Imitating an accent

[Monsterfurby]

Hi there!

I have recently thought about teaching myself some foreign accents. Naturally, I figured, I could speak with a German accent (being German, that's not too hard), and it worked - sort of. What I am really interested in, though, are other accents, for example a Russian one.
What would be the best way to teach myself the proper usage of such an accent (I know, nothing is worse than a badly imitated accent) - are there any websites around you could recommend or books that might prove useful?

Any help would be appreciated!

[Edwyn]

Watching movies from the countries whose accents you want to imitate would probably be a good start? I do about the same when I really, really, REALLY need to imitate a certain actor's voice: Just listen and listen and speak and speak and sooner or later something will click and you'll have enough "similarities" that the "not so similar" is sort of pushed to one side in people's minds.

[SuKi]

it always helps to know the language, or know how the pronunciation in the language works. like Edwyn said, movies can help in that department. because when you know how the language should be spoken, you know how they pronounce everything.

here, like we'll take German, beacause you know that.
read this sentence out loud, pronouncing it as perfectly as possible;
ich suchte nach Pilzen im Wald mit den blauen Bäumen.
keep reading it until you can pronounce it as perfectly as possible without even thinking.

then, use all those pronunciations to read this sentence. read it as if it were German, forget English completely.
I looked for mushrooms in the forest with the blue trees.

get what i mean? it helps a lot. my family speaks Arabic, but my grandparents are the ones who use it the most. when im talking to people who speak English, i speak in my natural accent. but when i start talking to my grandparents and i cant respond to them in Arabic, i speak english with an Arabic accent. seamless. you'd think i wasn't from here. it just became a habit for me when i talk to them, because when i was little, i couldn't speak it that much, i could only understand it, so the habit just developed to copy them, and now when i talk to them, i talk with an accent :P its weird, it's def like a psychological problem or something :P

good luck, hope that helps!

[Erica]

http://accent.gmu.edu/howto.php

[kate]

awesome link Erica! Thank you!!

[Icypopcorn]

OMG I was about to give the same link Erica did 8D But either way, yeah, that place helps.