"The rain in Spain..."

Something that made me chuckle. As most of my American friends know, I have real trouble trying to talk like an American. I always say my brain isn't wired that way! So when I found the following article, I had to share it with all of you:

How not to do an American accent

Everyone can do an American accent... at least everyone thinks they can. But how many would pass muster with a Hollywood studio? The BBC's Stephen Robb took a lesson from one of the movie industry's top accent coaches.

Any actor or actress hoping to convince in a foreign accent must have three words in the back of their mind at all times.

They won't be phrases like "shape of mouth", "position of tongue" or "placement of voice" - although all of these will be fundamental to learning and adopting an accent.

The three words haunting the performer, driving hour after hour of dialect practice, are "Dick", "Van" and "Dyke".

The American's "strike a light, guv'nor" Cockney caricature in Mary Poppins is widely regarded as delivering the worst film accent of all time. Supercallifragilisticexpialidocious, it was not.

And that's up against competition from Sean Connery playing a Spaniard, an Irishman and a Russian at stages of his career.

British dialect coach Barbara Berkery admits that a lot of actors seeking her tutelage plead at the outset: "I don't want to sound like Dick Van Dyke."

I have always cringed hearing Van Dyke in that film, but I am not much better as an American speaker. (I AM working on Joisey, however...lol)

For your own giggle, go read the rest of this here.