There were these 7,000 passengers and crew that
2
SPEAKER_00
sort of invaded Gander and these towns around it and has 12 actors playing about 80 some characters.
2
SPEAKER_00
So it tells passenger stories and stories of the folks who took them in.
2
SPEAKER_00
So everybody in the cast had to learn a Newfoundland accent, which is a funny mix of Irish and a bit of French and a bit of mainland Canada.
2
SPEAKER_00
And then also there s a couple of English characters, a guy from Uganda, New Yorkers, Texans.
2
SPEAKER_00
So it s a real gamut, 12 or 14 or 15 accents.
2
SPEAKER_01
All jobs have different levels of stress, right?
2
SPEAKER_01
I feel like some jobs you do would be one accent you re dealing with.
2
SPEAKER_01
The musical you just described sounds incredibly stressful because you re just dealing with a lot of different accents and dialects.
2
SPEAKER_01
Is that how it works with the jobs you do?
2
SPEAKER_01
Some are just like a nightmare and some are so easy?
2
SPEAKER_00
I wouldn t use the term easy because it s always stressful to be on set and that s always quite pressure filled because time is very short.
2
SPEAKER_00
And there are a lot of variables involved.
2
SPEAKER_00
But sometimes, you know, if I m working with someone on an American accent, the project I ve just finished involved several actors from the UK and from South Asia.
2
SPEAKER_00
That s easier.
3
SPEAKER_01
It s on prep when we can, but then we run it before they shoot and then I step in and give them little notes while they shoot.
3
SPEAKER_02
I wondered what his main challenge is in teaching people various American accents.
3
SPEAKER_02
And essentially it comes down to the challenge of what accent you use in your own life.
3
SPEAKER_01
The brain tends to filter what we hear through the sounds of our original accent.
3
SPEAKER_01
So I m going to try to make this fit something that you ve said on a podcast that I listened to.
3
SPEAKER_01
Well, you say litter box, which Monica interpreted as a trash bin.
3
SPEAKER_01
And you were thinking of a letterbox.
3
SPEAKER_01
Your brain had blocked you from hearing that Americans don t say it for litter.
3
SPEAKER_01
We say air like dress that we don t say air like kit.
3
SPEAKER_01
We say air like dress for letter.
3
SPEAKER_01
So that led to some confusion.
3
SPEAKER_01
And that s often what I work with professional people on is helping them speak in a way that Americans will understand them because we re quite lazy as listeners.
3
SPEAKER_01
So we have to have things given to us in a very specific way.
3
SPEAKER_01
in order to understand them.
3
SPEAKER_01
So I found that what I have to do is teach someone how to make a new sound, and I use this vowel chart that s on my website that s a simple chart that I ve adapted for my own purposes.
3
SPEAKER_01
It shows where the tongue moves in the mouth to make various vowel sounds, and that s principally what we do to change vowels as we move our tongue around, the jaw and lips come into play a bit.
3
SPEAKER_01
But once they start to make the new sound,
3
SPEAKER_01
then their brain forms new neural pathways, which it turns out we re all generating hundreds of every day.
3
SPEAKER_01
And that learning new language, and I m going to extend that to accents, turns out to be one of the most efficient ways to learn them.
3
SPEAKER_01
So once these new neurons get into place, they start to hear differences.
3
SPEAKER_01
I just had this experience yesterday with a client who grew up in Georgia.
3
SPEAKER_01
A lot of Americans from the South, and it traveled all over the country, but
3
SPEAKER_01
Instead of using the vowel sound address to say pen or men or remember, that middle syllable of remember, or strength, they ll use an I sound and say pin, min, remember, remember, and strength.
3
SPEAKER_01
Americans only tend to do that when there s a word that has that S sound
3
SPEAKER_01
followed by a sound that goes through your nose, like an N or an M, or the sound mm, all right?
3
SPEAKER_01
So we do it less than you might in a Kiwi accent.
3
SPEAKER_01
So we ve been working on this.
3
SPEAKER_01
I ve worked with this guy for a while, and then things happen.
3
SPEAKER_01
He s come back.
3
SPEAKER_01
Time in between is a huge benefit sometimes, because people can go off and play with his stuff on their own, and they re
3
SPEAKER_01
Ears are learning to hear new sounds that they may never have heard before, so it gets easier.
3
SPEAKER_01
So we worked on this a while back, but now he s really starting to distinguish between pen and pin.
3
SPEAKER_01
And so one has to practice this stuff in a very conscious way every day for a few minutes, a couple of minutes at a time.
3
SPEAKER_01
Time in between is important.
3
SPEAKER_01
And then try it out, listening to people who have the target accent, trying to imitate not what he might think he hears, but what s actually there.
3
SPEAKER_02
Stay tuned for more Flightless Bird.
3
SPEAKER_02
We ll be right back after a word from our sponsors.
3
SPEAKER_02
Flightless Bird is sponsored by BetterHelp.
3
SPEAKER_02
Now, shortly after this episode goes to air, I m heading back to New Zealand to spend time with my family over Christmas.
3
SPEAKER_02
It s going to be intense.
3
SPEAKER_02
I want to see them, but my parents and I can last about two days before things get tense, hairy, stressful.
