How to Do a Brooklyn Accent | Accent Training

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Learn how to do a Brooklyn accent from voice and speech coach Andrea Caban in this Howcast video.

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There are so many different types of people who live in Brooklyn. Brooklyn is an amazing place because of that. So we're going to go for a very stereotypical, general Brooklyn accent. Just to give you a flavor of it. So you put your lip corners really far forward. And it's a very urban sound. You see? In my oral posture that my lips are doing a lot of the work. It's also fun to notice that the Brooklyn accent, where your lip corner's very far forward, is also very similar to that urban London sound. That cockney sound. So Saul's daughter studied law.

You'll notice that it's a very similar shape in the mouth. Let's look at some sound changes for the Brooklyn accent. So there are no r's at the ends of some words. So like, there, player, flatter become theah, playah, flattah. And the ah sound in thought, dog, and law become a diphthong. So they become a two element sound. For thought, dog, law. Sometimes that th sound, thin, thick, this, that become very dentalized. So it's thin, thick, this, that. So you hear those hard, flat sounds. The back of the teeth. Thin. Thick. This. That.

You start to hear the musicality of the accent. T's are very dentalized. So they're very pushed up against the teeth. So Tony takes his time becomes Tony takes his time. Do you hear the difference there? Tony takes his time, and Tony takes his time. The st sound in stretch becomes stretch. I love that one.

So what's the musicality of this general Brooklyn accent? Well it's a very urban sound, like we'd said. It's got a lot of power to it. You use emphasis with volume, and less with pitch variety. But don't take my word for. Go listen to some native Brooklyn speakers, and let the accent reveal itself to you.