Audiobook narrator Matt Haynes shares five highlights from his start on the Cajun accent, then uses his favorite practice technique of applying the accent to song lyrics. This week: "Sweet Child O' Mine" by Guns N' Roses
Matt, I am a D&D game master, and I used this video to gain a passable Cajun accent, as my players were about to enter a swampy area and I wanted the local population to have a Cajun accent. Just wanted to say thanks and let you know I will be directing anyone who asks about accents as a DM to give your channel a look.
The accent he created was fine but the word choice is what matters in Cajun french. Such as instead of saying "friend" they say "Mon Amie" or "Boudreaux" (Pronounced Boo-dro) There are also many upon many Cajun specific words that you may wish to look up such as in D&D talking about dead people is not that rare of a thing so in Cajun "Defan Papa" is how a Cajun would reference the corpse of a man and "Defan Maman" is how a Cajun would reference the corpse of a woman. Best thing to do is get an idea of how to do pronounciation from this video then learn how to pronounce French words remember Cajun is just French speakers learning English so the French way of speaking always over rights that of the English Tongue. If you really want to see someone knock it out of the park for Cajun accents ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-_QhqUCB4rPI.html You can watch the entire thing but at about 25 mins and 4 seconds he starts talking in a Cajun accent while using a stutter as well.
Ah yes... the Vast Swamp of Greyhawk.... the only place where Dwarves on the north eastern hills along the swamp have the cajun accent. My Dwarf is a Cavalier
I'm from Thibodaux but my parents worked hard for me not to have an accent, and I regret it. Talking to girls from up state or out of state REALLY makes me wish I had a stronger accent, lol
I have a pretty thick cajun accent, If you ever need to hear my voice or study it let me know. You are spot on with the TH becoming the D sound. This sounds more Creole than cajun though.
You sound more Creole, like Haitian, than Cajun. Kind of a mix of French and AAVE, which is close. Most of it is good, if dated. You should like a geriatric kind of Cajun, if that makes sense. Your vowels sound more flat than round. Louisiana vowels are lazier and rounder. Still, one of the best put on Cajun accents I've ever heard. As a frequent audio book listener, this accent wouldn't ring true for a modern Cajun, but I'd be thrilled to hear this close.
There's a paranormal romance novel called Poison Princess by Kresley Cole, where the male love interest is Cajun. It would be super cool if you were able to do the audio parts for his character !
@@narratormatt that series is in audio and you can't add clips to it for copyright as you know. It's narrated by Emma Galvin. She does an excellent Cajun accent in that book. She performs every character.
if you are looking for a good video to watch for da cajun accent then i wud suggest typing "cajun accent" in the search bar and going to da first video it should be a girl named katelyn she has a strong accent. but im cajun but it sounds pretty good for a first try. sounds more towards a old western cowboy accent tho lol
XD Okay so I'm Cajun and the accent at the end would be passable for an actor, but... it sounds like a Chinese grad student who was exclusively taught English by a Cajun lmao. The biggest problem here is there is too much enunciation. You need to speak fast and flatten all your diphthongs. Also, avoid that weird antebellum non-rhoticism ("Ah do decleahhh!"), no one in Cajun country talks that way. "R" sounds are more situational, a lot of times it's actually _harsher_ than mainstream English ("Mais I got in my cawr, me."). One thing a lot of people miss: when speaking fast (as you should), we often change D and T sounds into almost a rolled-R sound! You're most likely to here it with "three" (the r gets rolled here) and "over there" (the TH becomes D in slow speech, becoming rolled R in fast speech).
@@narratormatt Some of Dustin Poirier's interviews are probably a good model for cadence IMO. He doesn't have the strongest accent but it's very similar to what I grew up around, probably because we're from the same area. He sounds a tad "swampy" but it's almost identical. Ftr I'm mostly talking about the modern "younger" accent. Old people can sound a lot different, they put SH and ZH sounds everywhere. With him, you can hear the dark L's, pharyngealized diphthongs, and quasi-rolled R's that are more modern features.
@@narratormatt ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-rN0tfSgySi4.html Here, Theo has a sort of mixed Cajun/Southern accent you can compare to Dustin.
I have to say, I love that you do the accent with a popular song. It's all good and well to hear voice coaches just talking about accents, but I think you've found an excellent way of portraying the words in context rather than by themselves. My biggest problem with learning a second language was stringing the pronunciations of single words together to make a sentence, and I think you do a damn good job of that here. Again English isn't my first language, so I apologize if I make very little sense. Either way, I wanted to show my appreciation, and my thanks for the informative video.
