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TV series DEVS: Question about American accent
We're all at home watching more TV these days, and I was wondering if any US members have seen the sci-fi series entitled DEVS. After watching the first episode, I was surprised to learn that the main character, supposedly a California-born Chinese American, was actually played by English actress Sonoya Mizuno.

This is my question:

How convincing is Mizuno's accent? Can you tell that she isn't American?

To my ear, she sounds very convincing, and I would never have guessed she was British. But I'm aware that we're hardwired to notice differences rather than similarities : I can hear all the features of American English that I'd expect to hear, and none of the English English ones. But I'm wondering if the opposite happens when an American English ear listens to her. Do any of you, as American English speakers, notice any English English influences which sound wrong to you and give away the fact that Mizuno is putting on a 'fake' accent for the series?

Your thoughts on this, or on any other accent-related issues, would be very welcome!




28 avr. 2020 16:40
Commentaires · 5
1
Concerning accents, once I've come across these interesting channels:

A dialect coach breaks down the put on accents of some actors.
29 avril 2020
1
Thank you for your responses, Peter, Richard and DavidK.

I'm afraid that I hadn't realised this series wasn't freely available in the US. If anyone does listen to the trailer, though, the character in question is the young woman with short hair and Asian features - she also speaks on voiceover. Sorry there's not much dialogue there.
29 avril 2020
1
It’s available in the US on Hulu, a paid streaming service. I only watched the trailer, which didn’t have much dialogue. What stood out was the extremely slow pace of speech, the opposite of the stereotype of the fast-talking young tech worker. Shooting for “weird” and succeeding.
29 avril 2020
1
Peter

First, I second your first sentence statement.

Now, to the matter at hand...

1 I'm in Canada and we can watch all the episodes online by selecting our internet service provider and signing up.
After that, it just a matter of selecting which episode you want to watch.
Here's the Canadian website that provides the episodes: <a href="https://www.fxnowcanada.ca/shows/devs/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.fxnowcanada.ca/shows/devs/</a>;


2 I know you're in the US, so I looked to see if "fxnow" is available in the US, but I wasn't able to find an American version of "fxnow".
You may still be able to find the show by searching for a US site by using the search terms "devs online".

3 Another method might be to do to: <a href="https://www.magnetdl.com/d/devs/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.magnetdl.com/d/devs/</a>;
You click on the episode you want to download, however you'll need a torrent site, such as: <a href="https://download.cnet.com/uTorrent/3000-2196_4-10528327.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://download.cnet.com/uTorrent/3000-2196_4-10528327.html</a>;

Mind you, you will be downloading a copyrighted TV show, so...


4 The only other way to get an indication of the show would be to view the trailers at:
<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8134186/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8134186/</a>;

*******************************************************

A 12 year old would probably know better than me how to view the program online... :)

Hopefully, one of the other italki IT members will know how to access the series.

Good luck... stay safe...

28 avril 2020
1
I have always been impressed by your highly informative responses to students studying English. Do you have a link for the dialogue?
28 avril 2020