174 réponses à ce sujet

[Eleinehmm]

tmp7704 wrote...

Well, we have no idea what actual Orlesian accent is like. This discussion is largely based on french accent (or more accurately just various imaginary versions of french accent people hold in their heads) ... the "real" orlesian can be quite different from that, and "heavier" than real french.

Well - We are working with what we have - If they announced they were using "some kind of  strange made up accents" in the game I would have no objections whatsoever.

Modifié par Eleinehmm, 19 novembre 2010 - 10:31 .

[Xewaka]

It still amuses me that Zevran is supposed to sound spanish.

[joriandrake]

Xewaka wrote...

It still amuses me that Zevran is supposed to sound spanish.

really?


as stated before i don't care about accents, i just want proper (voice) acting

[PsychoBlonde]

I thought he was supposed to sound Antivan.

[joriandrake]

PsychoBlonde wrote...

I thought he was supposed to sound Antivan.

I didn't even realize he sounded anything special or that he had an accent

[Eleinehmm]

joriandrake wrote...

PsychoBlonde wrote...

I thought he was supposed to sound Antivan.

I didn't even realize he sounded anything special or that he had an accent

[Xewaka]

joriandrake wrote...

PsychoBlonde wrote...

I thought he was supposed to sound Antivan.

I didn't even realize he sounded anything special or that he had an accent

Allegedly, when the character concept was described to the voice actor, he answered something among the lines of "So he's a sexed up Iñigo Montoya? Cool". Part of that is the spanish accent.

Modifié par Xewaka, 19 novembre 2010 - 10:50 .

[Doveberry]

I loved Zevran's accent. His voice actor may not have been spanish, but he did a fantastic job.
And with regard to the accents in general, I loved them. They added a lot of flavour to the game. Almost all the voice acting was fantastic, in my opinion. French accents are tricky, however, and should be approached with caution. They have the potential to sound alluring if done well, and cringe-worthy when done badly.

I don't think that I would have reacted if only minor characters had had terrible french accents, but Marjolaine was very important for Leliana's personal quest (and for Leliana's Song), and she had a lot to say. Furthermore, all the flaws in Marjolaine's accent became all the more evident since she was speaking with Leliana every time you came across her. Hearing the two speak at the same time made the difference between the real accent and the fake one painfully obvious.

People seem to have minded Isolde. I did not. It is entirely possible for people to lack the linguistic skill to learn the proper melody of a language even if they've lived in a specific country since they were young adults. I know one such person myself in real life. Isolde did not sound all that french to me, but accents can sound very different from person to person. I felt, at least, that her accent was homogenous and could very well have been real.

Modifié par Doveberry, 19 novembre 2010 - 11:11 .

[Akka le Vil]

A funny thing that I just thought about.
One of my co-worker is a naturalized Russian (Bielorussian actually). He went into the country at 9 or 10 (and is 23 today), so he was barely a child back then.
He's native-level of french, which means he not only speak the language perfectly, but he gets it down to the cultural jokes, idiotisms and the like.

And he still has a quite noticeable russian accent. Like REALLY noticeable. Like about the same as Isolde.
This is from someone who has spent his life from his childhood to his adulthood in France.

Modifié par Akka le Vil, 19 novembre 2010 - 11:12 .

[Sharn01]

Eleinehmm wrote...

Thanatos9t wrote...

Did anyone else think that Isolde was speaking Jamaican?

"Tea-gan! who is dis man?"

And I agree with Russalka they are not speaking with a fake French accent because they are not from or in France they speaking with Orlesian accents, which only resemble French accents.

If Dragonage was based on this Earth in medieval times then the complaint would be more justified.

The problem is that the accents are inconsistent across the characters, not that they are not French enough.

Orlais is a large country, there are people in the US who speak with such thick accents from the region they are from that I have a difficult time even understanding them, so I fail to see a problem with inconsistent accents.

[Eleinehmm]

Akka le Vil wrote...

A funny thing that I just thought about.
One of my co-worker is a naturalized Russian (Bielorussian actually). He went into the country at 9 or 10 (and is 23 today), so he was barely a child back then.
He's native-level of french, which means he not only speak the language perfectly, but he gets it down to the cultural jokes, idiotisms and the like.

