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Bill: Here's a feller says he saw an Eevee breathe far!
Red: How far did it breathe?
Bill: Not "far"! Far!
Pokémon Adventures (adapting Bill's Kansai accent)note 

An Accent Adaptation is when a translator substitutes dialect in their own language for one in the original work's language, making for a Woolseyism in some cases and Adaptation Decay (or even an outright Macekre) in others, especially when the translated dialect doesn't have an equivalent in the original work. Sometimes, a third type is used where a Funny Foreigner character ends up speaking another language when the show is imported to their home country.

If a joke or characterisation relies on National Stereotypes, the nationality will often be transferred to one with corresponding stereotypes in the target culture — e.g. what the English think of the Welsh, Australians think of New Zealanders, Germans think of the Swiss, French think of the Belgians, etc.

Compare Dub Name Change and The Queen's Latin. Subtrope of Cultural Translation.


Examples:

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    Anime & Manga 
  • Many anime characters with very polite or sophisticated Japanese speaking patterns are given various levels of British accents in English dubs, either to signify higher social class and education or to emphasize sophisticated evilness.
    • In Bleach, Gin Ichimaru is given a British accent, which when combined with his actions and word choice comes off as particularly creepy and duplicitous.
    • In Mobile Suit Gundam SEED, Rau Le Creuset is given a British accent courtesy of his voice actor Mark Oliver, who sought to emphasize his poshness. Arthur from Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny also has one, not because of poshness, but rather quirkiness (and also happening to have a quintessential British name).
    • In Ronin Warriors, Sai has a British accent to emphasize his politeness and gentleness. (Talpa inexplicably has a Welsh accent.)
    • The DiC dub of Sailor Moon gave British accents to both Luna and Amy/Sailor Mercury. In Luna's case, her voice was also deeper and more authoritative than the original's, while Amy's accent went away when her voice actress changed with the transition to the Cloverway dub.
    • In Shaman King, Ren and Jun have British accents, while an actual British character is given an American accent.
    • In Tenchi Muyo!, Ayeka's archaic medieval court dialect in Japanese is represented by British English.
    • Yu-Gi-Oh! likes to do this with its villains. It's most notable with Bakura in the original, whose overly polite speech patterns were rendered as a very British accent and mannerisms by 4Kids — it was so ridiculous that Yu-Gi-Oh! The Abridged Series (whose creator happens to be British) never missed a chance to play it up. In Yu-Gi-Oh! GX, Bastion Misawa has a similar British accent to Bakura, and Jack Atlas has some sort of British-Australian thing going on (which nobody can figure out). Season 4 had a variant where Valon, Joey's opposite number among the villains, is given a Cockney accent (which most people thought was Australian).
  • Animax Asia's English dubs frequently use this trope, mostly to distinguish character voices among a small pool of voice actors.
    • Their dub of Fairy Tail gave Juvia a French accent.
    • The Animax Asia dub of Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood gave Major Armstrong a Russian (German?) accent. Father Cornello was also given a Father Guido Sarducci-esque Italian accent.
    • The Animax Asia dub of Hayate the Combat Butler gave the maids (including Chiharu Harukaze, but Season 1 only; in Season 2 she has an American accent) British accents, Klaus a German accent because of his name, Fumi Hibino an Irish accent because of her having orange hair (which is clearly an Irish feature), Sonia Shaflnarz because of her being from Sicily (part of Italy), etc.
    • Sgt. Frog: Both Animax!Kululu and facile facsimile Tororo have inexplicably had larynx transplants from Woody Allen.
  • Azumanga Daioh: Osaka's Kansai accent is fairly consistently translated as an American southern accent. The first-run manga initially used a Hollywood New England accent, but then switched to a southern accent, which later translations have retained. In the anime, she's given a Houston/Beaumont accent, mixing the "country bumpkin" and "bustling commercial center" aspects of the Osaka stereotype — as explained above, ADV Films handled the dub and gave serious consideration as to how to adapt her accent, dedicating a large section of their translation notes to the subject.
  • The English dub of Bakuten Shoot Beyblade gave Tyson Granger a noticeable Canadian accent. (Then again, the dub was recorded with Canadian voice actors.)
  • Black Lagoon: The English dub uses a much greater variety of accents than the Japanese version, with even the Salaryman Rock getting a "standard Canadian" accent. In particular, Taiwanese assassin Shenhua speaks in a grating Asian Speekee Engrish way, which Revy refers to as "Chinglish". In the English dubs, Revy adopts a more stereotypical "New Yorker" accent when in Japan to denote when she is speaking English; in the original Japanese dub, her voice actor would actually speak English, albeit with a very heavy Japanese accent.
  • In Bleach, Dordonii is given a Spanish accent, and Gin's Kyoto accent, as mentioned above, was adapted into an exceedingly polite English manner of speaking, which sounds very duplicitous and shows his untrustworthy nature.
  • The Portuguese dub of Captain Tsubasa has Roberto speak Brazilian Portuguese — which makes absolute sense, since the character is from Brazil, but would render him more incomprehensible to European Portuguese speakers than dubs would usually allow.
  • In the Polish translation of Cardcaptor Sakura, Kero-chan's heavy Kansai accent was adapted as Silesian accent, having similar connotations and sounding equally funny to a non-Silesian.
  • In the English dub of Chrono Crusade, a generic policeman is given a very thick Irish accent to fit the stereotype people had about police back in The Roaring '20s.
  • Cowboy Bebop: The TV hosts Punch and Judy had weird, over-the-top "cowboy" speech patterns in the original Japanese, including Punch having a pronounced American accent with Gratuitous Spanish, which was adapted into English as a heavy Mexican accent with stock "Western" phrases. In Mexico itself, Judy has a strong Guadalajara accent, while Punch speaks Northern Mexican, both different rural variants.
  • Digimon Adventure:
    • Averted with Tentomon's Kansai accent — rather than a "hick" accent, he was given a more "geek" sounding voice. This was a necessity, as the 'mon who seems to know everything shouldn't have an accent that makes him sound like an idiot. The English dub of Digimon Adventure 02 adapted Armadillomon's Nagoya accent into a Texan accent.
    • The Norwegian dub (which is based on the American dub rather than the original Japanese version) for whatever reason gives Etemon a Swedish accent.
  • In Doctor Slump, King Nikochan speaks with a central Nagoya dialect. In the Mexican dub, he instead speaks with a heavy Argentinian accent.
  • Dragon Ball:
    • Protagonist Goku kind of had this happen accidentally; although he normally has a neutral accent, the uncut Ocean dubs gave him a noticeable Canadian accent, which kind of fits his airheaded personality.
    • Yajirobe's nasal and obnoxious Nagoya-ben dialect is adapted as a sort of husky, thuggish, "smokes a pack a day" accent (think Dr. Girlfriend), to preserve the stereotype of an uncivilized mountain man who's actively hostile to human contact. Not only is the original Nagoya dialect highly associated with "the hill people" in Japanese, it's also Akira Toriyama's natural accent (so he's kind of making fun of himself as well).
    • Ginyu Force member Jeice was given an Australian accent in the Funi dub which lead to Dragon Ball Z Abridged parodying it by saying he comes from "Space Australia".
  • Excel♡Saga: The manga adapted Sumiyoshi's Okayama accent as a Geordie accent; the anime doesn't do anything at all. In Venezuela, Pedro's speech is adapted as a thick Venezuelan accent (which he doesn't have in the European Spanish dub).
  • In the English dub of GaoGaiGar, Swan White, an actual American in the original Japanese, is given a Southern accent, presumably to emphasize the fact.
  • Hellsing: Alexander Anderson is given a Scottish accent, which is also the natural accent of his English voice actor Steven Brand. They apparently thought of giving him a sort of "classy British" accent, but Crispin Freeman couldn't do one sufficiently menacing to fit the character (whereas a Scottish one just kind of exudes toughness). note  Freeman begged the director to let him try a classic Transylvanian accent, but the director rejected it as too corny.
