IMO, none of their accents is particularly remarkable, although Avery Brooks speaks with a rhythm that is pretty distinct. I personally think he has a fantastic voice, but you're not likely to run into a lot of people that speak like that in real life. But he's easy enough to understand, so I think it would be find for language learners. I guess it depends on how advanced the language learners are, but I think the most confusing thing about it would be the Star Trek vocabulary that isn't real English.
I think, you could explain to them, that "Cardassian" or "Vorta" are alien races and "Kanar" is cardassian alcohol and you can take out the so called "techno- babble" like "phaser", "warp drive" and so on.
American English with Star Trek accentsinfrogmationAugust 3 2011, 21:03:14 UTC
Many Star Trek extraterrestrial characters speak American English with a bit of stiffness similar to that heard in non-native speakers. I presume this is to reinforce the impression they are "alien".
The Sisko character is supposed to be from New Orleans. I think the actor does a good job on the rhythmic aspect often heard in local accent (US movies and tv shows commonly portray New Orleans as speaking with some generic idea of the general U.S. South East accent, which is actually not close to New Orleans area accent).
Re: American English with Star Trek accentsangelachristianAugust 3 2011, 21:48:18 UTC
I never thought that they tried to make aliens especially alien by adding any stiffness to their accent. But let´s have a look at the other characters. I read that many of the Star Trek acters worked in theaters or were trained for it. Might that explain the "stiffness
( ... )
Re: American English with Star Trek accentsgalingaleAugust 4 2011, 01:15:24 UTC
For some alien races, the actor must work with a facial stiffness due to the makeup.
But there's definitely a "Klingon" accent -- many years ago I dated someone who was learning the (constructed) language and using it at science-fiction conventions.
Babylon 5 goes pretty deep into this... see the 'languages' section of this wikipedia entry for a quick overview better than I could provide.
Re: American English with Star Trek accentsangelachristianAugust 4 2011, 18:49:35 UTC
To me, the Klingons sound American, you hear few actual "Klingon" language in the series and if so, they added subtitles. In Babylon 5 I noticed, that Lando Molari has an accent, that reminds me of Russian. But I was more interessted in the "human character´s "accents.
I never watched Enterprise in English, but I´ll look for it on youtube. I only have the third one of the re-animator movies with him being a kind of modern Frankenstein, but I don´t think that it´s good for language learning. By the way, I don´t know much about that actor. Is he well known in the US ?
No, really, they all sound like people who've been trained for the theater. Andrew J. Robinson (Garak) in particular has a very clipped way of speaking. Marc Alaimo (Dukat) uses a bit more... perhaps it's called vocal fry? (not a linguist). When Alaimo gives interviews I've noticed he speaks higher-pitched than he does as Dukat.
I think you could do worse than DS9 for listening to English, especially as the vocabulary tends to be more sophisticated than average for a television show (Weyoun: "How delightful! The mysterious plots, the subtle innuendo, the veiled threats, it's all so entertaining!").
One of my favorite actors for diction is actually Doug Bradley of the Hellraiser franchise. Pinhead's dialogue isn't anything that you'd ever say in real life -- but what dialogue it is! Also, it's notable that Bradley is from Liverpool, but hasn't a trace of a Scouse accent. Perhaps it was beaten out of him in school. Anyway, check out these examples of Pinhead's dialogue (WARNING: possible NSFW-ness
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I could understand those Hellraiser scenes, but didn´t notice that he is British. "NSFW" ??? Yes, I find it sometimes difficult to understand more formal and complex language like the sentence Weyoun said. I would have expected something like "I´m fascinated by your hidden threads and argument in general." I would never talk like that at all. Even the German translation on the DVD sounds "better than the German that you would hear on the streets." Garak´s clipped way of speaking sounds a lot like my German accent, when it comes to speech patterns.
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The Sisko character is supposed to be from New Orleans. I think the actor does a good job on the rhythmic aspect often heard in local accent (US movies and tv shows commonly portray New Orleans as speaking with some generic idea of the general U.S. South East accent, which is actually not close to New Orleans area accent).
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But there's definitely a "Klingon" accent -- many years ago I dated someone who was learning the (constructed) language and using it at science-fiction conventions.
Babylon 5 goes pretty deep into this... see the 'languages' section of this wikipedia entry for a quick overview better than I could provide.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babylon_5
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In Babylon 5 I noticed, that Lando Molari has an accent, that reminds me of Russian. But I was more interessted in the "human character´s "accents.
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(The comment has been removed)
I only have the third one of the re-animator movies with him being a kind of modern Frankenstein, but I don´t think that it´s good for language learning. By the way, I don´t know much about that actor. Is he well known in the US ?
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No, really, they all sound like people who've been trained for the theater. Andrew J. Robinson (Garak) in particular has a very clipped way of speaking. Marc Alaimo (Dukat) uses a bit more... perhaps it's called vocal fry? (not a linguist). When Alaimo gives interviews I've noticed he speaks higher-pitched than he does as Dukat.
I think you could do worse than DS9 for listening to English, especially as the vocabulary tends to be more sophisticated than average for a television show (Weyoun: "How delightful! The mysterious plots, the subtle innuendo, the veiled threats, it's all so entertaining!").
One of my favorite actors for diction is actually Doug Bradley of the Hellraiser franchise. Pinhead's dialogue isn't anything that you'd ever say in real life -- but what dialogue it is! Also, it's notable that Bradley is from Liverpool, but hasn't a trace of a Scouse accent. Perhaps it was beaten out of him in school. Anyway, check out these examples of Pinhead's dialogue (WARNING: possible NSFW-ness ( ... )
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"NSFW" ???
Yes, I find it sometimes difficult to understand more formal and complex language like the sentence Weyoun said. I would have expected something like "I´m fascinated by your hidden threads and argument in general." I would never talk like that at all.
Even the German translation on the DVD sounds "better than the German that you would hear on the streets."
Garak´s clipped way of speaking sounds a lot like my German accent, when it comes to speech patterns.
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NSFW = Not Safe For Work
alternatively,
NWS = Not Work Safe
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