3
SPEAKER_00
I know this dynamic well, but I do, I will say I always schedule therapy for before I leave for one during my time and then right when I m back.
3
SPEAKER_00
Because I need to process this shit.
3
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, well I know at Christmastime I m never gonna get my birthday gift and my Christmas gift because it s combined.
3
SPEAKER_02
I have literally have talked about that with my therapist before.
3
SPEAKER_02
No, because it s like presents of love, right?
3
SPEAKER_02
And suddenly one of these is being revoked and like your birthday becomes part of Jesus s thing and it s one gift.
3
SPEAKER_02
It s like who do you love more Jesus or me?
3
SPEAKER_00
Oh, this is serious.
3
SPEAKER_00
Anyway, everything s fine.
3
SPEAKER_02
It s fine.
3
SPEAKER_00
But it s good.
3
SPEAKER_00
You re working it out.
3
SPEAKER_02
If you re thinking of starting therapy over this crazy holiday time, give BetterHelp a try.
3
SPEAKER_02
It s entirely online, designed to be convenient, flexible and suited to whatever your schedule is.
3
SPEAKER_02
You fill out a really quick questionnaire and you get matched with a therapist and you can just switch therapists if you want to for no additional charge.
3
SPEAKER_02
In the season of giving, give yourself what you need with BetterHelp.
3
SPEAKER_02
visit betterhelp.com slash bird today to get 10% off your first month.
3
SPEAKER_02
That s betterhelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash bird.
3
SPEAKER_02
Flightless Bird is brought to you by Aura.
3
SPEAKER_02
Now, holidays are hectic and not everything goes as planned, but one thing that I m planning that I know is going to go well, I m giving my mum and dad an Aura frame.
3
SPEAKER_02
And that way, when I go back to LA and they remain in New Zealand, I can just send them
3
SPEAKER_02
fun photos to their frame that will be magically updated.
3
SPEAKER_00
You can update it over time, which is really cool.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s a really good gift for any occasion.
3
SPEAKER_02
I ve handed out quite a few Aura Frames now.
3
SPEAKER_02
It s sort of your thing.
3
SPEAKER_02
Honestly, if you go to a party and you give someone an Aura Frame and they plug it in and you re all there and the photos start playing,
3
SPEAKER_02
It s a good party trick.
3
SPEAKER_00
And it s very thoughtful because you do take the time.
3
SPEAKER_00
You take the time.
3
SPEAKER_02
One time I messed it up and put the wrong photos on the wrong frame.
3
SPEAKER_02
That was a problem.
3
SPEAKER_02
But anyway, it was fun.
3
SPEAKER_02
Look, it s easy to set up.
3
SPEAKER_02
Takes about two minutes to set the frame up using the Aura app.
3
SPEAKER_02
It s a great gift for any occasion.
3
SPEAKER_02
And it has free unlimited storage.
3
SPEAKER_02
So you can add unlimited photos and videos and you can invite as many people as you want to a frame.
3
SPEAKER_02
There s no hidden fees, which is great, or hidden subscriptions.
3
SPEAKER_02
And you can share photos or videos from any device and they ll instantly appear on the frame wherever it is in the world, be that America or New Zealand.
3
SPEAKER_02
Visit AuraFrames.com today to get $30 off their best-selling frames with the code BIRD.
3
SPEAKER_02
These frames sell out quickly though, so get yours before they re gone.
3
SPEAKER_02
That s A-U-R-A-FRAMES.COM with the promo code BIRD.
3
SPEAKER_02
Terms and conditions apply.
3
SPEAKER_02
Learning an accent sounds like learning a new language, practice, and letting those new neural pathways connect.
3
SPEAKER_02
What s the most difficult American accent to teach people?
3
SPEAKER_02
Well, Boston springs to mind very quickly.
3
SPEAKER_02
Well, Boston almost sounds like a cartoon.
3
SPEAKER_01
I feel like when people are doing a Boston accent, it doesn t sound real.
3
SPEAKER_01
Well, the show that I just finished working on was set not that far from there.
3
SPEAKER_01
So I had a lot of people from the crew when they found out I was dialect coaching, oh, are you going to make us look bad?
3
SPEAKER_01
Somebody posted on a message board that I m on some years ago.
3
SPEAKER_01
They said sometimes the best Boston accent is no Boston accent signed the people of Boston.
3
SPEAKER_01
So we endeavored to keep it very localized to where we were.
3
SPEAKER_01
And if you watch a movie like Good Will Hunting, Robin Williams does a Boston accent, but it s quite light.
3
SPEAKER_01
He s not hitting us on the head with it.
3
SPEAKER_02
For me, I also struggle a bit with the speed at which people talk.
3
SPEAKER_02
Slower American accents I can understand better.
3
SPEAKER_02
How much is speed a part of an accent?
3
SPEAKER_02
Because what I love about the South and when I ve been there, it s just such a slow delivery and other areas, I think New York feels very fast.
3
SPEAKER_02
How much is speed a part of an accent or are they separate things?
3
SPEAKER_01
No, definitely related.
3
SPEAKER_01
And I used to sort of ignore speed and pitch change, which is often grouped together as prosody.
3
SPEAKER_01
Very important aspects of an accent.