  • Hetalia: Axis Powers: The English dub gives every character a stereotypical accent, which is easy to do because they're all Nations as People. For example, England has a posh British accent to highlight being an English gentleman, France has "the most obnoxious French accent possible," and Germany is given a deep, growling, menacing accent. There were a few interesting stylistic choices regarding weird accents in the original Japanese; for instance, Poland's Nagoya accent is adapted into Valley Girl vernacular (which arguably fits the character much better, as the Nagoya accent is the stereotypical Japanese "hill people" accent), Sweden's heavy Tohoku accent is translated into a mumbled grunt speak, and Spain's Osaka dialect is usually not adapted at all. The exaggerated accents are entirely deliberate, as Todd Haberkorn, the voice actor for (Northern) Italy, has mentioned that he initially attempted a more "realistic" sounding Italian accent before being told to "just go full Super Mario."
  • In a Chinese dub of His and Her Circumstances, the main characters Yukino and Arima were given different dialects: Yukino's was Cantonese, and Arima's was Shanghainese. It's funny because Cantonese speakers usually don't understand Shanghainese and vice versa. Example here.
  • The Colombian dub of Hunter × Hunter (1999) gave Hisoka a rather campy French accent, which fits his Sissy Villain characterization.
  • In This Corner of the World is set in Hiroshima prefecture, so everyone speaks in Hiroshima dialect; the manga's English translation reflects this by giving everyone's dialogue a rustic American southern bent, with characters saying things like "ain't" and "prolly", referring to people in general as "folk", and consistently referring to their parents as "Ma" or "Pa".
  • JoJo's Bizarre Adventure:
    • The first and second parts both take place in Europe, and the original Japanese emphasizes this with weird Gratuitous English. The English dub works in some more accurate and varied European accents, ranging from British to German to even Italian.
    • Strangely averted in the English dub for Part 3, as Polnareff and Avdol speak with American accents rather than ones you'd expect people from their respective countries (France and Egypt) to speak with, though Polnareff does use a lot of Gratuitous French. Additionally, Joseph loses his British accent from the dub of Battle Tendency, despite Richard Epcar portraying Old!Joseph with one in the final scene of Part 2.
    • Tonio Trussardi gets a heavy Italian accent in the English dub.
  • Kirby: Right Back at Ya!: Most of the main characters were given different accents in the English dub; as such, King Dedede was given a thick southern accent not unlike Foghorn Leghorn, Meta Knight was given a Spanish accent as an obvious nod to Zorro, Lady Like being given a French accent, Sir Ebrum being given a British accent, and Blade Knight being given an Scottish accent so thick that it makes nearly all of his dialogue incomprehensible.
  • In an episode of Love, Chunibyo & Other Delusions!, Rikka pretends to summon a a different personality named "Catherine" from 18th-century England, using all the English she knows while still speaking predominantly in Japanese. In an attempt at a Woolseyism, the English dub has her instead speak with a French accent, using the explanation that she was "born in England, but moved to France." It makes no sense, which is probably exactly the point, to emphasize Rikka's complete lack of understanding of 18th-century Europe.
  • Magic Knight Rayearth: The Swedish translation of the manga gives the honorific-conscious Fuu a very formal way of speaking Swedish that hasn't been used since the 1940s. As a result, she sounds like she's on the run from an old black-and-white movie.
  • Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi consistently substitutes the Osaka dialect with a Texan accent — which works, as the characters in question are practically rubes. Meanwhile, the shopkeeper from Tokyo is given a New York accent, reflecting the "big city" aesthetic.
  • Musuko ga Kawaikute Shikataganai Mazoku no Hahaoya: Some of the characters, such as Veronica and Eliza, use certain Japanese dialects that are commonly considered difficult to understand for other Japanese, so when fan-translators got to them, they substituted their own difficult to understand accents. However, while Veronica has consistently been depicted with a heavy southern accent, Eliza wasn't fully decided on. The initial translator started out by giving her a heavy, almost impossible to understand Scottish accent, with the translation shown in side notes, then they dropped the accent, before finally deciding on a strong Scottish accent while still being mostly understandable. Meanwhile, when the manga got a new translator, they dropped the idea of giving Eliza an accent altogether.
  • My-HiME: Shizuru speaks with a Kansai accent in the original Japanese (as well as in My-Otome), but the English dub changes this to a Southern Belle-like voice to match up with her polite and lady-like demeanor.
  • The Latin American Spanish dub of Neon Genesis Evangelion gives Asuka a German accent to match her upbringing, with a lot of rrrs as well as some words in Gratuitous German, especially when she's angry.
  • Nerima Daikon Brothers: Mako, when emotional, occasionally switches to Okinawan, which is kind of a separate language in itself. The English dub changes it to dense slang, and the subtitles change it to Cajun.
  • One Piece:
    • English adaptations are all over the place, particularly the 4Kids version, which famously gave Sanji a thick nasal Brooklyn accent and Robin a Southern Belle accent. The Funimation dub just gave everyone typical American accents, but during the Dressora Arc, local islanders Ricky, Viola, Rebecca, and the Thunder Soldier all get Latin American accents.
    • The European Spanish dub tried to evoke the "Golden Age" of seafaring, the 16th-17th century, when Spain was a naval powerhouse and piracy was widespread. This also found its way into the accents, particularly that of Usopp, who was renamed "Usuff" and given an Arabian accent. It's oddly fitting — the dub director said Usopp reminded him of the Barbary pirates, who terrorised Spain in the Golden Age.
  • As the page quote shows, Pokémon Adventures gave Bill a Kansai accent that was replaced with a Southern U.S. accent in the English version.
  • Pokémon: The Series: Bill's Kansai accent is adapted in the anime as a British accent, because his English-language characterization is remarkably different. Casey and Whitney don't have their Kansai accents translated at all — in Casey's case, her accent was entirely based on her being a fan of an Electabuzz baseball team that's supposed to be a parody of the real-life Hanshin Tigers baseball team.
  • The English dub of Princess Nine changes Koharu Hotta's Japanese "fishing village" accent to a Deep South accent, attempting to match the "hillbilly" stereotype of each accent.
  • Puni Puni☆Poemi consistently uses a Brooklyn accent for the Kansai accent. Matt Greenfield, formerly of Houston-based ADV, says in the commentary that the usual Texas accent just doesn't fit in his head.
  • Ranma ½: Shampoo, in the original Japanese, has a Chinese accent. In the English dub, her accent is mutated into bad Engrish. In the Mexican Spanish dub, Shampoo speaks Spanish without any accent, but she does use Chinese phrases sometimes and has a notably sweet voice.
  • Ronin Warriors: Rowen (Toma in the original version) has a New York accent, presumably to make him sound street smart.
  • Sailor Moon: Naru (AKA "Molly") in the DiC dub from The '90s is given a New York accent. It was so heavy you'd think her voice was supplied by Silvia Faver (known for similar-sounding accents in English dubs of Eurocult films). Danielle Judovits gave her a lighter version in the 2014 Viz dub, and the heavier version gets parodied by Ben Diskin's Umino in drag in Episode 7.
  • The Italian dub of Sherlock Hound gives Moriarty a Turin accent, which highlights both his cultured and his comedic side, as he sounds posh and funny at the same time.
  • The English dub of Transformers: Cybertron had Mudflap speak with a French accent and Jetfire speak with an Australian (or rather Nebulan) accent.
  • Trigun: Nicholas D. Wolfwood has a Kansai accent, but the English translation makes an effort to reproduce the equivalent sounds instead of making him Southern. Ironically, the Japanese author apparently did have a Southern accent in mind for Wolfwood, and Kansai was the closest he could manage in Japanese.
  • Yu-Gi-Oh!: Katsuya Jonouchi (AKA Joey Wheeler) spoke rather plainly in the original Japanese and often left out honorifics. The equivalent "rough" English accent was an exaggerated Brooklyn accent, which Yu-Gi-Oh! The Abridged Series further exaggerated into his BROOKLYN RAGE!
  • YuYu Hakusho: Jin's Tohoku accent becomes an Irish accent, and Chu is given an Australian accent, both to emphasize the scale and diversity of participants in the Dark Tournament. Botan also gets a British accent, presumably to emphasize how knowledgeable she is.

