Two of the lines I most like quoting at appropriate moments are:
1) Manuel’s line from Fawlty
Towers (when the major thinks it’s the moose’s head that’s talking:)
‘I can speak English. I learnt it from a book.’
2) Count Dracula’s line from the old Universal Studios
classic:
‘Ah, the children of the night. What music they make.’
The problem is this: Manuel is supposed to be Spanish, and
Bela Lugosi was Hungarian, but when I quote their lines the accent sounds
pretty much the same. Which isn’t very good, is it?
And I can’t do American – Bronx, Deep
South, west coast, or any other – for toffee. The only accents I
can make a passable stab at are Lancashire, Welsh and
French. Which is a bit odd.
2 comments:
I bet you could pick up any accent if you watched enough TV from the place or went there. A lot of people say they got better at British accents because they watched Harry Potter.
I don't know so much. I lived in the north east of England for three years, and they have a very distinctive accent that I couldn't even get close to.
As for British accents, well... I met a man from New Orleans once who said he'd had a girlfriend from Liverpool. Not only did he not pick up her accent, he said he unsderstood very little of what she said. Sounds like a good basis for a successful relationship.
But I'm glad you Yankees are getting the good stuff from Harry Potter. If only everybody spoke like Michael Gambon and Maggie Smith.
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