3
SPEAKER_01
The stereotype of the South is that it s hot and it s humid, so one doesn t want to expend a lot of energy doing anything, much less talking.
3
SPEAKER_01
So we hear the tongue move from its relaxed place, uh, to the target vowel, like saying you, not you and me, but you and me.
3
SPEAKER_01
you and me.
3
SPEAKER_01
And it took me years to look at the word draw, but that actually just means lengthening.
3
SPEAKER_01
So sounds do get drawn out in Southern accents, and that might be an aspect of the environment.
3
SPEAKER_02
All Joel thinks about is accents.
3
SPEAKER_02
He tells me he s been listening to Flightless Bird a lot while the writer s strike was on.
3
SPEAKER_02
Work for him was slower.
3
SPEAKER_02
And he s even been breaking down our accents.
3
SPEAKER_02
I did find myself wondering, does his job as a dialect coach and his obsession with accents ruin entertainment for him?
3
SPEAKER_02
Can he watch or listen to anything ever again in peace?
3
SPEAKER_02
Are you watching shows and the accents are just taking you in and out of it so much more than it would for a typical viewer like me?
3
SPEAKER_01
Absolutely.
3
SPEAKER_01
I d rather not know, quite frankly.
3
SPEAKER_01
I d rather not know if someone s an English actor doing an American accent or something.
3
SPEAKER_01
But when it s bad, it must really grate you.
3
SPEAKER_01
I can t watch it lots of times.
3
SPEAKER_01
It s a huge turnoff.
3
SPEAKER_01
Years ago, when the series True Blood premiered on HBO, I heard about it and thought, oh, I ll check this out.
3
SPEAKER_01
And that show was set in a fictional town in Louisiana, and the accents were just all over the map.
3
SPEAKER_01
And I couldn t take it.
3
SPEAKER_01
What are they going for?
3
SPEAKER_01
Why isn t it unified, I thought.
3
SPEAKER_01
So I watched about 10 minutes and turned it up.
3
SPEAKER_01
Of course, years later, I was hired to work on that show a few times and realized, I mean, there were
3
SPEAKER_01
hundreds of actors on that show because it ran for so long.
3
SPEAKER_01
And they came from all over the world.
3
SPEAKER_01
Oh, the lead, Anna Paquin, I think one of the leads was a Kiwi.
3
SPEAKER_01
Absolutely.
3
SPEAKER_01
Right.
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_01
And they would only have a coach in when an actor was having particular difficulty.
3
SPEAKER_01
I went into work with one and we did the Southern accent, Louisiana accent.
3
SPEAKER_01
That was sort of the target.
3
SPEAKER_01
And after a few episodes, I guess they tried it without having a coach on set.
3
SPEAKER_01
And then they just
4
SPEAKER_02
change the accent of the character to be the actor s natural accent.
4
SPEAKER_02
So they just sit there like, okay, we don t want to spend the money, which is often the case.
4
SPEAKER_00
I remembered watching True Blood at the time, Monica, and I thought the accents, everyone just sounded so wildly different.
4
SPEAKER_00
I sort of remember thinking that at the time, weirdly.
4
SPEAKER_03
Really?
4
SPEAKER_03
I never saw it.
4
SPEAKER_00
It s a good show.
4
SPEAKER_00
I can t watch too much of it because it s got scary characters with big animal heads on, which is my main fear in life.
4
SPEAKER_00
Oh yeah.
4
SPEAKER_00
So I got really scared of that show.
4
SPEAKER_03
Ding, ding, ding, Halloween episode.
4
SPEAKER_00
Halloween.
4
SPEAKER_00
But yeah, the accents were kind of nutty.
4
SPEAKER_03
Wow.
4
SPEAKER_03
This guy is fascinating.
4
SPEAKER_03
I love him.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, he s great.
4
SPEAKER_00
So I did this over Zoom talking to him and he did have charts that I was kind of following along.
4
SPEAKER_00
Because what s so difficult when, at least how I find when you re listening to him, it s hard to follow because he s talking about these really specific noises.
4
SPEAKER_00
But when he s talking through it with me, he had charts up showing me what he was doing with vowels and sounds.
4
SPEAKER_00
It s so complicated.
4
SPEAKER_03
It is so complicated.
4
SPEAKER_03
I have heard that the tongue placement is a huge part of
4
SPEAKER_03
accents, but I m never aware of where my tongue is hitting.
4
SPEAKER_00
No, neither.
4
SPEAKER_00
And the next part of the doc, we talk a little bit about tongue formation and I found it really hard.
4
SPEAKER_00
And a lot of the conversation was just me on Zoom, like looking at my tongue.
4
SPEAKER_03
Did you learn some?
4
SPEAKER_00
Oh, slowly, but I m also an incredibly slow learner with this stuff.
4
SPEAKER_00
I found it so frustrating moving and changing the way you naturally do things is so, so hard.
4
SPEAKER_03
Yeah, I feel like my tongue is invisible.
4
SPEAKER_03
Like I don t feel it ever.
4
SPEAKER_03
I don t feel it right now.
4
SPEAKER_03
Even being aware of it.
4
SPEAKER_00
You never think about it, right?