    Comic Books 
  • The Swedish translation of Fantastic Four comics makes Ben Grimm's New York working class accent (when he has one) into a Stockholmer working class accent (or what the translators think is one, at least). It doesn't have quite the same effect, as working-class or not, this is still the Swedish equivalent of a British accent.
  • Asterix:
    • The English translation, done by Brits, generally avoids this but does do it occasionally, most notably giving two "rural Egyptians" and Bucolix the village farmer exaggerated Somerset accents, associated in Britain with farmers. It also gives a Briton named McAnix (MacAnoterapix in the original version) a Scottish accent, while he did not speak differently from the other Britons in the original French.
    • In Asterix and Cleopatra, the original French gives the Egyptian workers from the Southern Kingdom Languedocois accents from the far southwest of France; this is adapted into English as a "West Country" accent, which has the same stereotype.
    • The Italian dubs of the animated adaptation tend to give accents to the non-Gaul characters, in particular having the Romans speak in the distinctive Roman dialent (minus the cussing).
    • The Norwegian translation of Asterix in Belgium gives the Belgians a broad rural dialect from the "flatbygdene" area north of Oslo, designed to give a rustic feel.
    • The Scots translation of Asterix in Britain attempts to represent the Britons' speech patterns as a kind of "Anglified Scots", in the same way as the original used "Anglified French". Because Scots and English are so closely related, however, the overall effect is closer to the posh end of Edinburgh.
  • In Marvel 1602, which is set in Elizabethan England, Thor's usual Flowery Elizabethan English obviously wouldn't stand out, so instead he speaks in alliterative verse evocative of Anglo-Saxon poetry.
  • Tintin:
    • Mr. Bohlwinkel from "The Shooting Star" and Laszlo Carreidas from "Flight 714" have given an Osaka-dialect in the Japanese edition, reflecting their greedy nature.

    Comic Strips 
  • Hägar the Horrible is translated into New Norwegian rather than Book Norwegian, which plays to a local stereotype that Vikings speak New Norwegian, in an attempt to get the characters speaking as close as possible to the now-extinct Old Norse.

