In this issue I offer links to some very interesting websites that deal with Speech and Dialects.

Karen Steffen Chung is a linguist who teaches at National Taiwan University.  Her site, http://ccms.ntu.edu.tw/~karchung/ is full of great resources for people who are learning English as a second language, and people interested in dialects.  (Click on 'cancel' when the dialogue box opens if you don't want to load the Chinese characters, then scroll down to the bottom or the page to 'Extras' and 'Language and Lingistics.'

Check out 'Internet Radio and TV' for links to radio and TV stations around the world.  These are great for practicing English pronunciation, and actors can hear samples of dialects from around the world.  Always wanted to learn Scot's Gaelic?  Click here for twenty lessons from Scottish Internet Radio.  Need the latest news from South Africa?  Click on Channel Africa for the latest from Johannesburg.

Language and Linguistics gets you to a wealth of resources, including Words of the Day, where you can choose from a variety of daily words and learn their definitions.  TravLang's site even lets you hear the word pronounced in many different languages.  Some sites (including TravLang) also allow you to sign up to receive the day's word via email.

Another of my favorites for seeing how speech sounds are formed in the mouth (including Neutral American) is the Interactive Saggital Section created by Daniel Hall at the University of Toronto.  It's a cross-section of the head, and lets you choose the position of the lips and tongue to see what sound would be made.  The resultant sound will appear as an IPA symbol, which you can interpret at the site of the International Phoentic Association.  Clicking on 'Sounds' will get you to the site for the University of Victoria, British Columbia, from which you may download the sounds used in more than 25 languages, including American English.

Finally, I often hear great dialect samples on 'This American Life', the excellent program that's broadcast on National Public Radio.  A few weeks ago they ran an amazing story about a young man, Hyder Akbar, born to Afghani parents, who grew up in the San Francisco Bay area.  He went to Afghanistan recently to live with his father who was helping rebuild the country--his father became the spokesman for Afghanistan after the Vice-President was assassinated-- and documented much of his journey on a tape recorder.  I highly recommend listening to the story of his trip.

Meanwhile, it's been a busy few months for yours truly...

I helped an English actor get all the way to the network level, auditioning for a role with an American accent.  It was down to he and one other actor who had previously starred on a series for the network, and they ended up going with the actor they knew.  But my client was very pleased, as it was the first time he'd gotten so far doing an American accent, and the producers told him his accent was "flawless."

I recently coached the dialects in O Pioneers! at A Noise Within, including Swedish, Norwegian, French, Czech and German, and am just starting work on a production of A Streetcar Named Desire at the Rubicon Theatre, with New Orleans, Southern, Polish-American and Mexican accents.  I'll also be coaching the Southern California premiere of The Drawer Boy at South Coast Repertory: it's set on a farm in Canada.

This month I began working with a Swedish pop singer, helping her with her American pronunciation while singing--glad o be expanding to the music industry!

I was recently made Editor-at-Large of IDEA, the online repository of dialect samples run by Paul Meier at the University of Kansas.  Look for my contributions to be posted in coming weeks.

Watch The Shield on April 1st on FX Network to see my client Dominic Comperatore playing an Armenian character using the dialect I taught him.  He even got to adlib in Armenian (thanks to my father-in-law, Vrej Grigorian!)

For most of this year, I've been working with a young actor from Texas, helping him sound more neutral for the CBS sitcom Still Standing.

And Mamma Mia! opened at the Mandalay Bay Resort in Las Vegas, with the director telling me that he feels the level of dialects in this production is higher than that they usually accomplish.  I even helped the Irish character get a laugh with his pronunciation of the line "Jesus, Mary and Joseph!"

Please visit my website for special discounts on selected services:  www.thedialectcoach.com

Hope all your loved ones are safe and sound in these difficult times.

Best wishes,

Joel
The Dialect Coach