The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #169191   Message #4088860
Posted By: Helen
19-Jan-21 - 06:50 PM
Thread Name: Hearing & identifying an accent - TV & Film
Subject: RE: Hearing & identifying an accent - TV & Film
The man in the ad looks very vaguely familiar but I couldn't narrow down his accent based on four words. I'm not sure how well this works, but I think Google can do an image search somehow so maybe you could search for his face.

When I was younger the UK TV shows and movies mostly used "the Queen's English", i.e. the received pronunciation. I have heard that actors and TV presenters, regardless of their origins in the UK and their hometown accents, had to speak according to this standard. I think the only real exceptions might have been "character" parts or even OTT caricatured parts.

It wasn't realism but it was easy to understand. Even in early Oz media productions that was mostly the accepted British pronunciation, but now wherever you are from that's the way you speak on TV and film. It's a good change, but ...

As I get older and speech can sometimes be harder to interpret, the interesting UK accents can be difficult for me to understand. Also, e,g, in the TV show Shetland, they often throw in local language words which I have never heard before so as an Aussie I have no chance of understanding that. In the last year or so I have given up the fight and I turn the captions on so that I know what they are saying, even sometimes on Aussie shows just because they talk faster when the pace of the show speeds up.

Ah the perils of ageing.