    Fan Works 

    Films — Animation 
  • The Italian dub of The Aristocats renamed Thomas O'Malley "Romeo" and gave him an accent from Rome. The Italian member of the cat jazz band was then given a Sicilian accent, to make him more distinct.
  • Atlantis: The Lost Empire: Vinni's accent has been subjected to much adaptation:
    • The French dub gives this explosive devices lover a Corsican accent, as a somewhat political allusion to Corsican independentists, famous for their campaigns of residential bombings.
    • In the Russian dub, Vinni's accent was changed from Italian to Georgian.
  • In the French dub of Beauty and the Beast, Lumière's accent (a thick Maurice Chevalier accent in the original version) is replaced by an "Old Parisian" accent, with noticeable trilled 'r' compared to Standard French. Think Edith Piaf, Charles Aznavour or Jacques Brel.
  • Brother Bear:
    • In the Finnish dub, the two moose characters have their Canadian accents changed to the southwestern Finnish dialect, which sounds equally funny to Finns as "hoser speak" to Americans. That said, some Finns lamented a missed opportunity to use the equally funny Laplander dialect, which also preserves the film's "great white North" aesthetic.
    • In the German dub, the moose were renamed Benny and Björn (after the two male members of ABBA) and given Swedish accents.
  • Cars:
    • In the original English, Ferrari enthusiast Luigi speaks with a thick Italian accent, while his friend Guido speaks Italian. In the Italian dub, Luigi has a strong Emilian accent, while Guido speaks in almost-incomprehensible (for Italian audiences) Modena accent. Ferrari headquarters are just outside Modena, and the region (Emilia) is the birthplace of other sports car manufacturers, including Lamborghini and Maserati. Luigi is also voiced by comedian Marco Della Noce, known to Italian audiences for his impression of a typical Ferrari mechanic, while Guido is voiced by Emilian racing driver Alex Zanardi. Unexpectedly to non-Italians, the one actual Ferrari that appears speaks in a German accent — as a Casting Gag, as the voice actor is Michael Schumacher, a Formula One pilot who won most of his titles with the Ferrari team.
    • In the Swedish dub, Doc Hudson gains a Finnish accent.
  • In the German dub of Chicken Run, Mac the Scottish inventor-hen speaks with a Dutch accent. In the Italian dub, it's a Swiss-Italian accent.
    • The Danish dub gave Mac an accent from Southern Jutland, which fitted well with her mistaking "the land of the free and the home of the brave" for her home (Southern Jutland was occupied by Germany from 1864 to 1920, where the locals resisted all attempts of assimilation).
  • In the second Latin American Spanish dub of Dumbo, the crows have Argentinian accents.
  • In the Norwegian version of Fantastic Mr. Fox, Rat has a northern Norwegian accent.
  • In the Swedish dub of Finding Nemo, the sharks, the turtles, and the lobsters are all given different Swedish accents.
  • The Norwegian dub of Frozen kind of did an about-face — the first trailer gave the characters distinct Telemark dialects, but the actual dub has everyone speak standard Eastern Norwegian (except the trolls, who all speak New Norwegian — i.e. the stereotypical "Old Norse" accent). It's not certain why they changed it, with some speculating that they were thinking early on to play off the film's heavy use of Norwegian scenery but decided against it (if only because it's the Theme Park Version of Norway). In any event, the trailer has since been removed from Disney's Norwegian YouTube channel.
  • In the Russian dub of Hotel Transylvania, instead of sounding... well, like Fran Drescher, Frankie's wife Eunice will occasionally lapse into Ukrainian, resulting in no one understanding her. This may have been a reference to the Drescher counterpart in The Nanny also speaking with an Ukrainian accent.
  • The originally Scottish-accented adult Vikings in How to Train Your Dragon have a Northern German accent in the German dub and Western Norwegian dialects in the Norwegian dub. In both cases, the dialects are spoken in the maritime regions of the respective country that have a historical connection to the Vikings.
  • The Incredibles:
    • The Brazilian dub turns Dash's teacher (the one who tries to prove Dash put a tack in his chair with his Super-Speed) into a Portuguese man, while in the original he's American like the rest of the cast.
    • In the Hebrew dub, Edna Mode speaks with an Hungarian accent as opposed to the original's German/Japanese mishmash.
    • Used very subtly in the Mexican Spanish dub; while most characters speak with neutral Mexican accents, you occasionally have regional slang thrown in, most commonly with Syndrome. Sometimes characters with only one or two lines will get a specific accent, for example the robber Mr. Incredible and Elastigirl are both trying to catch (he calls her "la seño", a very informal Mexican way of saying "la señora") and the cop who catches Bob and Lucius accidentally breaking into a jewelry store (he announces himself by shouting "POLECÍA!", with a pronounced Mexico City accent).
  • The Latin American Spanish dub of The Jungle Book gave the vultures different Spanish accents each, one with an Andalusian accent, one with a Mexican accent, one with an Argentinian accent, and one with a Cuban accent. Averted in the the sequel, where all the vultures speak in neutral Spanish.
  • The Lion King (1994):
    • Zazu has a Belgian accent in the European French dub.
    • The Japanese dub replaces Scar's British accent with a thick French accent.
    • The Hebrew dub gives Scar an old-timey newscaster's accent.
    • Banzai has a Mexico City accent in the Latin American Spanish dub.
    • Timon and Pumbaa have Flemish accents in the Dutch dub, because they come from a foreign land
  • In The Lion King (2019), Rafiki speaks with a proper African accent, as opposed to the faux-Jamaican one Robert Guillaume voiced him with in the original film, due to being voiced by a native African, John Kani. The same goes for Shenzi, who is voiced by native Ugandan Florence Kasumba, as opposed to African-American Whoopi Goldberg.
  • The Little Mermaid:
    • In the French dub, Chef Louis is Italian (instead of French) and Sebastian is voiced by Guiana-born songwriter Henri Salvador.
    • In the Latin American Spanish dub, Sebastian has a Cuban accent instead of Jamaican.
    • Sebasatian has a Suriname accent in the Dutch dub.
  • Monsters, Inc.:
    • A minor Italian character is given a Georgian accent in the Russian dub, probably to make the accent more recognisable, as most Russians have no idea what an Italian-accented Russian should sound like and therefore, it would probably be very hard to find a Russian actor who could pull one off.
    • In the Latin American dub, the Southern American family living in the trailer where Randall gets thrown and trapped in speak with a rural Tabasco accent (Tabasco being a tropical state in southeastern Mexico). Additionally, instead of calling him a "gator", they call him a pejelagarto, the local common name for the gar fish that are plentiful in the region.
  • In the Hebrew dub of Over the Hedge, Stella has a Hispanic accent.
  • The Princess and the Frog:
    • The Japanese dub translates Raymond's Cajun accent into an Osakan accent.
    • In the French version, Dr. Facilier's smooth-talking N'awlins accent is turned into a Creole lilt.
  • The Road to El Dorado: Crossing over with Translation Convention, but in an odd way in the Latin American Spanish dub: Spanish conquistadors Miguel and Tulio speak with neutral Spanish accents, whereas native American Chel speaks with an European Spanish accent.
  • In the Japanese dub of The Secret Life of Pets, Pops speaks with an odd-sounding European accent, probably to accentuate his grumpiness.
  • Shrek:
    • Puss in Boots, whose English voice is done by Antonio Banderas speaking Gratuitous Spanish, is also voiced by Banderas in all Spanish-language versions in his native thick Andalusian accent, while in the Latin American version, Donkey's ebonics is dubbed as a Mexico City accent by famous entertainer Eugenio Derbez.
    • In the Japanese dub, Shrek's "cantankerous Scotsman" accent is adapted into a Kansai accent to match his violent, crude, and temperamental personality.
    • In the Portuguese dub, Shrek has an Oporto accent.
    • In the Croatian dub, Shrek has a Dalmatian accent, whereas Donkey has a Zagreb accent, and uses a lot of slang words.
  • Averted in the French dub of South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut. Despite all the jokes that revolve around the Canadian characters' accents, the dub writers ignored the obvious solution of rendering those in Quebec French, possibly because French speakers from Europe often have a hard time understanding Quebec French.
  • Toy Story 3 made Spanish-mode Buzz a clear Spaniard stereotype rather than the usual mish-mash of Spanish-speaking countries that often appears in Hollywood productions. As a result, in the Latin American version, the original Castilian accent is maintained (if slightly exaggerated for comedy); while in the European version, he has a thick Andalusian accent, since both Flamenco and the Don Juan stereotype often associated abroad with Spain in general are actually Andalusian in origin. To ice the cake, the Gipsy Kings' version of "You've Got a Friend In Me" is sung in this very same accent in the original and every other version.

