🧛🏼 ❤️ 🚮 “I'll be back!”: How Arnold Schwarzenegger’s English has changed over 50 years in the USA 🎻 👩🏿‍✈️ 🍎

The name of Arnold Schwarzenegger is known all over the world. He is a living example of the American dream. Multiple Mr. Olympia and Mr. Universe, the legendary Terminator, Governor of California - Arnie has accomplished everything you could wish for.

But few people know that it was a tough German accent that could have buried his entire career at the very beginning. Let's see how much Arnie was able to improve his English over 50 years in the United States. Spoiler: how awesome it is. Go!

Arnold Schwarzenegger accent early in career

Arnold Schwarzenegger is from Austria and his native language is German. He moved to the United States at the age of 21, being a titled bodybuilder.

Let's take the starting point of 1970, in which the first film with Arnold came out - "Hercules in New York." The bodybuilder's level of English is quite good, but the emphasis is just terrible. Sometimes it seems that he just speaks German, not English.

Actually, precisely because of this, in the first film he was duplicated. Yes, yes, Arnie’s character was simply voiced. In cinemas, his real voice was not heard at all.

Let's look at an example right away. Let us take a non-duplicated passage from Hercules and show the full power of the German emphasis on it:

By the way, you can listen to the correct American pronunciation of words in the
ED Words application .

Grass and shock [r]

The sound [r] in German and French is pronounced with a throat. Actually, it is with this sound that students who learn German as a second language have the most problems.

And who is that monster, who looks as if he from the kingdom of the underworld?

This is especially clearly heard in the word "monster".
Correct American pronunciation: [mɑnstər].
Schwarzenegger pronounces it as [monstər] with grass [r].
In principle, there is no such sound in English, which is immediately heard in speech.
Also, shock [r] often skips - almost like in Russian. For example, in the word "present".

In some phrases, Arnie tries to pronounce the correct [r], but the skipping skips even in cases where the sound [r] in the word is not pronounced.

The letter "o" and the sounds associated with it

It’s absolutely a misfortune, because Schwarzenegger pronounced the words with the letter “o” as you like, but not correctly.

In German, in fact, there are only 2 options for pronouncing the letter “o”: short “o” and long “o”. In English, everything is much more confusing.

Underworld — [ˈʌndərˌwɜrld]. [ɜ] «ö» ( können öffnen). «». [ɜ] [œ].
Gone — [gɒn]. , «», «» — ( ).
Look — [lʊk]. [ʊ], -. «», «». , [l] .

German is replete with hissing, but in English they are accented not so much.

The sounds [ʃ] [tʃ] and [ʒ], which almost completely correspond to the Russian [sh], [h] and [g], Arnie accented in the German manner. In such words as “permission,” hissing sounds too harsh, which makes it appear that he speaks German.

Confusion with th

The sounds [θ] and [ð], which stand for the digraph “th”, do not exist in German, therefore all Germans experience difficulties with them.

Schwarzenegger including. But if most often [θ] and [ð] are replaced in speech by a solid [z], then Arnie used [d] instead.

Most likely he did this by analogy with the sounding of the German articles “das” and “die”. Because the sound of the words “the” and “that” is very similar to them.

But even inside the words, instead of [θ] and [ð], solid [d] sounds.

It doesn't bother me. “It doesn't bother me.”

Instead of [ˈbɑðər], we hear [ˈbɑdə]. And a similar situation is repeated with absolutely all sounds [θ] and [ð].

[V] instead of [w]

The sound [w] does not exist in German. All words with the letter “w” are read using the sound [v]. Many Germans who learn English as a second carry this habit into English. In the words "was," what "," where "," worry "Arnie also uses exactly [v], not [w].

By the way, the Germans also often use the sound [f] instead of [v], because in German the letter “v” is read as [f], but this error is quite rare in Schwarzenegger. Mostly only in long sentences.

How Schwarzenegger worked on his English

Already after the filming of Hercules in New York, Arnie heard from the director that he would never become a famous actor precisely because of his terrible accent.

As Schwarzenegger himself wrote in his memoirs “Remember Everything,” the main goal for him was to get rid of the German accent. The actor studied English for five hours a day.

Interestingly, Arnie first actively got rid of his accent, but then hired another tutor to partially return him. The directors are already accustomed to the German reprimand of the actor and were surprised that he was not there.

In fact, the German accent has become Schwarzenegger's hallmark. Let's see how it sounds in Terminator (1984).

As you can see, a lot of work has been done on the accent.

There are still no sounds [θ] and [ð], but [d] in the articles has become much softer - it is already very close to the American version.

Hissing is not so accented anymore. Yes, compared to the American accent, they still sound tougher, but it’s already quite normal for a native speaker.

In general, vowel sounds have become much more natural. Schwarzenegger already uses the full variety of vowels. Including diphthongs.

Sometimes the grassing [r] skips, but only in those words that are also characteristic of German, for example, "millimeter". In general, the improvements are very noticeable. The sound is no longer throat, but created correctly - with the help of the tip of the tongue. In the middle of words it is often reduced, which is generally relevant for American English.

But softening the sound [l] did not go away. In German, there is no solid sound [l], it is always softened. If at the beginning of his career, Schwartz tried to pronounce hard [l] where necessary and where not, then in the Terminator he softens it almost everywhere. Actually, this is what gives the realization that he speaks with a German accent. We suspect that he left this feature of his speech on purpose.

Schwarzenegger Accent: Today

After Schwarzenegger decided to go into politics, he had to work even more seriously on his language. Because there were often arguments from political opponents that Arnie wasn’t able to speak English normally, while he could manage an entire staff?

Schwarzenegger's accent was already very weak in 2003, when he took part in the elections, but then he had to get rid of it completely.

This is how Schwarzenegger’s speech sounds today. We will demonstrate this in an excerpt from the Jimmy Kimmel Show, where Arnie was a guest in 2019.

As for a foreigner, today Arnold's English is perfect. To be honest, most Native Americans speak worse than Schwarzenegger.

By the way, Jimmy Kimmel there just asks the question how Arnie managed to completely get rid of the accent. A fun interview, be sure to look.

Arnold Schwarzenegger is the person who embodied all aspects of the American dream. We are sure that he would even try to become president if for this he would not have to be born in the USA.

Somehow to evaluate his successes in English is already meaningless. Today, American English Arnie is no worse than native speakers. For more than 50 years of use, English has become Schwarzenegger's second native language.

But it is worth remembering that in order to get such a result, Arnie spent thousands of hours perfecting his speech and his accent. And it is worthy of respect.

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“I'll be back!”: How Arnold Schwarzenegger’s English has changed over 50 years in the USA