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Is there a way to tone down my Texas twang? :)
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Before you laugh at this crazy question, do any of you have experience on learning to rid an accent? Many people think it’s charming, but really I do not! When I record myself doing poems or stories, I cringe when I listen. I try to use recordings on librivox for this reason.
So, it’s probably a long shot, but seriously…is there a way to “practice proper pronunciation”? -can you say that 3 times fast? HA!
Thanks Y’ALL! 🙂
I’m not an expert on this so I can’t wait to see some replies…
I’ve been told that I can pick up accents very quickly, and I do (or did) that just because I happened to be moving around the country and just visiting and talking with people I met or worked with. When I lived in Minnesota, I learned “their” way to say ‘toast’ and ‘yeah’ and many others. When I lived in southern Idaho, I learned some quirky expressions like “Oh my heck” and how to talk a lot slower than my native Ohioan roots dictated. I think I shed most of the ‘effects’ of each place I lived, but now I’m in Alaska which is such a melting pot. It’s like really slow Upper Michigan mixed with Tlingit, the native language here.
My only helpful thought when I read your post was that I heard someone once say that Tom Brokaw has absolutely no accent. Maybe you could try listening to him or watching him speak and see where it leads? He’s from Nebraska I think, so maybe hang out with some Huskers?
Maybe listen carefully wherever you go (church, store, whatever) an when you hear someone who speaks like you think you’d like to, go have a conversation. HTH 🙂
Hi there – I have no major help for you, but I would just like to say EMBRACE IT!
I watched a documentary recently on how different regions are losing their dialects…we are all becoming this homogenous culture due to media. Your accent is probably charming and a great, unique expression of you! Don’t lose it :).
This is coming from an Okie (me) with a husband and stepmom with VERY strong Texas accents. My husband constantly misspells words b/c of his Texas phonetics (think ‘sale’ for ‘sell’) and my stepmom could not order food in NYC – they literally could not understand her!
BUT…if it interferes with proper speech or grammar, then those are areas that you can brush up on.
If you want to work on being understandable to the accent-deprived, one thing that comes to mind is to work on pronouncing your short ‘e’ as ‘eh’ rather than a long ‘a’. Also, the dipthongs that Texans use can be a dead give-away…every word has an extra syllable b/c the vowel sounds are elongated. Basically, work on softening your vowels and that should help a bit. I think studying foreign languages is great for training your ear. Singing in a choir teaches a lot about phonetics, too!
I am Scotch-Irish and love that the southern ‘twang’ is actually preserving the Scottish ‘lilt’ of my ancestors who came to the Appalachians, then Arkansas, and eventually Oklahoma and Texas. Again, it is a preservation of a unique culture. So I vote with Davy Crocket, “You may all go to h*** and I will go to Texas”!
Keep your accent :).
I love this ? :). I grew up in the rural South but my husband and I have lived all over the United States. So to speak with my southern slang was frowned upon in many places. In college my roommate went overseas to live for a year and she had grown up near me and talked like me. In order for the people to understand her she had to learn to speak better. So she was taught to slow down and unniciate her words slowly. I have trained myself to do the same thing. And it has helped. Now when I lived in NY and Seattle people smiled at my southern drawl (which is ok, but not the slang) But now that I live in the south again people often ask me where I am from because I “don’t sound like I am from these parts” :). So there is no secret way – just slow down and think before you speak. It is frustrating but I just try really hard to say the word the way it is written rather than morphing sounds or being lazy with my tounge. You can do it with some work. According to my northern friends my drawl is still there so it may never go away – at least as long as I live in the South. Not much help but just to encourage you it is do-able
Amy
I understand. I’ve lived in East Tennessee my whole life. My family members are Applachian mountain folk. I have an extrememly heavy accent. I was never bothered by it until the last few years. (I’m nearly 50.) It seems there are many people who are moving into the area who see us as stupid hicks and they will “poke fun” at the way we talk, not in a good way. When I have a speaking engagement, I usually preface it by saying, “I was born and raised in dis briar patch” and let them know my accent is what they will have to listen to for the next hour. Sometimes I choose to take the edge off, so to speak, but sometimes, just for effect, I really pour it on.
I won’t be generic. It’s who I am and where God chose to put me. So they will just have to accept me for who I am, bare feet and all. I grew up in SC and had a heavy southern accent like all my relatives and friends. As a teen, I decided to learn to speak without an accent. I slowed down my speech, made sure not to elongate my vowels, and avoided slang like taters for potatoes and battries for batteries. I have no particular southern accent any longer, but can turn it on if I choose.
As a teen I realized that non-southerners thought a drawl = stupid or slow and I didn’t want that hinderence knowing I may not live there always. As an adult, I realize that assumptions like that are what is stupid. I love hearing my daddy talk in his heavy southern accent. He is a very bright man and I simply find the accent endearing.
I don’t like how homogenous we’re sounding and do think our culture is more interesting with Bronx, NY, Southern, Minnesotan and other accents. It’s easy enough to not use the slang mentioned and keep the accent, but if it bothers you enough simply try the tips mentioned.