    Films — Live-Action 
  • The Russian gag dubs by Dmitry Puchkov use this in spades.
    • The Phantom Menace dub:
      • Neimodians have Georgian accents, invoking Caucasian involvement in street commerce.
      • Watto is given an over-the-top Jewish accent, perhaps referencing the original English version of the character also having a Jewish accent (and being subject to much criticism for it).
      • Sebulba slips in and out of a Ukrainian accent.
    • The Lord of the Rings trilogy dub:
      • Legolas sounds Estonian, invoking the idea that he looks almost Finnish.
      • Gimli sounds Georgian, invoking the Georgian Proud Warrior Race Guy stereotype and Georgia being a mostly mountainous country.
      • The Witch-King sounds German, invoking Nazism.
      • Gothmog speaks in a mix of Russian and Ukrainian, a parody on the former Ukrainian president Viktor Yushchenko.
      • Gollum's two personalities have different accents: Russian and Ukrainian.
      • Treebeard speaks with a Belarusian accent with the speech patterns of the country's president Aleksandr Lukashenko.
      • The orcs and the Uruk-Hai speak "fenya", the criminal language, with much of their speech bleeped out due to excessive swearing.
  • In the Russian dub of the Star Wars prequel trilogy, the Gungans' accents were rendered as Chukchi accents, which has its own stereotypes in its country), and the Neimoidians were given Finnish accents. The German dub gives the Neimodians French accents, whereas the French, Italian, Spanish, and Czech dubs use Russian accents.note 
  • In the Italian dub of A Fish Called Wanda Otto West's Gratuitous Italian is replaced by Gratuitous Spanish.
  • Patriot Games: In the Latin American Spanish dub, Robby Jackson (played by Samuel L. Jackson) speaks with a highly exaggerated Cuban Spanish accent, to simulate his African American Vernacular English accent.
  • Damnatus provides a reverse example: Inquisitor Makkabeus from this German film speaks very formally (addressing Lechias with the polite pronoun "Sie" even though they are already well acquainted). The English subtitles rather amusingly translate this as Ye Olde Butcherede Englishe.
  • The Spaniard dub of both Django Unchained and The Color Purple (1985) replaces the slaves' (and former slaves') dialect with a stereotypical rural, uneducated Castilian accent.
  • Oliver Stone's Alexander gave the Macedonians Irish accents to mark them as outsiders when compared to the other Greeks.
  • Lots of these in the dubs of Airplane!, replacing the "jive" talk from the two guys and the old lady, all in dialects considered to be similarly incomprehensible:
    • The German dub uses a Bavarian dialect.
    • The Spanish version uses Argentine Spanish
    • The Latin American adaptation uses Cuban Spanish
    • The Italian dub uses Neapolitan
  • Babe was translated to regional dialects in Austria, as an alternative to the Standard German dub. The pig, unused to life on a farm, has a Viennese "city" accent.
  • In the Mexican dub of Mrs. Doubtfire, the eponymous character fakes an accent from Spain instead of the original fake British accent. Stu, who's British in the original, has a Spanish accent in the dub for consistency.
  • DC Extended Universe:
    • The setting's version of Wonder Woman speaks with a very foreign-sounding accent as opposed to an American one in most adaptations. This is because her actress Gal Gadot is from Israel and opted to speak with her normal accent for the role. Appropriately, the rest of the Amazons speak with similar accents.
    • Zack Snyder's Justice League: In the theatrical cut, Amber Heard uses a standard American accent for the Atlantean Mera. In this version, Heard puts on a British accent. Oddly enough, you can hear her slip between the two accents in the theatrical version, denoting which lines were reshoots.
  • All the characters in Beauty and the Beast (2017) who spoke with American accents in the original animated film now speak with English accents, apart from LeFou.
  • The Russian dub writers of Deadpool actually had a poll about this, as Colossus' heavy Russian accent was obviously impossible to replicate. The ultimate decision was to have him speak like the rest of the characters — that is, in normal Russian — but with a slightly rustic accent and using rural, often archaic words, like the Siberian peasant that he actually was in the comic books.

