The Voice Cafe Blog

Taking a break. Do English accents love or hate HIATUS?

English language speakers often avoid a HIATUS by bridging it with a connecting consonant sound. For example, we don’t say ‘a afternoon’ but ‘an afternoon’. We put an ‘n’ there to separate the vowels and link them together via a consonant. But certain accents of English, such as Modern British RP (Received Pronunciation), will go further to avoid any type of HIATUS between vowel sounds.

Not All Old Habits Die Hard: My Experience of Learning the Modern British RP Accent as a Czech Native Speaker

Learning the modern RP accent has been quite a journey; one that I'd go on again any time. To introduce myself as a learner, I initially spent around 3 years learning Standard BE on my own, during my university studies for teaching English. While I used textbooks explaining general pronunciation rules of, mainly, individual sounds, the recordings I followed were of more traditional RP speakers, whereas my goal was to learn modern RP.

Take 2 Stools – How self-tape auditions are changing the face of the casting process

Take 2 stools, a pile of hard backed books, a table, a cuddly toy, and a big wad of blu tack: what have you got? You guessed: the beginnings of a rather shaky, somewhat lopsided, and rather unconvincing self-tape.

Parallel Effect – The effect of /r/ in the American Accent

In the general American accent, the retroflex /r/ has such a pronounced effect on the vowels adjacent to it, particularly when in the case of a final ‘rhotic’ /r/ closing a syllable, it dramatically changes their quality. Whatever the preceding vowel, the ‘r-colouring’ effect seems to end up pushing the vowel parallel and close to the top of the hard palate. Literally.

In the zone? In or out? Changing shape

Learning a new accent can mean stepping way out of the comfort zone - initially a new voice placement can feel counter-intuitive and unfamiliar.

Uh huh. The schwa / ə /. A great starting point for learning accents

Ever watched a film or play where the accent is really good but somehow not quite right? Often it&rs

How not to typecast an accent

What is typecasting? So you are learning a new accent for a role, audition, or to help with clear communication. The process of picking up an accent is ...

Stepping West – the story of the General American accent

When asked, “What is the General American accent?” some Americans might reply “Sorry? Is there such a thing?”. Others might reply “Well, the accent with no

RP: A popular British accent with very few native speakers

So what is it about RP? It is the British accent that is most commonly taught to non-native speakers, as well as being considered a ‘must have’ accent on any actor's