I'm from Louisiana. Every Southern state/region has obviously a 'Southern' accent but more over distinct regional dialects. The same applies here in Louisiana's Cajun, Creole, French, Spanish and Native Americans. The state's history is long and complex and there were, and still are many influences on language. Age, race, first language, region etc. Example, a senior citizen that was taught French as a child and yes that was a thing back then, will have a much different dialect than say, someone living in Northwest Louisiana near the Texas border. If go to New Orleans dem peoples day sounds like New York people and you'll run into black people that still have a Caribbean dialect. Yes , communication issues do arise!
@@narratormatt it's weird but I kinda slip into the accent of the people I'm talking to. Coon Ass, Creole etc. I learned Russian in the military. Once I was no longer immersed I lost most of it. Still have the accent on command. Funny story. I did Desert Storm in a suit and tie in Europe, don't ask. I'd been in Italy for a while and a translator had been teaching me the language. I picked it up pretty well. One night we're out to dinner at a pizza place. The translator asked me what I wanted so she could order it. Told her I got this. I started to order a pepperoni and sausage pizza with tomatos and basil. Half way through the order the waiter looks at me and said,"why do you want to rub cheese on my grandmother"? Have a great day.
@@narratormatt Kinda, it's like a weird mix of familiar Cajun-ish pronunciations and the more New York-ish stuff dey ga-goin on ovadeah. It's weirdly familiar and foreign at the same time.
Thanks! Have not received the manuscript as of yet…. but yes, I watched that one too, as I assume I will be doing that. No concern re: not having the book in hand yet. This is a very reputable writer whom I happen to know through a situation totally unrelated to audiobook narration. I hadn’t spoken to him in over a year, but as a newbie narrator (5 books published so far) I decided to get courageous and try direct marketing. I had actually approached him about another one of his books, but then he suggested this one set in New Orleans. We are in early talks at this stage. I’m slightly terrified, but excited for the challenge. Anyway, I’m so delighted to have discovered your channel! Super helpful! Thank you for sharing your experience and wisdom! I’m subscribed!
@@erikacalvert9481 Wonderful to hear. If you need any additional support or encouragement, I also teach. I'm at haynesnarration@gmail.com if you'd like to make an appointment.
I’m wheezing... Bless his heart for trying. I’m born and raised in Lafourche and Terrebonne Parrish and my Grandparents, mom, aunts, uncles, and cousins are as Cajun as they come. He sounds more like 1940’s New Orleans mixed with Chinese.
I'm Cajun, and I myself cannot do a Cajun accent. It is the hardest accent I know of. Almost every movie you'll ever see that tries to have a Cajun accent can't get it right. Oddly, only in a Scooby Doo movie did I ever see it right. Occasion accent is not to be mixed up with a New Orleans Parisian accent. Your observations seem mostly correct but they didn't come together to really create the accent quite right. Close! You didn't get it... But it's better than many.
That’s pretty good, my dads family all speak with a Cajun accent and I’ve never been able imitate it, I’m stuck with my mother’s accent which is the yat accent of the New Orleans area.
I've been a Cajun for every one of my 56 years... That said this guy was obviously not any neighbor I've ever known. However he wasn't terrible either. I think I do a spot on English accent only to be told I'm an idiot...so there you go carry on.
@@narratormattHahaha I noticed you're confused about the sudden influx of people that are now in your video. Deadpool vs Wolverine featured Channing Tatum as Gambit with a very heavy (and hilarious) Cajun accent. And now a lot of people are trying to imitate it and have most likely stumbled upon your video looking for tutorials and comparisons to how Channing spoke in the movie. You should watch the movie when you get the chance! I'm sure you'll have a good laugh once you hear it there.
Close, but you're missing the French inspired lilt. Emphasis is not placed on the same words in a given sentence would be expected in a standard North American accent.
I noticed in the lyrics section you replaced some of the "th" sounds with more of a "zze", especially on the "the"s. Is that purposeful? and If so, where and when would one distinguish between using the given "th" guidelines of replacing with a "t" or "d" and using the "z" instead?. Also this is amazing thank you so much for making this.
I think he's slipping into a standard French accent. You should NEVER use S or Z for TH sounds for a Cajun accent, we always use D and T, or even combining them like "dth" or "tth" in a subtle accent, which is what I often do. To me the S and Z substitutions make him sound vaguely Chinese.
For those of you who are here to sound like Gambit: here's voice actor Scott MacDonald speaking in a cajun accent from his performance as Gambit: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-jP3geuulfqE.html
Fantastic information, my only recommendation is to work on your cadence, Cajun accented speakers tend to have a specific and occasionally variable speed.