And he still has a quite noticeable russian accent. Like REALLY noticeable. Like about the same as Isolde.
This is from someone who has spent his life from his childhood to his adulthood in France.

More of the exception rather than the rule - If you leave when you are 9 you tend to switch to accentless language very quickly. It becomes much more difficult when you are 12-14.

Modifié par Eleinehmm, 19 novembre 2010 - 11:22 .

[ok go]

Ask any French person, Orlesian accents are like Brits trying to speak with an American accent. Im not complaining. Only accent I liked was Leliana's because it suited her character, since she was raised by a Fereldan mother, and later a orlesian noblewoman.

[Archmage Silvery]

This is a summary of what David Gaider said in an earlier thread:

David Gaider wrote...

There are indeed many English accents. For voiceover purposes we use what is called RP (Received Pronunciation) unless we are going for a specific sound like cockney or West Country. RP's the easiest because this is what most British actors are trained to use, though most of them can switch between several dialects at will.

For American accents, the midwest accent is used as a standard simply because it's viewed by North Americans as being "accent-less"-- there's no regional association as it is in the American South, New England and other places. It's the American equivalent of RP.

Going for other accents can be difficult, primarily because we only get these differences in English recording (they don't get Polish VO actors doing Orlesian characters to speak with a French accent in the Polish localization, for instance) and thus if we want authentic accents we have to go to non-native speakers. This can sometimes affect the acting as often happens when someone needs to focus on an accent they don't do naturally), and has limited value with North American audiences as many people seem to think accents sound "fake" even when they're completely authentic. Why, I don't know. Personally I would have gone for a different accent with the dwarves (initially we wanted German) but it didn't work for the reasons I describe, not to mention that mainland European voiceover actors are a bit less numerous and thus much more expensive to use.

But there you have it in a nutshell.

Antivans still use Spanish accents.

We ensure the accents are authentic by having people do the voice acting who actually possess those accents. Then they can focus on the acting and not the accent.

The vast majority of the accents in DAO are authentic. If someone assumes they are not, that's probably because they don't know what the hell they're talking about..

Modifié par Archmage Silvery, 19 novembre 2010 - 11:24 .

[Eleinehmm]

Sharn01 wrote...

Eleinehmm wrote...

Thanatos9t wrote...

Did anyone else think that Isolde was speaking Jamaican?

"Tea-gan! who is dis man?"

And I agree with Russalka they are not speaking with a fake French accent because they are not from or in France they speaking with Orlesian accents, which only resemble French accents.

If Dragonage was based on this Earth in medieval times then the complaint would be more justified.

The problem is that the accents are inconsistent across the characters, not that they are not French enough.

Orlais is a large country, there are people in the US who speak with such thick accents from the region they are from that I have a difficult time even understanding them, so I fail to see a problem with inconsistent accents.

Inconsistent as in "sound as if they come from different languages" not as in "sound different"

[Eleinehmm]

Archmage Silvery wrote...

This is a summary of what David Gaider said in an earlier thread:

David Gaider wrote...

There are indeed many English accents. For voiceover purposes we use what is called RP (Received Pronunciation) unless we are going for a specific sound like cockney or West Country. RP's the easiest because this is what most British actors are trained to use, though most of them can switch between several dialects at will.

For American accents, the midwest accent is used as a standard simply because it's viewed by North Americans as being "accent-less"-- there's no regional association as it is in the American South, New England and other places. It's the American equivalent of RP.

Going for other accents can be difficult, primarily because we only get these differences in English recording (they don't get Polish VO actors doing Orlesian characters to speak with a French accent in the Polish localization, for instance) and thus if we want authentic accents we have to go to non-native speakers. This can sometimes affect the acting as often happens when someone needs to focus on an accent they don't do naturally), and has limited value with North American audiences as many people seem to think accents sound "fake" even when they're completely authentic. Why, I don't know. Personally I would have gone for a different accent with the dwarves (initially we wanted German) but it didn't work for the reasons I describe, not to mention that mainland European voiceover actors are a bit less numerous and thus much more expensive to use.

But there you have it in a nutshell.

Antivans still use Spanish accents.

We ensure the accents are authentic by having people do the voice acting who actually possess those accents. Then they can focus on the acting and not the accent.

The vast majority of the accents in DAO are authentic. If someone assumes they are not, that's probably because they don't know what the hell they're talking about..

Hope it will be true for the minor characters as well.