Christie
Pokin’ fun at our BE-A-U-tiful accents! That dog won’t hunt, ya’ll!!
I’m fixin’ ta put a hurt on somebody.
Sorry, just had to throw that in there…
I will never forget my college journalism professor telling us never to use the word ‘lady’ in journalism. He was a Yankee – yes, we still say that – and explained that up North the word lady carried the connotation of ‘lady of the night’. We were all bewildered, since all the girls in class were raised to BE “Ladies” (capital ‘L’!) and all the boys knew thier mothers were Ladies! His point just didn’t translate.
Anyway, I think a southern drawl is truly wonderful. And most southerners can tell the difference between a Texas, Louisiana, Florida, Alabama, Virginia, Tennessee, etc….drawl or twang. Just as, I am sure, people from the North can definitely distinguish between New York City and Brooklyn, New Jersey, Boston, Wisconsin, etc…
We have such a large and wonderful country and I just hate to see the regional differences melting away. Vive l’accent!
Ok as a Brit I may not have a say here…but I like your accents, all of them…so I would keep them, I think as long as you speak properly the accent does not matter…it is part of the character of where you are from, and I say embrace it. I hate the way I sound on tape as well by the way….and yet Americans are always telling me things like, oh say something else, I love your accent etc…so you may not sound as bad as you think.
Oh how I’ve always wanted a southern accent! We do say “ya’ll” in Central IL where I am from but not with a southern drawl. I also say embrace it!
I happen to like my Texas accent. It’s pretty thick, especially when I visit relatives further south. Then it really comes out, and my hubby will make fun of me. The only time I get into trouble is when I say “ice”…and I say the i with a short a sound. I don’t say “taters” or “battries” or “ain’t” or any other shortened/slang words, but I do exercise my right as a southerner and say “y’all” and “fixin’ to”! I’m glad many consider our accents to be charming. No offense to any northerners here, but I much prefer the southern accent to the northern accents. My brother has lived in Chicago for about six years now and I can hardly understand him now! LOL!
I’m in IN and my next door neighbor has a definite Tennesee drawl. I love it!!! What’s even more precious is to hear her 5yo talk just like here, even though born and raised a northerner:)
Thanks ladies, I feel better now. I don’t want to lose the accent completely, but I do want to “turn it off” at certain recording times. 🙂
Thanks for the advice and tips. I want to be clear that I don’t mind a nice southern accent, and it’s NOT the same as lazy speech. I just wanted to not hear it so strongly in my own recordings. I also think it would be fun to train myself to speak in a different way. Kind of like learning a new language. 🙂
I just have to sneak in a second post to make sure I mention how much I LOVE a southern accent. I love the way that many northerners think that twang = dumb, and how so many southern folks I know just play them along until ZING! Nothing wrong with helping someone with completely absurd assumptions look a little foolish…
As a northern (kinda) person, I love the way a southern accent just sounds automatically more polite, more familiar, more welcoming. But then I also like how a NY/NJ accent makes whoever is speaking seem incredibly rude, even if they are saying something friendly.
Plus, nobody likes their recorded voice. The bone structure in our heads makes our voices sound different to us than they do to others, so when we hear a recorded version of our own voice, it doesn’t sound at all like what we are used to hearing, and thus it just sounds wrong.
Try renting My Fair Lady? 🙂 The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain? Or even Sound of Music. In Music Man, there’s a line that says “Singing is just sustained talking.” I second whoever mentioned voice lessons earlier. I’ve taken them for years and they do help with rounding your vowels and making sure you close your words properly.
My husband drops a lot of his g’s at the end of words like fishin’, huntin’, eatin’, etc. When I point it out (which is rare) he will instead say fisheeen, hunteeen, eateeen. (Like fifteen, sixteen.) Still no g, but it’s ever so much cuter. 🙂 My only worry with him is that our girls will pick up his lazy ways and have problems with spelling, so I do make sure to enunciate clearly with them and make up little ways to excuse or ignore Dad’s way of speaking, without making a big deal about it. I never want the girls to feel he is wrong or dumb or lacking in some way.
As long as the pronounciation is right, the accent is just the icing on the cake.
Plus, nobody likes their recorded voice.
Ain’t that the truth! Back when I was a deejay, we were had a recorder hooked up to our mic switch to make an “aircheck” tape every time we spoke on the air. (Nerve-wracking for a rank beginner!) We were supposed to listen to them after every shift and turn them in to the program director once a week. It was soooo annoying to listen to your own voice for a half hour, and everyone always thought their particular voice made them the worst announcer on staff.
I don’t really have any hints for taming the accent….when I went to broadcasting school, I was told that I had a slight Philadelphia accent and that my voice sounded like a mature 45-year old woman. Not what you want to hear at age 25, but a good selling point when you try to get a job in the industry!
I won’t be generic. It’s who I am and where God chose to put me. So they will just have to accept me for who I am, bare feet and all. 
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