@@narratormatt It's difficult to describe, and also depends a lot on the specific accent. An old, native French speaker will have a cadence very close to French, an upper-middle class young person from Lafayette will sound more-or-less completely English, most of us are somewhere in between. Maybe one way to think about it is that you want to stress syllables by making them longer without making them louder or higher-pitched. Speaking faster, you can start dropping some the unstressed vowels s'like, you'll start t'sound kinna like this. Y'wanna makesure yw'also ram somma-y'rwords t'gether correckly. There's some rules f'rwhich ones y'canc'mbine b't'thish'dgive yw'anidea 'fwhatit sounslike.
I might be using sterotypes but don't they sometimes use french like "mon ami or mon cher." cause Gambit from the animated X-Men TV show and he speaks with a Cajun accent. I'm wondering if that's accurate or just a Gambit thing
"Cher" is used a lot, but usually in reference to babies, cute puppies, etc. "Mon ami" is kind of rare in Cajun english. It makes me think of a shopkeeper who knows you're a regular more than a friend to friend kind of thing.
I'm from Acadiana in Southern Louisiana, and I can tell that some of your phonetic changes were very spot on. The th sound doesn't exist in French, so it typically becomes a d sound by Cajuns and French Canadians while French people generally make a t sound. Your cadence for it just didn't allow me to fully digest the snippet of the accent in full display. Cajuns have a very particular one that's very distinguished from a general accent. Overall, your accent sounds much more like an old Southern accent that you would hear in Civil War movies than what Cajuns actually sound like. This is a great video to try to replicate. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Y4z_ycu3Ffg.html
It sounds more Haitian, or African, especially at the beginning. But I can hear the Cajun. The ending was better than the beginning. You smushed the words together a bit more, and wasn't so....stop/start/stop/start..or halting? with each word. Not bad. With practice, you got that.
Welp, time to go hope on vrchat, practice this, then find a RE7 Jack Baker avatar, or vice versa for the avatar and practice, thank you for this tutorial
lmao, "I = o"; One day my dad had almost gotten in trouble for this; he was at a bar with my mom, and he asked the waitress "Can I get some Ice?" -- I think you can guess what the waitress thought he asked.
I came to similar conclusions to your notes when I tried to reverse engineer the accent yourself, but your list is quite a bit better articulated than mine so thank you. Also if anyone reading this has any media that they could suggest containing traditional Cajun/Creole accents I'd greatly appreciate it. Seems to very sparse to find the famous ol' way of talking.
@@narratormatt It was actually a reference to a Cajun RU-vid cook called Stalekracker. Honestly, I’d recommend watching him if you’re still working on getting this accent down. Or… if you just really like jambalaya.
I think it's just something you would have to experience in person to learn. you did decent at the end. but you need to put more personality into it. Cajuns are usually really loud and obnoxious.... and usually drunk. yeah... at least where I'm from.
oh, and you need to learn some of the "phrases" we use. for example "mais", but pronounced "mae" is french for "but", yet we don't really use it that way. you'll hear it said "mais yeah!", or "mais, looka dat!" another term we use is "cher", pronounced "sha". cher, means "dear" so you would use it while referring to something you find cute or when referring to a loved one. and lots of the time you'll hear "mais cher" put together. hope this has helped some.
Would you consider making a video so we could hear your accent? You could be talking about anything, favorite band, something you learned recently, where you were born and how you grew up. I'd be ever so grateful!
@@ZephyrBW I'm not sure I'm tracking the reversal you're talking about. Definitely a swap out of t and d for voiceless TH and voiced TH. Is that what you're talking about?
Keep trying dude. That’s a black creole accent not Cajun. New Orleans isn’t the best place to look for Cajun accents, go more west like from Houma to new Iberia then north towards mamou. The Cajuns never settled in the New Orleans area. When we were kicked out of Canada Spain owned Nola and have us land around Houma.
Sorry man, but as a Cajun I have to say you're not even close. I was born and raised in rural South Louisiana in a family that spoke French and English at home.
@@narratormatt If you want, you can give me a script to read and I'll post a video for you in my cajun accent; I come from acadiana; born and raised on the bayou.
Yo I said the same thing!😂 @narratormatt I think it's the slow pace and that you start subbing TH with S and Z sounds. That would be valid in the standard French accent but in Cajun accents we would never do that. I think you also dropped too many R's, Cajun accents are probably more rhotic than you think.
@@narratormatt There are some really good comments already in that regard, specifically the ones from Louisiana natives. My mother spoke Cajun French exclusively up until English was beaten into her by Catholic nuns in grade school, and I grew up around some very thick, very authentic Cajun dialect. I also taught for several years under CODOFIL and worked in areas in South Louisiana in communities where Cajun dialects are still prevalent to this day. I'm going to reach out to you via email, and if you care to correspond feel welcomed to reach out. This video being as old as it is, I'd be very interested to know where you've taken this since then.
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