[RachaelB]

I am hopefully going to audition for West Side Story soon and i was wondering wether anybody could give me any tips on how to do the puerto rican accent? i want to try and get it as real sounding as possible! Thanks!xxx

[The Tink]

My tip- Don't ask advice for things such as that on a message board where you don't know anyone's ability. Contact a director you trust in your area and ask him/her for the names of someone you can meet IN PERSON to learn the Puerto Rican dialect. If you listen to the majority of the people here, you'll end up with a generic and bad hispanic dialect. And there is a difference. If you can't learn it by the time auditions come around, DON'T DO IT AT ALL!!! There is nothing worse than a bad dialect or accent...

[frenchhorngirl]

three words. DAVID ALLEN STERN. get some of his tapes for dialects. if u need a really specialized one, he does ones with lonng segments that really teach you the dialect.

[MaryMag]

I agree with the David Allan Stern recommendation.

But here's some basic things:
- don't let your "s" sound turn into a "z". We say "it iZ 3:00". They really say the s and say "it iss 3:00"
- roll your rrr's
- v's sound almost like b's. "victoria" would sound almost like "bictoria"
- i don't think the "i" noise as in "it" or "in" is really used. it would sound more like "ee". so "begin" would sound more like "begeen"

[musical4eva]

How do you roll your R's? Thats the only bit of the accent I cant really get but I've got a while until my audition so I'm hoping I can learn.