4
SPEAKER_00
No.
4
SPEAKER_00
Does your tongue sometimes get itchy?
4
SPEAKER_03
No.
4
SPEAKER_00
Do you get itchy tongue?
4
SPEAKER_03
No.
4
SPEAKER_00
I sometimes get the itchiest tongue in the world.
4
SPEAKER_00
I have to scratch it on my teeth.
4
SPEAKER_03
Wait, what?
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, really itchy.
4
SPEAKER_00
So itchy.
4
SPEAKER_00
Maybe like once a month it ll get really itchy and I need to scrape it on my teeth and it s the best feeling in the world.
4
SPEAKER_00
It s like getting a head scratch, but for your tongue.
4
SPEAKER_00
That s an oral allergy.
4
SPEAKER_00
It usually causes that.
4
SPEAKER_03
Oh shit, that makes sense.
4
SPEAKER_00
Something s going on.
4
SPEAKER_00
Inhaling pollen or eating raw fruits, vegetables, or certain tree nuts.
4
SPEAKER_00
Wow, I love eating nuts and I love eating fruit.
4
SPEAKER_03
But maybe you re allergic to them.
4
SPEAKER_00
Wow, could be.
4
SPEAKER_00
That s crazy.
4
SPEAKER_03
So you re more aware of your tongue than if you re having to scratch it.
4
SPEAKER_00
Otherwise, I don t think about it at all.
4
SPEAKER_00
But you never think about it.
4
SPEAKER_00
But it s so important, isn t it?
4
SPEAKER_00
You lose the tongue.
4
SPEAKER_00
None of us are podcasting again, are we?
4
SPEAKER_00
Be the end for us.
4
SPEAKER_00
It s the most important tool we have.
4
SPEAKER_03
Yeah, we take it for granted.
4
SPEAKER_00
We do.
4
SPEAKER_00
We never look after it.
4
SPEAKER_00
Do you brush your tongue?
4
SPEAKER_03
Yes.
4
SPEAKER_00
You brush it.
4
SPEAKER_00
I never brush my tongue.
4
SPEAKER_00
David!
4
SPEAKER_00
No, I don t.
4
SPEAKER_00
It s not a thing we were taught to do.
4
SPEAKER_03
Don t make that a New Zealand thing.
4
SPEAKER_00
I better not, actually.
4
SPEAKER_00
No, it s a very thing.
4
SPEAKER_03
How often are you brushing?
4
SPEAKER_03
I brush my tongue every time I brush my teeth, which is two times a day.
4
SPEAKER_00
Seriously?
4
SPEAKER_03
Yes.
4
SPEAKER_03
And I also brush the palate.
4
SPEAKER_03
I learned that recently.
4
SPEAKER_03
That s good.
4
SPEAKER_03
My dentist said you re supposed to.
4
SPEAKER_00
So you re brushing the roof of the mouth.
4
SPEAKER_03
That s where a lot of bacteria lives in your palate.
4
SPEAKER_00
I ve never brushed the roof of my mouth in 40 years.
4
SPEAKER_00
Try it.
4
SPEAKER_00
I will, I ll go home and give it a brush.
4
SPEAKER_03
It actually feels really weird.
4
SPEAKER_03
It does not feel good, but yeah, the dentist said that a lot of bacteria lives in the palate.
4
SPEAKER_00
Do you use the same brush as the one you re using for the teeth or different brush?
4
SPEAKER_00
Same one?
4
SPEAKER_03
I use same, yeah.
4
SPEAKER_00
So same soft bristle, hard bristle, medium bristle?
4
SPEAKER_00
What are you using?
4
SPEAKER_00
Electric.
4
SPEAKER_03
No, mine s not electric.
4
SPEAKER_03
I use a manual brush.
4
SPEAKER_03
You ve got a manual toothbrush?
4
SPEAKER_03
I do.
4
SPEAKER_00
That s unusual in Los Angeles.
4
SPEAKER_03
It is.
4
SPEAKER_03
I ve tried the electric.
4
SPEAKER_03
I ve had many.
4
SPEAKER_03
They re good for something.
4
SPEAKER_03
I think it s because I m always skeptical of how clean they are.
4
SPEAKER_03
Where the head meets the base.
4
SPEAKER_00
It gets gunky.
4
SPEAKER_03
Yes.
4
SPEAKER_03
And I hate that.
4
SPEAKER_00
I completely agree.
4
SPEAKER_00
It gets gunky.
4
SPEAKER_03
And it s close to your mouth.
4
SPEAKER_03
I just don t like that.
4
SPEAKER_00
Right, so you re manually, you re doing manually the whole thing.
4
SPEAKER_00
The teeth and the whole mouth and the tongue.
4
SPEAKER_03
Yeah, whole thing.
4
SPEAKER_03
My grandmother used to have a tongue scraper.
4
SPEAKER_03
It was a tool for cleaning.
4
SPEAKER_00
Like a metal thing?
4
SPEAKER_03
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_00
Right, and you d scrape off a layer of gunge.
4
SPEAKER_00
Tongue gunge.
4
SPEAKER_00
I haven t thought about it really, but maybe with this itchiness I should be.
4
SPEAKER_00
My tongue s probably riddled with disease.
