Accent script
Saturday, October 4, 2008

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GK: I hate to say this but somebody has to. There really is no point in learning a foreign language anymore. Everyone in the world is learning English. (FRENCH INCREDULITY) They are. Everybody wants to speak English. (FRENCH IRRITATION) English majors are now fully employed outside of the food industry, teaching English in Istanbul, Beijing, Islamabad, Caracas, and yes, in Provence. (FRENCH INCREDULITY—PROVENCE?) Yes, Provence. And if you want to read Spanish or French or Portuguese or anything else, you just go to Google and scroll down to the translation section and, voila— English. The mystery of foreignness is dispelled with the click of an icon.

TR: ITALIAN — (BEEP) so anyway I went like, what? And he was like, okay. And I was like, I can't believe this. And he was like, so what?

GK: They are just like us. That's the point. Learning a language in order to get into another culture — it is so Over. There is no other culture.

TR: SWEDISH — (BEEP) We went to Kentucky Fried and got a tub of chicken, came home, kicked back, watched the Simpsons, knocked down some cold ones.

GK: You go to the trouble of learning a language, then you go to the country and speak it, and that's fun, but then they talk back to you in that language, and you don't understand a thing.

SS: TENTATIVE AMERICAN ARABIC

TR: FAST ARABIC

GK: Speak English. It's good to go anywhere in the world. But here in America, what can be really useful is a foreign accent. Especially if you're from Minnesota.

TR: Yeah, Minnesota. That's where I'm from. How'd ya know that, huh? Just a lucky guess or what?

GK: If you have a Minnesota accent, people are going to assume you never heard of opera and your idea of salad is green Jell-O. You will suffer from terrible prejudice — what we call Middleism —- unless you pick up a foreign accent, which you can in just two hours at Earl's Academy of Accents. You can go from this—

TR: Boy, that was quite the deal then. Yeah. Boy, she sure gave him what for.

GK: To this—

TR: (BRIT) Oh it was quite the deal, old chap. Oh yes. She read him the riot act, she did.

GK: More than twenty accents available. French.

TR (FRENCH): Am I from where? Minnesota. Where is Minnesota, mon cher?

GK: Russian.

TR (RUSSIAN): Am I Lutheran? What is this Lutheran? I never hear of this before.

GK: You can talk normal to your family.

TR: Hi mom. It's me. Carl. Doing fine here in Minneapolis. Got a job as a chef. Yeah. No kidding.

GK: And to everyone else—-

TR (FRENCH): I am Jean-Carlo and it is with great pleasure of the heart I welcome you to Le Maison de la Cuisine.

GK: Earl's Academy of Accents. In the yellow pages under Affectation.