Thursday, August 14, 2003

Speech Accent Archive

The Speech Accent Archive contains a large selection of audio clips (currently 264) of native and non-native English speakers reading the same paragraph. Even the variations among the native English speakers are interesting, especially the point at which you think "Ah ha! there's the accent". It let's you appreciate how hard it can be to "fake" an accent -- many actors overdo accents, especially "Boston" accents. (One comes to mind: Rob Morrow's horrible accent in Quiz Show). Subtlety is required to get it right.

As an added bonus, I got to hear 264 different ways to pronounce "Bob" ;-)
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posted by Bob at 8/14/2003 11:27:00 AM  | | digg | del.icio.us | reddit