Russian Accent Intonation

Accent Help coach Jim Johnson leads you through some techniques for learning the intonation for a Russian accent when speaking English. It's always best to start with a very strong stereotype, and then ease up on it as needed, which also means he is willing to look like a total dork to make sure you get the accent! Check out our Slavic accent materials to go in depth.

Here's a transcript of the video:

Hey there, Jim Johnson for AccentHelp.com, and I want to talk about Russian and Slavic accents, especially the intonation.

So as I've said in some other videos it's really helpful to always start with a super strong stereotype of an accent, and then you can always back down from that. You can always make it a little bit easier, but you're always best starting very strong, so we're gonna go with that super strong Russian stereotype of sound, so that we are going for this really thick accent here, yes?

Alright, so the intonation will tend to be this sort of dragging or pushing, yes? So we're going to go for this drag or push. Or it can also feel like you are bubbling up, so this sound is bubbling, this sound is bubbling. And notice that. That feeling like it's got a drag to it.

What I want to do is actually show you a physicalization of it with your head and neck that may be helpful. I find it helps a lot of folks with this. So in starting it out to physicalize it with this action and do it especially with operative words, to say "bubbling up." So try that out now.

And you will notice, especially with these stressed words, that this can be very helpful. Right?

Check out my dance moves, right? 

So that drag, so it can feel like you're doing it like this, and this can be very helpful in the beginning, as you are figuring out this accent, as you're working on the intonation element, so that once you have this sort of drag or pull, like you're dragging it along, and you're physicalizing it, which may help you to make this happen.

Once you got that very strong, then you can start to lighten it up, and make it much more of a sort of generalized accent, where it's not, but it's not quite as strong of being from, specifically Russia, or you might be from another Slavic country, where the placement isn't quite as far back, which I will talk about on another video, alright?

But instead it can be a much more light accent that just sounds more like it's Eastern or Central Europe, where you get something that doesn't have that. But if you'll notice it even in the way that I'm speaking right now, you may have a little bit of this drag that's happening.

And if you don't get it to this super strong extreme, then you won't be able to pull it off in this much easier one, where you can feel that, you can hear that slight drag that's still happening in the way that I'm saying this now. But it's much lighter now. So it's a much easier accent.

Get it on the strong side, bubbling up, and then you can take it much easier as you go. There you go.

For more info on this accent and others, check out AccentHelp.com.