4
SPEAKER_00
Horrible.
4
SPEAKER_03
Why are we talking about that?
4
SPEAKER_03
Tongues.
4
SPEAKER_03
Tongues and the placement.
4
SPEAKER_00
The placement of tongues.
4
SPEAKER_03
I did have a lot of dialect stuff in acting school, in theater, and I was always so bad at it.
4
SPEAKER_03
And so I m a little triggered, the tongue and the placement.
4
SPEAKER_03
I remember trying to learn that and I was so bad at it.
4
SPEAKER_00
It s hard.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_00
And actually I ll get into things with the doc because he tried to teach me and I found it near impossible.
4
SPEAKER_00
Rethinking those things that you ve just, you know how to do innately.
4
SPEAKER_00
It s so difficult.
4
SPEAKER_00
I talked a bit about this earlier, but there are these moments in Flightless Bird when I can t understand Monica and Rob.
4
SPEAKER_00
With a dialect coach on the line, I thought it would be a good opportunity to see what s going on with my co-host s strange voices.
4
SPEAKER_00
First up, I played Joel a clip of Monica talking.
4
SPEAKER_00
Maybe we can talk about Monica s voice, what you take from that, what that voice is doing.
4
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, well, I don t hear much difference in what I would call a fairly typical American accent.
4
SPEAKER_02
I mean, she sounds like a younger woman.
4
SPEAKER_02
There s a little bit of what the outgrowth of what used to be called a valley accent in the 80s.
4
SPEAKER_02
And she demonstrated this speech, oh, gag me with a spoon, all this kind of, oh, totally.
4
SPEAKER_02
It sort of evolved into surfer speak.
4
SPEAKER_02
Then it s mellowed out over the years.
4
SPEAKER_02
Yes, and Monica s got a bit of the valley girl in it.
4
SPEAKER_02
It s even a throwback to call it a valley girl.
4
SPEAKER_02
It s just a California accent, I would say, or Southern California accent.
4
SPEAKER_02
But I know she s from Georgia.
4
SPEAKER_02
I know she grew up there.
4
SPEAKER_02
I don t hear anything except in one episode, might have been that second healthcare episode,
4
SPEAKER_02
She said insurance.
4
SPEAKER_02
Then in the same sentence, I think she said insurance.
4
SPEAKER_02
In the first instance, she stressed the first syllable, which is a very Southern thing to do.
4
SPEAKER_02
I have a longtime client in North Carolina.
4
SPEAKER_02
He s Russian, but he says when he apes a Southern accent, he says, I m going to get my insurance.
4
SPEAKER_02
And there are several words like that that are just pronounced or stressed differently.
4
SPEAKER_02
Stressed being a change of pitch on a particular syllable.
4
SPEAKER_00
So she might occasionally be flip-flopping between where she grew up and where she s been living for some time.
4
SPEAKER_00
Right.
4
SPEAKER_02
But there may be an awareness of that because she changed it as she said it again.
4
SPEAKER_00
I played him a clip of Rob talking.
4
SPEAKER_00
He pretty much thought it was a bog standard Chicago meets L.A.
4
SPEAKER_00
mix.
4
SPEAKER_00
Next up, I played him a clip from Dax.
4
SPEAKER_01
And I m talking to the clerk.
4
SPEAKER_01
OK, so here s the paperwork.
4
SPEAKER_01
Excuse me.
4
SPEAKER_01
And I walk six feet to the bathroom.
4
SPEAKER_01
That s so close to the clerk.
4
SPEAKER_01
Go inside.
4
SPEAKER_00
And he picked up on that last bit so close and got stuck on that.
4
SPEAKER_02
I m really reaching here, but I found this one thing in that little clip you sent me.
4
SPEAKER_02
I m going to play you this phrase where he says, I think it s so close.
4
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_01
So close.
4
SPEAKER_02
So he does so close, so close.
4
SPEAKER_02
Most Americans would use two vowels for each of those spelled O s or those O sounds.
4
SPEAKER_02
We would go so close.
4
SPEAKER_02
That s called a diphthong or two vowels, two vowels that are sounded as one syllable.
4
SPEAKER_02
So he uses, I m going to listen again.
4
SPEAKER_01
So close.
4
SPEAKER_02
He uses a bit of a diphthong for so, but a short one, and then I think he s only using the vowel o for close.
4
SPEAKER_02
So that may be from his mom, it may be from Germans and folks from Ontario, Canada, emigrating into Detroit and into Michigan generally.
4
SPEAKER_02
There s lots of Germans apparently who came in there.
4
SPEAKER_02
Any accent is a reflection of the sounds around a person and we all want to fit into what s around us.
4
SPEAKER_02
I ve found that this is much easier to do when we re younger.
4
SPEAKER_02
We get into much firmer habits of listening as we get older.
4
SPEAKER_02
I ve oddly found that the age 24 is a cutoff for people, that it gets much more difficult to change one s accent on one s own if you wait till age 24.
4
SPEAKER_00
That was going to be a big question because I feel I m not naturally changing my voice.
4
SPEAKER_00
I m not coming back to New Zealand with an American accent.
4
SPEAKER_00
I think I m set like this for life.
