Where to put the emPHAsis when doing voice overs

I'm on vacation in Canada (yes, again) and I'm hearing "eh?" at the end of every sentence. "Beautiful day, eh?" And, my favourite (note the Canadian spelling --- Canadians love to add the letter 'u' in words), "You're not from around here, eh?" I heard that after I accidentally asked a nice Canadian family sitting outdoors at a restaurant in downtown Bobcaygeon, Ontario, "Are the black flies eating y'all up over there at your table?" You may be wondering where this is going. It's all aboooot watching your pronunciation and colloquialisms when recording your voice for public consumption (your podcast or voice work you've been hired to do).

Texans have a tendency to replace the letter 's' with a 'd' in some words. "This is darn good barbecue, idn't it?" And we put the emPHAsis on the wrong sylLABle in many words. For example, "That's a mighty purdy (yes, we mispronounce that word, too) veHICle you've got there." After finally admitting to myself that I'm guilty of mispronouncing words in my voice work, I found a solution.

I have my wife, who is Canadian, listen to every piece of voice work I record (I occasionally do voice over work). I do the same for the voice overs she produces. She's a strict disciplinarian, too. She's pointed out how after correcting my mispronunciation of 'w' (I said, "dubya"), that I was too slow in stringing the 'w's together. I've learn to speed up the 'www' in, "Be sure to visit our website at double u, double u, double u dot audiobag dot com." I've even deleted space between the "w's" in my sound editing program in order to speed up the flow of the sentence.

My wife and I produce voice overs for individuals and companies from all over the world. No one ever asks me to sound like a Texan or my wife to sound like a Canadian. Unless you're purposely trying to sound like a local, I'd suggest you have someone listen to every voice recording you do before putting it out there for the world to hear. It just sounds more professional. You may be surprised how much you'll improve.

Now, y'all go be creative.