Can you guess where my accent is from? A flash game from the Language Trainers' Group -- listen to lines of poetry recited by people from different countries and try to guess their origin.
posted by camcgee on Aug 3, 2008 - 72 comments

Polyglot Michel Thomas came to prominence through his work for the French resistance and the successful interrogation of Nazis (who had formerly imprisoned him). After the war he started to develop (and eventually patent) a method for teaching languages that eschewed notes, books, writing, memorisation and homework. Instead, words and phrases would be built up in lego-like constructions to provide “confidence in hours not years”. He gave private lessons to a long list of A-list celebrities including Woody Allen, Natasha Kinsky, Tony Curtis and Grace Kelly. A BBC documentary from 1997 told his story and tested him out with the less exalted audience of 16 year old London school kids pre-selected to be “incapable of learning a foreign language” by their teachers [YT pt 1, 2, 3, 4]. He was secretive about how his methods worked until the end of his life when he finally made his courses available as audiobooks. [more inside]
posted by rongorongo on Mar 20, 2008 - 24 comments

BBC News: "Gee, I just love your accent." The American nation may be more wary of crossing borders, but their love affair with the British accent continues unabated. Despite the fact that there are multiple variants therein, and what may be considered a "low-class" accent in the UK is still considered a "high-class" posh accent in the US. Naturally, the Brits will play this up to the hilt - and it may help in getting them jobs, credibility, Oscars and Emmys, by no less an authority than Stephen Fry.
posted by badlydubbedboy on Mar 21, 2007 - 178 comments

What American accent do you have?
posted by Methylviolet on Jan 18, 2007 - 203 comments

English Accents and Dialects. The British Library has compiled an online archive of northern speech dating back to the 19th century. The recordings range from from audio from Victorian cylinder dictaphones to 1950s football fans chanting.
posted by Masi on Aug 1, 2004 - 10 comments

Hussein Translator on CBS Used Fake Accent? I thought this was an amusing tidbit in the also popular "news vs. entertainment" debate.
posted by oissubke on Mar 6, 2003 - 39 comments

Classes for immigrants on how to ditch the accent were offered in the early part of the last century. It provides proof that Quebec's recent initiative to create citizenship for immigrants new to the PROVINCE is not a new idea. Might not be a good idea. But hardly original.
posted by daddyray on Aug 20, 2001 - 7 comments

When colleagues in countries outside the U.S. attempt to get me to understand how the rest of the world could loathe us quite as much as they do, this is what they are talking about. "Well, shee-oot, they don' even speak English down there, howthehell they gonna know them tires is not safe? Just slap a little ol' label on 'em and say they're safe.... Oughta be good 'nough!"
posted by m.polo on Aug 29, 2000 - 16 comments