4
SPEAKER_00
Do you think that s fair?
4
SPEAKER_00
Do you think if I stay here long enough, I m going to start sounding like an American without even realizing it?
4
SPEAKER_00
Do New Zealanders comment on your accent when you ve come back to New Zealand since you ve been here?
4
SPEAKER_00
We get very judgmental.
4
SPEAKER_00
So we have a famous singer, Lorde, and when she started talking in a bit of an American accent, New Zealand was like, oh, you ve sold out.
4
SPEAKER_00
So New Zealanders are really quick to hear when a New Zealander starts getting an American accent.
4
SPEAKER_00
New Zealanders get very angry.
4
SPEAKER_00
And so far, people haven t gotten angry at me.
4
SPEAKER_00
So I assume it s not happening.
4
SPEAKER_00
OK, right.
4
SPEAKER_00
So that would be one clue.
4
SPEAKER_00
I think you re right.
4
SPEAKER_00
When you get to a certain age, I don t think you absorb an accent.
4
SPEAKER_00
I don t think I m going to start talking like an American unless I really try.
4
SPEAKER_02
Well, in those instances in which you find you re being misunderstood, you ve made a shift.
4
SPEAKER_02
You ve gone to some version of an American accent.
4
SPEAKER_00
I have.
4
SPEAKER_00
I can snap into it, but I ve really got to concentrate.
4
SPEAKER_00
It s not like it s suddenly just happening to me.
4
SPEAKER_02
No, but you could learn to go back and forth.
4
SPEAKER_00
Once you start breaking it down, this accent stuff is so complicated.
4
SPEAKER_00
And as we talked about what made Monica sound like Monica and Rob sound like Rob,
5
SPEAKER_02
Rob and Dax sound like Dax.
5
SPEAKER_02
I also realised they all struggle to understand me, and something Joel had said earlier came back to me.
5
SPEAKER_03
I ll also often work with people who are in the corporate world or have some highly motivated reason to change their accent, whether they re not being well understood at work
5
SPEAKER_02
Not being well understood at work.
5
SPEAKER_02
I realized Joel was talking about me.
5
SPEAKER_02
I m not understood at work here on this podcast.
5
SPEAKER_02
It s like you re working into a porn store and the people behind the counter look that they work in porn.
5
SPEAKER_00
I want to be so clear.
5
SPEAKER_00
Okay.
5
SPEAKER_02
I think it feels just like a pawn shop.
5
SPEAKER_02
And the way you say porn, I thought you were saying porn.
5
SPEAKER_02
I was saying pornography.
5
SPEAKER_02
Maybe Joel could help me.
5
SPEAKER_02
I mean, I ve tried an American accent before and it didn t go well.
5
SPEAKER_02
Hi, it s David Farrier calling.
5
SPEAKER_02
Could I please book my driver s test for Friday at 1049 p.m.?
5
SPEAKER_02
Do you realize this is what Americans sound like?
5
SPEAKER_02
This is how they talk all the time.
5
SPEAKER_02
Hi Monica, my name s David Farrier.
5
SPEAKER_02
Monica wasn t impressed at the time.
5
SPEAKER_02
And neither is Joel.
5
SPEAKER_03
So it sounds to me like you re over curling your tongue.
5
SPEAKER_03
So you re relating to the fact that in your own accent, you d say work maybe with no R sound that Americans would use an R sound there.
5
SPEAKER_03
But you re what might be called hyper correcting.
5
SPEAKER_03
So you re overdoing it.
5
SPEAKER_03
So if I can have you hold your hand out with your palm up, you can model the tongue
5
SPEAKER_03
shape of the tongue with no r your tongue is flat like you might say uh fa can you say fa fa and realize that your tongue tip is down at your lower teeth fa yeah yeah but if you curl your fingertips up about 45 degrees not quite so much so don t curl your
5
SPEAKER_03
hand so much but halfway between straight up and flat so about 45 degrees sort of pointing a bit toward the joint of the wall where the wall meets the ceiling you get a moderate sort of R like far far yeah that s maybe a little over curl yeah far far but if you really
5
SPEAKER_03
invest some energy into your tongue, tense it right up, and curl it a lot with your fingertips pointing to the ceiling.
5
SPEAKER_03
Far, far.
5
SPEAKER_03
Right.
5
SPEAKER_03
You might hear that in certain Irish accents or accents of the American South that were settled by the Irish and the Scots, where you get like, work, you know, a lot of work.
5
SPEAKER_03
So we re going for this moderate one.
5
SPEAKER_03
So it seems to me that your tongue is curling a little more, rolling as you said.
5
SPEAKER_03
Yeah, I m rolling too much.
5
SPEAKER_03
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_03
I would use the term rolling to have the tip of the tongue touch the gum ridge, the bony ridge above the teeth.
5
SPEAKER_03
So like,
5
SPEAKER_03
That would be a tap, I would call that, or a ra ra ra.
5
SPEAKER_03
That would be a roll, like in Spanish, a burrito or something like that.
5
SPEAKER_03
So just a difference of nomenclature there.
5
SPEAKER_02
The more we talked, the more odd little things he noticed about my accent.
5
SPEAKER_03
You were bitten by this mammal, which you call a... A squirrel.
