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Language & Terms  May 22, 2008

21 Accents

This is a video with a woman who imitates 21 different English accents, including British, Irish, Scottish, Australian, and American accents, as well as several European ESL accents. I think her performance is quite impressive. Notice how she changes her facial expression for each accent. Like any good actor, she knows that the sound that comes out of your mouth depends on the role, the character, that you play.

~Jeff

Reader comments (19)

Comments are closed. These are kept as they were written.

OmoMay 22, 2008 at 6:55 am

amazing!
I like her act.
I want her to perform an asian, too.

Thank you, Jeff

GullsMay 22, 2008 at 7:31 am

Emile,

You want to see a picture of Dr.Lucy.

Now you see a video of her.

GrzegorzMay 22, 2008 at 9:41 am

And now polish version:
“Hello, my name is Emmie Walker. I’m 25 years old and I was born in London, England.”
Have you notice diffrence? 😉
Ps. Is it difficult for let say a native New Yorker to understand someone from Scotland?

FredMay 22, 2008 at 12:39 pm

She did a great introduce !!

Thank you for sharing

EugeneMay 22, 2008 at 2:19 pm

She probably has a talent to imitate accents like this besides just going through a training….

Acoustic BobMay 22, 2008 at 10:03 pm

What was your name again? (Just Kidding!)

Wonderful command of accents, worthy of Meryl Streep or Tracy Ullman!

Why did the New Zealander keep getting her own age wrong? Was that
an attempt at ethnic humor, similar to “Polish” or “Dumb Blonde” jokes? (Just wondering.)

darrenMay 23, 2008 at 12:09 am

How versatile she is!

humphreyMay 23, 2008 at 7:45 am

talent!
although i don’t understand the most of what she said…

PavelMay 23, 2008 at 7:30 pm

Amazing. It must be difficult to change accents so fast in a row. I’d add Southafrican and Indian. I believe she’d be even better if she tried each accent separately or after a short break. I can assess more the French, Italian, German, Russian and Czech one. The Czech one was not really perfect – there was a trace of something Ukrainian/Russian a little bit but she’s still very good.

ESLPodcast Google GroupMay 23, 2008 at 7:48 pm

Very nice… and hard!

ESLPodcast Google GroupMay 23, 2008 at 7:54 pm

She tries to express the temperament/expression from each region.. Very nice again…

emilianoMay 24, 2008 at 8:02 am

¡Amazing¡ so few words and so difficult, but indeed she really speaks with quite different accents………at least as I may figure because some
of them scarcely I can understand even knowing what she is saying.
I have to point that she has also a remarkable face, nice and beautiful, but anybody knows where is she from?.
Thanks Jeff, it is very exciting but I’m a little sad as I see what a long way I have to walk yet if I want to know what people from different places are talking about.

jean-michelMay 24, 2008 at 8:41 am

Well, i like french accent, because i’m french and i can’t have an english conversation, only in english, after twenty years of school, as a lot of french… I listen jeff and lucy since two months and i make progress as never i did in the past. I thanks you, but it’s not enough. Perhaps i’ll write you more when i’ll increase my vocabulary.

ElhamMay 25, 2008 at 2:51 am

Oh,,,
i have a problem 🙁
each time you upload a movie , i can not access it from my computer both at home and at university.
what’s the problem, anyone knows?

Ireally want to see her but i can’t 🙁

KCNYMay 25, 2008 at 7:34 am

OMG… this is good!

RobertoMay 26, 2008 at 2:17 am

Wow Jeff! It was amazing, I mean, She is a great actress and change her face quickly…I’m very impressed!

Thank’s for everthing and have a great week!

From Brazil,

Roberto

mannerMay 26, 2008 at 3:50 pm

whoa, amazing… 21accents in just one mouth. I wish i could speak like that…

Terry KaufmanJune 6, 2008 at 10:59 am

Jeff,

I was amazed at how she was capable of “being” the accent.
I am American and I live in Paris. I “think” in French, but I keep my American “being”.
My French wife will tell you that I have an American accent when I speak French.
I never feel bad about my accent. The accent is a part of me and my personality when I speak the langauge.
In my opinion, it is important to be proud of your ability to speak a different langauge.
If you are comprehensible and you make an effort to speak a language, people will appreciate and respect you.

MariaNovember 24, 2008 at 9:02 am

Wow, you’re fantastic. The Canadian accent was spot on, but that was definitely a East coast accent, not at all a Torontonian accent, by any stretch of the imagination. The Toronto, Vancouver and English speaking Montreal accents are far more generic (We would sound most like your L.A. or Seattle accent) Otherwise, that was truly amazing.

To Grzegorz, I don’t know about a native New Yorker, but for a Native Torontonian that spent a great deal of time all around the UK, I can tell you that the Scottish accent was by far the most difficult to navigate, despite the amount of time spent in the environment.

As for favourite accents, i’d have to say the South African is my personal favourite (i wish she had attempted that one as well). My Favourite accent in England is definitely the Bristonian accent or a Manchester accent (or the surrounding areas in the North).

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