[PsychoBlonde]

I am curious whether we'll hear Qunari with accents in DA2 or whether they'll all speak perfect Standard Midwestern American English the way Sten does. I'm kind of hoping we do, that will make Sten slightly more Special due to his linguistic skill.



Btw the reason Midwestern American English is largely considered "standard" is that you can find people who speak with that accent in ANY part of the country. I have Texan friends who sound completely Midwestern, and Georgian friends who sound completely Midwestern, and friends in Boston and New York and Seattle and California etc. etc. who all sound like us flat nasal Midwesterners. (And no, these aren't Midwesterners who migrated. These are the real deal.) Americans tend to take you a little less seriously if you speak with a pronounced accent so most Americans who've reached professional age (college and thereafter) have shed 90% of theirs or don't use it. You might get the occasional "ya'll" or "warsh", but most of it gets sublimated in the majority of individuals.

[Addai]

Eleinehmm wrote...

Addai67 wrote...

Eleinehmm wrote...

And yes -  they do change simply from exposure - I call it human nature, but in this case it is more of ape nature here -It is difficult not to change them somehow...

That simply isn't true, not as a universal, and especially not for someone who is immersed first as an adult, even as a young adult.  As an example, my husband's family all came over from Europe as teenagers/ children.  The older siblings married Americans and worked with Americans but still have a very pronounced accent.   My father in law was a middle child and has a strong accent despite having lived and worked all his adult life with native English speakers.  He even makes small grammatical errors sometimes.  The younger siblings who came over as kids don't have accents.

Well, you didn't hear them in the beginning of the exposure, did you ?  Generally an adult will retain some sort of accent and some of the NS would even perceive it as heavy, but it will be very different from the "beginners" accent.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding what you are going for here.  You want to say that Isolde's level of accent is unrealistic for someone who has lived in Ferelden during her adult life.  Sooo, I guess I would turn your words back on you and say that you never heard what she sounded like when she first married Eamon.  She does not sound like a beginning language learner to me.  She makes no grammatical errors, she is perfectly understandable, she simply has an accent.  A heavy one, but comparable to how my FIL sounds, to go back to that example.  And he has a few years of language exposure on her.

Modifié par Addai67, 19 novembre 2010 - 11:54 .

[Eleinehmm]

Addai67 wrote...

Eleinehmm wrote...

Addai67 wrote...

Eleinehmm wrote...

And yes -  they do change simply from exposure - I call it human nature, but in this case it is more of ape nature here -It is difficult not to change them somehow...

That simply isn't true, not as a universal, and especially not for someone who is immersed first as an adult, even as a young adult.  As an example, my husband's family all came over from Europe as teenagers/ children.  The older siblings married Americans and worked with Americans but still have a very pronounced accent.   My father in law was a middle child and has a strong accent despite having lived and worked all his adult life with native English speakers.  He even makes small grammatical errors sometimes.  The younger siblings who came over as kids don't have accents.

Well, you didn't hear them in the beginning of the exposure, did you ?  Generally an adult will retain some sort of accent and some of the NS would even perceive it as heavy, but it will be very different from the "beginners" accent.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding what you are going for here.  You want to say that Isolde's level of accent is unrealistic for someone who has lived in Ferelden during her adult life.  Sooo, I guess I would turn your words back on you and say that you never heard what she sounded like when she first married Eamon.  She does not sound like a beginning language learner to me.  She makes no grammatical errors, she is perfectly understandable, she simply has an accent.  A heavy one, but comparable to how my FIL sounds, to go back to that example.  And he has a few years of language exposure on her.

Sorry - I will try to be more clear - I think that her accent sounds as a strange mixture of advanced and beginner, and that happens very rarely in IRL.

On Accent Softening :

Generally the softening process will follow some patterns (Which of cause are language specific):
As it has been already mentioned, the [ʁ] sound will go away very quickly (most of faux-French accents leave [ʁ] intact, because it sounds very different from the English one )

The most difficult  consonants  in English are [θ] and [ð] -  But  “dis” would be more like a soft version of “zis”

She would probably retain intonation differences (Listen to Leliana for  example)  so I have little problem with that.

Vowels: Vowels are tricky and very personal so I do not feel myself qualified to speak about vowels.

