How to fake an Italian accent

[Little_Nemo]

I believe Italian doesn’t include the th sound. So Italian speakers will often substitute a t or d.

[thelurkinghorror]

@Little_Nemo

One thing is that words almost always end with a vowel sound in Italian. So native Italian speakers often add -a or -e or -o to the ends of words that end with a consonant.

Ends in vowels but also “n”, particularly when the word is short like articles or prepositions. By the way that’s also (part of) how to fake a Japanese accent, except that there are also more vowels within the word.

Or to stereotype Romance languages:
French: use too many "e"s. Like more than in English.
Spanish: use too many "o"s and quite a few "a"s.
Italian: lots of "i"s with some other vowels, very few "u"s.
Romanian: lots of "u"s.

[dasmoocher]

This video may help: The Italian Man who went to Malta.

[Mangetout]

@Captain_Amazing

Try this:

http://www.howcast.com/videos/500503-How-to-Do-an-Italian-Accent-Accent-Training

Wow. She’s good - I watched her tutorial on British RP and it’s very well observed.

[Johanna]

1. First of all, don’t do that stereotypical adding a schwa at the end of every word that ends in a consonant. The actual accent of people from Italy handles final consonants in English by putting more tension into the release. It’s more of an implied vowel sound than an actual vowel sound.

2. The dental consonants d, n, t, l are especially contrastive for this purpose. In English we make these sounds by touching the tip of the tongue to the alveolar ridge behind the upper incisors. But in Italian, these sounds are produced by reaching the tongue forward all the way to the actual teeth. In general, English pronounces these sounds with the back of the tongue slumped low and the tip retracted. This makes English l and r, especially, sound dull and muddy to Italian ears. Italians keep the middle of the tongue arched more up and forward, making the dental sounds always clear and bright. This applies to s and z also.

3. The vowels e and o are also contrastive. In English we pronounce them diphthongized, with an offglide at the end. We follow up the e in “café” with a final -i or -y sound, and the o in “go” with a final -u or -w sound. But in Italian, all the vowels are pure vowels and they end the same as they started, before any offglide can begin. The Italian diphthong “ei” actually sounds like English “ay;” for example Italian *sei *and English *say *are pronounced the same. While Italian se is pronounced without any ending -y glide.

If you can master these 3 features, you’ll have progressed most of the way toward producing a convincing Italian accent.

[Anaglyph]

Italians use a lot of gestures. In joke it is said: “If you want to silence an Italien, tie his hands”

see: Italian Without Words

[Johanna]

@TriPolar

If it’s a straight role don’t overplay it. Italians in real life don’t go around saying “That’s-uh spece-ih spice-ih meat-uh-ball”, you’re trying for something that meets the audience’s expectation of how Italians would speak, but without making it sound comically exagerrated . Add facial and other gestures as you speak, that’s just good acting. Dye your hair and eyebrows black, get your skin to an olive tone. It satisfies people’s pre-conceived notions of what Italians look like. Start with a slightly exagerrated “Bon giorno!” or some other commonly recognized phrase to prime the pump, then tone it down a little so the audience pays more attention to what you say then how you say it.

That’s Buon giorno. (“Bon” is French.) And can the brownface, please; it’s unseemly.

[TriPolar]

@Johanna

And can the brownface, please; it’s unseemly.

It’s stage acting. I’m recommending common use of stage makeup, not some caricature.

[cmyk]

Trust me, no where near all Italians/Sicilians are swarthy.

[The_Great_Unwashed]

So it happened, I have the Italian part. My opening lines is:

I am most sorry, Madame. It shall not occur again.

some short lines then, a bit later, denying that he had been impertinent:

Oh no, Madame. I most humbly beg your pardon. It’s just a question of habitude.

I’m properly flumoxed, I don’t see a great deal to “get my teeth into”.