    Literature 
  • Isaac Asimov's "The Mule": Magnifico speaks what is described to be the dialect of the galactic centre. Asimov translates it as Flowery Elizabethan English.
  • In Beware of Chicken, Nezin Hu Li, mother of Xong Gou Ren and Xong Ten Ren, was raised in a wilderness tribe to the north of the Azure Hills but normally speaks with the same mainstream fantasy Chinese accent as the rest of the subjects of the Crimson Phoenix Empire. However when she switches to her native accent, to the ears of transplanted Canadian protagonist Jin, it sounds like she's from Brooklyn and and her written dialogue matches this. The English-language audiobook narrator also gives her a credible Brooklyn accent.
  • George Webb Dassent's translations of Scandinavian folklore gives the characters a vaguely Scottish way of speaking (there's a lot of use of lassie and such), which provides a surprisingly effective way of conveying the diction of the original peasant storyteller.
  • Discworld:
    • In the Polish translations, the Nac Mac Feegle speak like Gorals (literally "highlanders" — it works pretty well). In the French translation, they're given a Chtimi/Picard accent. In Norwegian, the Nac Mac Feegle speak New Norwegian, while the narration and the rest of the characters use Book Norwegian. In the Czech translation, they speak a dialect of their own - skewed heavily towards Moravian vocabulary, but with many grammatical suffixes from general colloquial Czech (because that fits better with the Nac Mac Feegles' disregard for rules and rowdy behaviour than Moravian suffixes, which tend towards standard literary or at worst quirky).
    • In the French translation, Ephebians, who speak normal English in the original text, are given a strong accent from Marseille (which was originally a Greek colony). A somewhat less successful addition is Mrs. Gogol speaking with a heavy cajun accent (while she also spoke normal English in the original), which makes it sometimes necessary to read the sentence out loud to understand what she is saying.
    • In the French translation of The Last Continent, the Australian Slang spoken by the inhabitants of XXXX is replaced by New Caledonia slang.
    • The Czech translation dealt with vampire photographer Otto Chriek, who represents several different parts of Überwald, with a Russian accent. The original English sought to use the typical Germanic/Slavonic "Vampire" aesthetic for the character, which wouldn't work in Czech — but by making him Russian-like, especially his Foreign Cuss Words, it invokes the popular Czech image that Russians are all foul-mouthed and there to bleed you dry.
  • Harry Potter series:
    • Hagrid's West Country accent is adapted into most languages into an equivalent accent to give the same "rustic" feel (for example, a Tohoku accent in the Japanese translation). The Italian translation didn't pick up on this and thought he was just uneducated, so his speech patterns in Italian are typical of the uneducated, particularly his total failure to use the conjunctive mood (a common sign of ignorance in Italian).
    • In the Norwegian translation, Seamus Finnigan's Irish accent is translated to a rural Hedmark dialect (or at least what the translator thinks is a Hedmark dialect).
    • In Bulgarian, Hagrid's accent is adapted into the softer (with more palatalization, making "e" sound like "ye" or "i" for example) Eastern accent which is seen as something of a Simpleton Voice. In the fourth book, Bulgarian characters such as Viktor Krum were introduced, but their lines were translated in reported speech with a comment on the accent - i. e. "I'm going to get some drinks" became "he said in his thick accent he was going to get some drinks". In the seventh book Viktor's lines were translated without any Funetik Aksent but with a choice of words that would betray lack of sophistication. There were also some common mistakes, for example instead of "in my country" Krum said "in my state" (state as in political entity), and the preposition "in" was translated as "във" instead of "в", which should only be the case if the next word starts with в or ф.
    • In the Yiddish translation, Filch, Snape, and McGonagall speak in Lithuanian Yiddish (though Filch's accent is thicker), while Hagrid speaks in a thick, almost exaggerated Polish Yiddish. Dumbledore uses many Hebrew and Aramaic words in his speech, evoking the feel of a wise old rabbi.
  • Astrid Lindgren's Emil of Lönneberga: The Czech translations replaced the originals' use of Småland dialect with a Moravian dialect; the distinction is one of the most noticeable in Czech, but it was possibly also done because there are similarities between Moravian regions and Småland for the time the books are approximately set in.
  • In her translation ofThe Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri, Dorothy L. Sayers rendered the lines of the Occitan troubadour Arnaut Daniel into the Border Scots dialect. She notes that the Scots dialect has a relation to English that is remarkably similar to the one that Provençal (Arnaut's native dialect) has to Italian.
  • Ezra Pound rendered a Confucian ode about a Chinese farmer into American rural dialect: "Yaller bird, let my crawps alone"... "I got a home an' I wanna git goin'."
  • In The Lord of the Rings, the Rohirrim speak a more archaic form of the Common Tongue called "Rohirric", which is represented by Anglo-Saxon english.
  • Reign of the Seven Spellblades: Tullio Rossi speaks in Kansai dialect in the original Japanese. Yen Press's translator renders this in English as an Italian Funetik Aksent to match his Fantasy Counterpart Culture; however, the anime subtitles go with a New York accent, commonly used for Kansai-ben speakers.

    Live-Action TV 

Examples that are either in-universe or from print to screen in the same language:

  • Comes up multiple times in Doctor Who, because the TARDIS passively grants a psychic translation to its passengers for whatever place and time they visit.
    • In the episode where the Eleventh Doctor meets Vincent van Gogh, the translation matrix decides that Vincent's Dutch-accented French is best rendered as Scottish-accented English.
    • Later, the Eleventh Doctor encounters the crew of a Soviet submarine in 1983, and the translation matrix represents their class distinctions with equivalent British accents (the officers talk in upper-class RP English, the enlisted sailors speak with Cockney accents, etc.).
    • In the Ninth Doctor's first adventure with Rose Tyler, he explained that the translation matrix not only automatically renders all the alien languages they hear as English, but psychically influences their own brains to speak in the aliens' languages (depending on what's appropriate). That is, if they're in a room full of Martians, the Doctor and his companions will shift to speaking in Martin themselves, though we the audience hear it as English because we hear it from the TARDIS crew's perspective. This effect is in-universe, as Rose points out she doesn't even realize she's speaking in alien languages.
    • When the Tenth Doctor visited Pompeii in 79 AD, he explained to his new companion Donna Noble how the translation matrix works: they not only hear Latin-speaking Romans as speaking English, but are themselves speaking in Latin. Donna then asks what happens if you intentionally try to speak in Latin instead - and the Doctor is a little surprised, explaining that in all his centuries of time-travelling he never tested that because it was just easier to rely on the auto-translation. Donna then experiments with this by walking up to Romans and repeating classic Latin phrases - which the TARDIS translates to the Romans as Celtic (ancient Welsh).
      Donna: Vini vidi vici?
      Roman: Er, sorry? Me-no-speako-Celtic.
  • Game of Thrones occasionally had to do this with accents that were described but not shown in the original books:
    • The books describe the Dornish accent as a lazy drawl "spiced with the flavors of the Rhoyne", which the show depicted with a Spanish accent, extending the Dornish country's similarity to Spain. The actor who played Oberyn Martell, the first major Dornish character, was the first to work out the accent, and everyone else tried to copy him. Oberyn's accent was criticized for being inauthentic, but the actor explained he actually based it on his father's own Chilean accent (and the actor himself is bilingual). Unfortunately, the Dorne subplot in Season 5 was so hastily thrown together (with many scenes written during filming, giving the actors no time to practice) that many characters' "Spanish" accents are so unrefined as to be truly distracting.
    • The books vaguely mention in passing that Northmen have their own accent. The show renders this as a Northern English accent, even though many of the actors have to fake it. The wildlings are given the same Northern English accents, as both groups are descended from the First Men (being analogues of the Celtic peoples). A major reason Rose Leslie was cast as Ygritte is her having shown her ability to affect the accent on Downton Abbey.
    • The books mention that each of the Seven Kingdoms has its own local accent. The show didn't attempt to portray this difference at all; while the books emphasize that the difference is subtle, it can be detected. For example, when Tyrion is traveling through the Free Cities in the fifth novel and fears that spies will specifically recognize his Westerlands accent; also people can recognize Samwell Tarly is from the southern Reach from his accent, but it's too subtle to distinguish how Tyrion and Samwell speak in live-action.
    • Syrio Forel speaks with an accent that, according to the actor, is "a little Greek, a little Italian and a little Spanish, and then pushed East into Persia" (the actor is Greek, and the character was supposed to be from a Mediterranean Fantasy Counterpart Culture), but it sounds just Spanish to most American ears. In the European Spanish dub, he has an Arabic accent instead to preserve the impression that he is foreign to Westeros.
    • Both characters who are identified as coming from Lorath are played by Germans, using their native accents. In Shae's case, this was Ascended Fanon on the actress's part, as the character was just supposed to be generically "foreign". Having Jaqen's actor use the same accent tied in nicely with the plot, as this allows Cersei to much later also peg Shae as being from Lorath because of the accent.
    • In the case of speakers of the fictional languages Dothraki and Valyrian, the professional linguist who constructed the languages (David J. Peterson) also worked out what their accents would sound like if they spoke the Common Tongue (rendered in the show as English), making logical predictions of which English sounds these speakers would have trouble pronouncing.
    • The prequel series House of the Dragon didn't really have to deal with accents in its first season, because it's focused on the royal court in King's Landing. Everyone at the Targaryen royal court speaks with the same RP accent seen in the original series: some fans speculated that they might have some sort of Valyrian accent 200 years before the main series, but linguist Peterson made a post on his blog explaining that because they've been living in the Dragonstone/King's Landing area for the past two centuries, if anything they speak English-accented High Valyrian (well, Common/Andal accented), and they probably sounded like this during Aegon's Conquest itself (which was a full century after the Doom of Valyria). There might have been more regional accents at the time of the Conquest itself, but 100 years after the Targaryen unification the accents in southern Westeros have pretty much smoothed together (that is, except for the North and Dorne).
    • The one new accent House of the Dragon Season 1 introduced is the heavy accent of the former slave Mysaria, who was born in Yi Ti (Fantasy China) but doesn't remember it, was sold around between various different cities, but mostly grew up in Lys: apparently a Lysene accent sounds like an exaggerated French accent. This might be to contrast Lys, the southernmost Free City, with Lorath, the northernmost Free City, which was previously depicted with a German accent.
  • The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power has a multitude of accents from all over The British Isles are used with great effect throughout the series to enhance characterisation and establish social status:
    • The high-ranking characters (particularly Elves such as Celebrimbor, Elrond and Galadriel) have RP (the Queen's English) accents, which lends them gravitas and enhances their authority.
    • In a departure from the cinematic trilogies, where the Hobbits generally have West Country accents, the series’ Harfoots are mostly voiced with Irish accents (this was a self-conscious shift, to emphasize how rough the nomadic Harfoots are living compared to their descendants millennia later).
    • The more humble, rustic Men & Women encountered (Bronwyn, Rowan and the other inhabitants of Tirharad) mostly have northern English accents.
    • The Dwarves (of course) deploy the by now prerequisite Scottish accent convention.
    • As with most Middle-earth content, the Orcs here speak with Cockney accents.
    • Of course, the entire series is employing a bit of a Translation Convention: the "Common Speech" (Westron) spoken in the movies at the end of the Third Age doesn't exist yet. The lingua franca of Numenor at the end of the Second Age was Adunaic, which only evolved into Westron over many centuries during the early Third Age - due to mixing with local languages and then some scholarly influence injecting it with a few Elvish-derived words again. There are Numenorean colonies along the coasts like Pelargir so it's possible the humans in the Southlands are speaking some local variant of Adunaic. Of course, this isn't even getting into the translation convention going on when the Elves or Dwarves are just with each other: in Lindon they're presumably speaking Quenya, just translated for the sake of the audience; at Khazad-dum the Dwarves presumably speak Khuzdul to each other (and probably Elvish to Elrond). The Harfoots, however, far to the east, can't possibly be speaking Adunaic: they're speaking in some ancient Hobbitish language, but depicted as rustic Irish-accented English for the viewers.
  • Several characters in One Piece (2023) are given accents that they didn't have in either of the anime's English dubs. Some notable examples being Garp being given a thick Scottish accent and Sanji being given a London accent.
  • The Wheel of Time (2021): The Seanchan Empire, introduced in Season 2, is an empire that dominates the large western continent across the sea, founded by essentially conquistadors from the Westlands who left centuries before and lost contact with their motherland. Culturally, they're a vast slave-holding empire with a mish-mash of influences from Meso-America and Imperial China. The novels describe them as having a distinctive "drawl", and author Robert Jordan outright said it's supposed to sound like a Texan accent. The TV series does have them speak with American accents - general American accents but not really Texan or even Southern ones. Apparently the producers told the Seanchan actors to use whatever "American" accent they're most comfortable with from the wide range of "American" accents - given that Seanchan is indeed an entire continent and probably has some regional variation; however they don't film in the USA and thus most actors playing Seanchan characters aren't using their natural accents - therefore most of them only had experience performing a "general American" accent and not a Texan/Southern one. This caused some mild disappointment from fans of the novels but many still felt it conveyed the jarring contrast between Seanchan's accent and the RP British English accent characters from the Westlands speak with.
    • The Aiel of course have a "generic desert nomad" accent - their culture is a mish mash of Bedouin with all sorts of other stuff.

Out-of-Universe examples, when translating into other language dubs:

  • In the Russian dub of the Stargate SG-1 episode "1969", Daniel's German-accented English was rendered as German-accented Russian. In "Full Alert", they gave Mikhailov an English accent (probably to distinguish him from Russian-speaking Americans), which was Oneshot Revisionism given how all the other Russians spoke Russian with no accent in the dub.
  • In I Love Lucy, Ricky Ricardo's friends from Cuba became his friends from Italy in the Latin American dub and speak with the according accent.
  • Suddenly Susan: Nestor Carbonel's Cuban photographer character was made Russian in the Latin American dub and speaks with the according accent.
  • An episode of The A-Team has the gang supposedly going to Barcelona to foil a plane hijacking by unspecified Terrorists Without a Cause. Their plan includes Murdock infiltrating the plane by posing as a Spanish co-pilot, so he speaks English with a Spanish accent and throws a lot of Gratuitous Spanish. In the Spanish dub, Murdock speaks in this scene with a Catalan accent.
  • Dharma & Greg: The Slovak dub of an episode which involved Greg's family relative from Texas rendered his stereotypical Texan accent as the Záhorie regional accent (think of a mixture of rural Slovak and Czech with some German bits), with elements of other western Slovak accents thrown into the mix. Surprisingly, it worked pretty well.
  • In the 2001 Swedish made-for-TV adaptation of David Edgar's play Albert Speer, Adolf Hitler speaks Swedish with a heavy Smålandian accent to simulate the dictator's real life Austrian-German accent.
  • The Ukrainian dub of Babylon 5 has the Centauri's vaguely Eastern European accent be replaced with high-pitched voices.
  • In Eurotrash, clips of assorted Europeans from all parts of the continent doing doubtful, tacky, sleazy, or just downright ill-advised things were overdubbed in British regional accents. An Italian porn star badly overdubbed in a thick Birmingham accent or a Danish muscleman whose words came out in broad Glaswegian made the clips ten times funnier. The hosts (native French people) also used stereotyped French accents a hundred times thicker than when normally speaking English. Typical excerpt here - and of course it's NSFW.
  • Friends: In the Italian dub, Rachel's Italian boyfriend Paolo becomes a Spanish guy named Pablo.
  • The Polish dub of Wheeler Dealers replaces the Range Rover HSE's navigation's Cockney accent and vocabulary with an east bank Warsaw one, which has similar connotations in Poland.