Stress – French is a fixed stress language but it is not much of a problem – so no TeeeegAn  for you

Modifié par Eleinehmm, 20 novembre 2010 - 12:09 .

[Addai]

Ok. Let me just say that very few people playing Dragon Age a) are linguists, or care about that level of nitpickiness. I think half of the complaints about Isolde and Marjolaine are because their characters are so unpleasant. As I mentioned upthread, Leliana's voice sounds like nails on a chalkboard to me, but it's because I find her character terribly annoying. It's not really her accent.

[Onyx Jaguar]

Shouldn't they be using made up accents

[tmp7704]

Addai67 wrote...

As I mentioned upthread, Leliana's voice sounds like nails on a chalkboard to me

And it's the second time i resist turning that into a double entendre, but my will is weakening

[Eleinehmm]

Addai67 wrote...

Ok. Let me just say that very few people playing Dragon Age a) are linguists, or care about that level of nitpickiness. I think half of the complaints about Isolde and Marjolaine are because their characters are so unpleasant. As I mentioned upthread, Leliana's voice sounds like nails on a chalkboard to me, but it's because I find her character terribly annoying. It's not really her accent.

It may be the case - I am  just trying to support using real accents in games, that is all. And by real I mean real-real no
"Sorry guys, you are not *insert language* enough - Can you speak more *insert language*ly"

Modifié par Eleinehmm, 20 novembre 2010 - 12:15 .

[Wicked 702]

Eleinehmm wrote...

David Gaider wrote...

We tend to use actors who actually possess that accent, whenever we can get away with it.

My experience is that, whether the accent is genuine or not, there will be people who think it's fake/annoying/whatever. I don't know how many people appeared to declare our "fake" English accents were outlandish, despite the fact we recorded in the UK extensively.

So... whatever.

Please stick with genuine - Leliana was great...

Please stick with genuine - Morrigan was great... (fixed)

K, maybe I'm just a little bit biased towards Claudia Black. Yeah, that's it.

[krasnoarmeets]

David Gaider wrote...

We tend to use actors who actually possess that accent, whenever we can get away with it.

My experience is that, whether the accent is genuine or not, there will be people who think it's fake/annoying/whatever. I don't know how many people appeared to declare our "fake" English accents were outlandish, despite the fact we recorded in the UK extensively.

So... whatever.

I imagine you'd need to develop a hide like a rhino in this business - there are so many nitpickers... it's obviously not always possible to get a VA who genuinely possesses the accent in question. Overall, I found the accents acceptable.

Yes, some of the Orlesian accents did sound like cliched and exaggerated French accents, but as has already been pointed out, they're not technically French accents anyway - they're Orlesian.
The only ones that made me cringe were Marjolaine's and the elf Lady-in-waiting's accents and while I'm not French and nor do I speak it, I've heard enough in my time to be able to spot an outrageously fake one.
The most interesting and unusual one in my opinion was Riordan's by Stephane Cornicard, which sounded possibly Breton, like a combination of Welsh and French.
Feel free to dispute my opinion if you like, I don't care. Opinions are like bums - everybody has one.

The only other noticeable 'fake' accents were some of the English accents - commoner and aristocrat alike, although I couldn't give you specific examples, they were mostly random NPCs, who were nameless or unmemorable. I personally hate hearing a badly mutilated attempt at a Scottish accent.

@OP re: Corrinne Kempa not being French because she lives in England: does that mean that I wasn't a New Zealander for the 3 years while I was living in Russia? It certainly didn't make me Russian, so I suppose in the OP's opinion I must have been in some kind of weird limbo state.

Wicked 702 wrote...

Please stick with genuine - Morrigan
was great... (fixed)

K, maybe I'm just a little bit biased
towards Claudia Black. Yeah, that's it.

Hate to disappoint, but Claudia Black is Australian. Morrigan's accent is RP (received pronunciation, i.e. affected).

Modifié par krasnoarmeets, 20 novembre 2010 - 02:23 .

[Addai]

tmp7704 wrote...

Addai67 wrote...

As I mentioned upthread, Leliana's voice sounds like nails on a chalkboard to me

And it's the second time i resist turning that into a double entendre, but my will is weakening

Ewww.  Resist, resist! 

Re "real" accents, they're great, but not if it takes away from other things in the budget that are more important.  Such as great voice actors for the main parts you have to listen to a lot.