5
SPEAKER_02
Yes.
5
SPEAKER_02
Could you say it again for me?
5
SPEAKER_02
I say squirrel, squirrel, squirrel.
5
SPEAKER_02
No, because people accuse me of saying squirrel.
5
SPEAKER_02
I say I got bitten by a squirrel.
5
SPEAKER_02
That squirrel has rabies.
5
SPEAKER_02
I hate squirrels.
5
SPEAKER_02
Yes.
5
SPEAKER_02
Now you ve evolved over the three times you just said it.
5
SPEAKER_03
You evolved to how I ve heard you say it on the podcast.
5
SPEAKER_03
I was self-conscious when I started.
5
SPEAKER_03
I thought it was a trap.
5
SPEAKER_03
No, sorry, it s not a trap.
5
SPEAKER_03
There are no wrong answers.
5
SPEAKER_03
What you did when you said, I say, you re a bit indignant, and you said, I say, squa, with a W sound, which we always use with a Q-U, like square or squire.
5
SPEAKER_03
But what I ve heard you say, which is what you got to at the end of those three repetitions, you said, skirl, that s what I heard, with no wa, glide.
5
SPEAKER_03
So, a squirrel.
5
SPEAKER_03
So I thought, oh, that s very interesting.
5
SPEAKER_03
O-I, that reminds me, I ll mention this sound, but when you say the word K-N-O-W-N.
5
SPEAKER_03
Known.
5
SPEAKER_03
Right.
5
SPEAKER_03
So you add, you add essentially an extra syllable.
5
SPEAKER_02
What am I, what, no, no, no, I m saying no-an.
5
SPEAKER_03
Or no, no-un.
5
SPEAKER_02
Known.
5
SPEAKER_02
Oh, no-un, yeah.
5
SPEAKER_03
What do I mean to say?
5
SPEAKER_03
You can say whatever you like, but most Americans will say known.
5
SPEAKER_03
So it s a diphthong, O-U, but it s one syllable.
5
SPEAKER_02
We talked on and on, beginning to figure out how to make me more American.
5
SPEAKER_02
He opened up some worksheets on Zoom and got me to slowly start changing the way I said certain sounds.
5
SPEAKER_02
Could I please book my driver s test?
5
SPEAKER_02
Honestly, I can t, reading this, it s gonna take a lot of work.
5
SPEAKER_02
I feel self-conscious already.
5
SPEAKER_03
You thought it was strange, but it sounded quite American when you cut yourself off.
5
SPEAKER_03
So that s a thing too, is you have to get your own brain accustomed to hearing this new accent.
5
SPEAKER_02
And you thought it was odd.
5
SPEAKER_02
I ve also done another New Zealand thing where I automatically assume I m a failure instantly when I start a new task.
5
SPEAKER_02
That s also like a New Zealand problem.
5
SPEAKER_02
All right.
5
SPEAKER_02
I understand.
5
SPEAKER_02
It s more of a psychological.
5
SPEAKER_03
I need to talk to my therapist about this, not you.
5
SPEAKER_03
But people do this a lot anyway.
5
SPEAKER_03
They try it and they think, oh, that can t be right.
5
SPEAKER_03
It sounds so wrong.
5
SPEAKER_03
But it was right.
5
SPEAKER_03
So you have to make this reckoning between what you think it sounds like and what it actually sounded like on the outside, which was pretty close.
5
SPEAKER_02
I won t play out any more of this as it will make you feel truly insane, but I was making small, good steps in sounding American.
5
SPEAKER_02
Tiny steps.
5
SPEAKER_02
I m going to keep working away at it, and slowly I might be more understood here in America.
5
SPEAKER_02
Or maybe I don t need to change.
5
SPEAKER_02
Maybe this Kiwi accent is part of what makes me, me.
5
SPEAKER_02
And maybe, just maybe, that s okay.
5
SPEAKER_02
If you could choose one person to listen to from our show, Monica, Rob, Dax and myself, who do you think has the most pleasant accent?
5
SPEAKER_02
You know, if you were destined to a hell of listening to one of us on one podcast for the rest of your life, what voice are you picking?
5
SPEAKER_02
I won t be offended if it s not me.
5
SPEAKER_03
All right.
5
SPEAKER_03
Well, I mean, I just love the New Zealand accent, so.
5
SPEAKER_03
Oh, so probably it would be you because those guys, they ve got a fairly typical American sound.
5
SPEAKER_03
I might hear little anomalies here and there.
5
SPEAKER_03
Listening to you, I ve heard things that, again, I didn t know existed in a New Zealand accent.
5
SPEAKER_02
Look, it s good to know I ve taught him something too.
5
SPEAKER_02
I can t wait to go and find some more squirrels.
5
SPEAKER_02
That was my journey.
5
SPEAKER_00
Wow.
5
SPEAKER_00
Okay.
5
SPEAKER_00
First of all, big fishing for compliment there at the end.
5
SPEAKER_00
What in the world did you think he was going to say?
5
SPEAKER_01
You, Dex, me, the person he s currently talking to.
5
SPEAKER_01
He s not going to say- For some reason he picked me.
5
SPEAKER_00
I wonder why.
