Antonio Banderas

[Noelia]

I rented Shrek 2 yesterday just to see how was Antonio Banderas' English like. To my surprise, the puss in boots (banderas' character in the movie) spoke really good English and although I could detect -sometimes- his accent, the truth is he had a really good pronunciation and intonation. So I thought that, maybe after so many movies in English and living in an English-speaking environment, he ended up catching the sounds of English.

Bigger was my surprise when among the features of the DVD I could see an interview to the voice actors, in which they spoke about their experience making this movie. Antonio Banderas' English was really bad, in terms of grammar (he said something like "Long ago when I am a kid...") and his accent was amazingly strong.

Paul told me about the speech therapist who help hearing- impaired (<--- term taken from the DVD's!) people pronounce their language (in the case of English, for example) These people are hired as voice coaches and teach actors to fake their accent in order it sounds softer and more similar to English.

OK all this preamble was to ask you people 2 questions:

1) Have you heard of or know someone who has tried this method and could actually learn to pronounce English correctly?

2) Why do you think Antonio Banderas cant pronounce English correctly in real life if he can do it for the movies? I mean, he already learned to MAKE the sounds, that's the difficult part, the rest is just remember to do them!

Noelia

[johnr]

Qué 'preamble! LOL

Firstly, I think Banderas has a relatively strong accent in the movie. In fact, I don't think I've ever heard a Spaniard speaking English without an accent. But note, that I have heard other nationalities speaking English with an almost imperceptible accent.

In answer to your questions.

1. No. but I am always very impressed how actors can adopt different accents.

2. I don't know really but I suspect it's something like the following: I know my Spanish accent is poor but I'll bet that my accent in a conversation is much worse than if I was reading a script or autocue that I had practised for some time.

[rlewis78728]

I know that one of my nieces had some problems with her speech when she was small and she had to go to a voice coach in order to help correct/improve these problems. I don't think that it's uncommon for people to want to improve the sound of their speech and to seek the kind of help that a voice coach provides. I know in her case, it helped her pronounce r's at the end of her words and a few other flaws like that.

I have also heard that professional speakers (such as sales men, TV personalities, etc) seek out voice coaches to help them improve the sound of their voice, too. In their case, maybe they are trying to lose a strong northern/southern/eastern/western accent and make their speech more pure. It may not be a spanish accent, but there are a lot of accents even within the english speaking world. I was told once that people from the mid-western states of the US have the most pure American English accent and more TV announcers are chosen from the mid-west than any other area in the US simply because of the "lack" of accent. I don't know if that's true, but I like to believe it since I'm from the mid-western states so of course my english accent must be perfect. (lol)

I did a quick search on google using "voice coach" and found a lot of sites that came up. The first one claims you can get a free analysis of your voice and then you can have some sessions thru the internet. It claims to help 'modify a heavy accent'. (Which you do NOT have, by the way. Some accent - yes, but heavy - no). I'd probably do some more research before paying for this one but I think the services are available and beneficial. (It's amazing what perception a good/bad website can give about the integrity of your business!)

Finally, it's like anything else. Once you have the tool, you have to commit to using it. So, obviously it's not important to Antonio Banderas that he permanently lose his spanish accent or to improve his english grammar outside of his occupation. Therefore, he doesn't. It's easier to memorize and recite a script perfectly than to "feel" the language properly. (Does that sound familiar?)

Robie

[Noelia]

Thank you guys. I would like to repeat what I always say about *my* perception of what an accent is...

I think accents are made of two basic components:

1) Pronunciation
2) Intonation

In English, like in Spanish, there are many different intonations and pronunciations within the same language. This way our intonation here in Argentina is not the same as in Spain or Mexico and our pronunciation of some words (like "pollo" for example) is different too.

Yet, this is socially accepted and nodoby would say we don't speak Spanish correctly here in Argentina (well maybe they say that in other countries, but they're just jealous of our wonderful accent)

So, there are some "established" intonations and pronunciations accepted for each language. Then, what makes a "foreign" accent?
Using intonation and/or pronunciation from your native language for the one you're learning.

And here we find people who know grammar very well, but they don't sound native yet...

At this point, I am not looking to correct my intonation, that's (I think) the very last step in language learning, but to correct the pronunciation of the foreing sounds I make.

The thing is, in order to make these sounds, you have to learn how to use your tongue in a different way than you're used to (please, no sexuality intended!) and this is what voice coach probably teach you.

And there is another issue: most of the time, both intonation or pronunacion are not that easy to hear. How many times has someone repeated a word/sentence to you, and it sounds exactly like you're saying but it's not? It seems like the brain translates thouse sounds into the set of sounds we're used to hear in our everyday life, and that makes it more complicated to learn.

Noelia

[johnr]

Estoy completamente de acuerdo contigo en que es dificílismo pulir el acento en un idioma extranjero. Apenas la semana pasada que mi amiga de españa me dijo que ademas de la letra 'T', pronuncio muy mal la letra 'd'. Para mi el problema es que ya es difícil con tratar de hablar (o sea encontrar las palabras) que no tengo el tiempo para pronuniarlas bien a la vez.

Y además, parece que los españoles dicen la 'd' en una manera diferente que, por ejemplo los mexicanos.