To be fair, as a native English speaker from Canada, I don’t know what the heck is going on with the South African accent.
Half the time I can’t even recognize it (likely just due to lack of exposure), so when I hear someone speaking with an accent that’s kinda like Australia and New Zealand, but isn’t quite right for either of those, I think “must be South African”… 😅
Well, thanks to amongst others the film District 9, I can recognize the accent.
Also, curiously, Afrikaners are basically a group that branched away from the Dutch centuries ago and their language is this old-sounding Dutch-like thing (so I can even understand some of it), so due to my own time living in The Netherlands I kinda pay attention to South African stuff when I come across it and thus can spot not just Afrikaans but also the South-African accent in English.
That accent tends to appear a lot in films involving white mercenaries in Africa because there was a time when such mercenaries were mostly South-African, so for example Leonardo DiCaprio uses it for his character in Blood Diamond.
However if I try and imitate it even immediatelly after hearing it, I have trouble doing it right. I have a similar problem with the accent from Australia and New Zeeland.
Also, unlike with the English language accent for most European countries, with native English language accents in English I can’t just use the shortcut of starting in their language and then just shifting to English (which for me keeps the accent, an effect I found purelly by chance at some point during a trip in Spain - without even noticing it until it was pointed out to me - when I switched to English trying to get directions on the phone from some Spanish guy).
I suspect an Accent Coach (like actors often use to get the right character accent) would be able to tell me what I’m doing wrong, but since I’m a total amateur and it’s just for fun, this is just a mildly interesting tought nut for me to crack.
To be fair, as a native English speaker from Canada, I don’t know what the heck is going on with the South African accent.
Half the time I can’t even recognize it (likely just due to lack of exposure), so when I hear someone speaking with an accent that’s kinda like Australia and New Zealand, but isn’t quite right for either of those, I think “must be South African”… 😅
Well, thanks to amongst others the film District 9, I can recognize the accent.
Also, curiously, Afrikaners are basically a group that branched away from the Dutch centuries ago and their language is this old-sounding Dutch-like thing (so I can even understand some of it), so due to my own time living in The Netherlands I kinda pay attention to South African stuff when I come across it and thus can spot not just Afrikaans but also the South-African accent in English.
That accent tends to appear a lot in films involving white mercenaries in Africa because there was a time when such mercenaries were mostly South-African, so for example Leonardo DiCaprio uses it for his character in Blood Diamond.
However if I try and imitate it even immediatelly after hearing it, I have trouble doing it right. I have a similar problem with the accent from Australia and New Zeeland.
Also, unlike with the English language accent for most European countries, with native English language accents in English I can’t just use the shortcut of starting in their language and then just shifting to English (which for me keeps the accent, an effect I found purelly by chance at some point during a trip in Spain - without even noticing it until it was pointed out to me - when I switched to English trying to get directions on the phone from some Spanish guy).
I suspect an Accent Coach (like actors often use to get the right character accent) would be able to tell me what I’m doing wrong, but since I’m a total amateur and it’s just for fun, this is just a mildly interesting tought nut for me to crack.