5
SPEAKER_00
I wonder why.
5
SPEAKER_01
I m staring at him.
5
SPEAKER_00
Also, I love him.
5
SPEAKER_00
I love him.
5
SPEAKER_00
I love this episode.
5
SPEAKER_00
This was so fun.
5
SPEAKER_00
I was mouthing stuff to myself.
5
SPEAKER_00
You know, I was trying tongue stuff.
5
SPEAKER_00
The insurance.
5
SPEAKER_01
Just checking how you say it.
5
SPEAKER_00
That s so funny that he brought that one up specifically because I did a progressive commercial
5
SPEAKER_02
No way.
5
SPEAKER_00
And I said, insurance.
5
SPEAKER_00
That s how I say it, insurance.
5
SPEAKER_00
And it s insurance.
5
SPEAKER_00
So they stopped me and said, you have to say it like this, obviously, because it s a commercial.
5
SPEAKER_00
And it took me so many takes.
5
SPEAKER_01
You were just stuck.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, it s so hard.
5
SPEAKER_00
Because of even what s happening right now, where I don t even know what s right and wrong.
5
SPEAKER_02
No, and it s what he said, you re so used to hearing yourself in a certain way, the idea of changing it just seems crazy.
5
SPEAKER_02
And it s so hard to do.
5
SPEAKER_02
Because you don t even know how you re saying it, so how can you change it if you don t even understand what you re doing, right?
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_02
You got it eventually and got the word out?
5
SPEAKER_00
Eventually.
5
SPEAKER_00
We got one taken, I guess.
5
SPEAKER_02
And you re just looking incredibly stressed and worried.
5
SPEAKER_00
Wait, can you look up how to say it?
5
SPEAKER_00
Insurance?
5
SPEAKER_02
That s so funny.
5
SPEAKER_02
He just had such a detailed ear and he just zoned in on things you d never think about otherwise.
5
SPEAKER_02
And yet he d been listening to it because of the writer s strike.
5
SPEAKER_02
I guess he wasn t teaching any clients because no one was acting.
5
SPEAKER_02
So he was listening to our show.
5
SPEAKER_02
So he actually, and I randomly reached out to him and he had thought about it a lot already, which is kind of wild.
5
SPEAKER_00
I love that.
5
SPEAKER_00
He really put in the time.
5
SPEAKER_00
Did you find it?
5
SPEAKER_00
Insurance.
5
SPEAKER_00
Insurance.
5
SPEAKER_00
So I say insurance.
5
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, insurance.
5
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, right.
5
SPEAKER_00
I say insurance and it s insurance.
5
SPEAKER_00
Okay, try saying this, okay?
5
SPEAKER_00
Because I just said it s so flattering.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_00
So you say it s so flattering.
5
SPEAKER_02
It s so flattering.
5
SPEAKER_02
It s so flattering.
5
SPEAKER_00
Try to say it as an American.
5
SPEAKER_02
Oh, I just say it s so flattering.
5
SPEAKER_00
That was better than your normal weird thing that you normally do when you re a psychopath.
5
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, you re like a seven instead of a 10.
5
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, that was better.
5
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, I was curling the tongue too much in the olden days.
5
SPEAKER_00
Do it again.
5
SPEAKER_02
That was so flattering.
5
SPEAKER_00
That was good.
5
SPEAKER_02
That was really good.
5
SPEAKER_02
It s all about the tongue placement in the mouth.
5
SPEAKER_02
The dialectcoach.com is where he s got his material, if you want to go and play with that a little bit.
5
SPEAKER_02
And he s taught best of the best, Joel Goldies.
5
SPEAKER_02
He s a good guy.
5
SPEAKER_00
I really enjoyed meeting him through this.
5
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, he s solid.
5
SPEAKER_00
I found this to be one of the best episodes.
5
SPEAKER_01
Great.
5
SPEAKER_01
I m glad you liked it.
5
SPEAKER_01
We ll learn about ourselves a little bit.
5
SPEAKER_00
I just took away a lot.
5
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, great.
5
SPEAKER_01
And we can all go and work on our tongues.
5
SPEAKER_00
Definitely more American.
6
SPEAKER_00
Monica, that s the nicest thing you ve ever said to me.
6
SPEAKER_01
Thank you.
6
SPEAKER_01
I mean it.
6
SPEAKER_00
I ve gotten multiple percentage points.
6
SPEAKER_01
You really have.
6
SPEAKER_01
Yes.
6
SPEAKER_01
I couldn t speak a Kiwi accent.
6
SPEAKER_00
He could probably teach you how.
6
SPEAKER_00
If you spent time with Joel, he d probably get you talking like I talk, which nobody wants or needs.
6
SPEAKER_00
But you could do it.
6
SPEAKER_01
Wow.
6
SPEAKER_01
If we do end up doing what you might do, Easter egg, a reverse flightless bird, maybe I ll learn.
6
SPEAKER_00
Imagine if you could just never snap out of it.
6
SPEAKER_01
Call up Joel.
6
SPEAKER_01
Oh, man.
6
SPEAKER_01
All right.
6
SPEAKER_01
Well, this was lovely.
6
SPEAKER_01
Thank you.
6
SPEAKER_00
Happy accent day.