    Radio 
  • In 2017 BBC broadcast a radio drama by Mike Walker called Tsars that commemorates the centenary of the Russian Revolution. A range of British accents were used to portray characters from all parts of Russia and the Soviet Union, particularly using regional accents for people not from Moscow or St. Petersburg. For example, Lenin's personal driver speaks in broad Welsh, and thuggish Georgian bank-robber J.V. Djugashvili speaks like a Violent Glaswegian.

    Theater 
  • In English translations of Aristophanes' Lysistrata, the Spartans who spoke a "crude" dialect of Doric Greek are given all sorts of accents:
    • Several American versions give them Texan accents, alluding to their place as the Eagleland of the time.
    • British translations tend to give them Scottish accents, to give the appearance of provincialism. Notably, they've been doing this for so long that it's not a reference to the Violent Glaswegian, the practice predating the trope by at least 150 years.
    • One translation gave the Spartans Russian accents in order to make an allusion to the Cold War.
    • One of the Swedish translations had the Athenians speak Swedish while the Spartans spoke Norwegian.
  • The Queen's Latin employs a form of this by giving upper-class Romans plummy BBC Received Pronunciation accents and making the lower class Cockneys. This is common in many period pieces taking place in Ancient Rome.
  • It used to be common in American adaptations of Molière and other works in the Commedia dell'Arte tradition to give the "saucy maid" character an exaggerated (read: bigoted) black accent. This very much conflicts with the original, who spoke in the same style as the upper-class characters, albeit with a less refined vocabulary. Perhaps more understandably, uneducated peasant characters tend to receive Irish or Cockney accents in translation, which makes some sense, as the originals actually did speak in dialect.
  • In the London production of Les Misérables, the lower-class characters (notably the Thenardiers) were given heavy cockney accents.
  • My Fair Lady, being largely about "correcting" a horrifyingly crude accent and manner of speaking, naturally lends itself to this trope. The most commonly used German translation represents Eliza's Cockney with a Berlin dialect (same for German versions of Pygmalion) — except in Munich, where they have a particular variety of the local Bavarian dialect that works just as well. In Swedish, older productions rendered Cockney as a heavy working-class Stockholm accent, but more recent adaptations use the Gothenburg accent, partly because the former accent hardly exists anymore.
    • Czech usually goes for a vaguely period lower-class Prague accent. But there's also a localised Brno version where Covent Garden was quite successfuly transformed into the Zelný trh square in Brno (where there is also both a vegetable market and a theatre), and Eliza and other Cockney characters speak with the very distinct working class Brno dialect (which was in fact one of the closest things to Cockney in Czech). Interestingly, in both cases there are German loanwords - common in older lower-class Czech dialects.
  • Played with in Something Rotten!: Despite taking place in Victorian London, everyone speaks with a contemporary American accent (with the church even invoking the "Overthetop Deep South Baptist Minister" idea). That is... everyone except William Shakespeare himself, who is portrayed as a pretentious pompous twit.
  • In one English translation of Aristophanes' The Birds, Herakles speaks in the manner of a dim-witted Italian-American.
  • The original West End production of Heathers: The Musical gave JD a slight southern accent. This may have been accidental — the British actor not quite being able to manage a typical American accent — but it still works, especially given that JD moved to Westerburg from a different state.
  • In Les Faux British, the French adaptation of The Play That Goes Wrong, the character equivalent to Annienote  is given a strong accent from southern France which sharply contrasts with the other actors' accents (in particular, she insists on pronouncing the name "Elmer" as "Ay-L-Uh-Mer", no matter how often the other actors try to correct her). The character of Dennis, for his part, is given the very French inability to pronounce any English word correctly, producing an inaudible grumbling whenever he has to say "Lord Haversham" or "Inspector Carter".

    Video Games 
  • Ace Attorney does this a lot, including:
    • Lotta Hart has a thick Kansai accent in the original and a thick unspecified Southern US accent in the English translation; in both cases one rather traditional character (intentionally or not) mistakes her for a Funny Foreigner.
    • Similar to Lotta, the Kansai accent of Furio Tigre in the original Japanese was translated into a thick Brooklyn accent.
    • One British character in The Great Ace Attorney is given a very slangy Osaka-specific accent in the Japanese; recursively, he's made Irish in the English version. This also has something to do with the regional stereotyping in both cases — he's a Nouveau Riche type with a dark background and obsessed with money.
  • The Dragon Quest games can go back and forth. Some games, (like Dragon Quest VIII) did an excellent job, using a range of British accents that equate very well with the Japanese accents they're replacing. Others (like Dragon Quest IV DS) are loaded with random accents ranging from merely grating to incomprehensible, apparently out of the belief that people just like funny accents. And still others (like Dragon Quest IX) are a mix of the two. Dragon Quest XI probably benefitted the most from this practice, as each region is a direct Fantasy Counterpart Culture with its own natural distinct accent.
  • In the first two seasons of Dragon Ball Fighter Z, Goku Black was played with a posh British accent, as Sean Schemmel hadn't decided on the character's English voice for the anime yet. By season 3, he's given his show voice, which is just a deeper, more feral version of Goku's normal voice.
  • Final Fantasy:
    • Cait Sith from Final Fantasy VII has a Scottish accent, likely as a reference to his mythological inspiration. In the Japanese dub, he speaks the same Kansai dialect as Reeve, his controller (the English dub has Reeve speak generic American, so the connection is lost).
    • The German version of Final Fantasy IX gave all sorts of various dialects to the characters, including giving Cinna a Bavarian accent. It wasn't well-received, and mentioning it is a great way to start a Flame War.
    • In Final Fantasy XII, the Archadians all have English accents, which means Balthier's accent gives away his nationality. The Dalmascans have American accents, the Bhujerbans have Indian accents, the one Rozzarian we hear has a Spanish accent, and the Viera all have... whatever accent Fran's using. (Her voice accent is Icelandic, so we can presume that at least.)
    • In Final Fantasy XIII, the Oerbans are given an Australian accent, solely for the throwaway gag that Gran Pulse is "down under" Cocoon.
  • The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel has the NPCs Becky and Pablo. Both character speak in Kansai dialects in the Japanese version, which the english script adapted by giving them distinct Scottish accents.
  • The fan translation for Mother 3 contains two mice in an attic that speak in incomprehensible Cockney. They originally spoke a similarly incomprehensible dialect of Japanese from somewhere in Nagasaki.
  • Overwatch:
    • In the Japanese dub, Tracer's Cockney accent is switched with making her speak with a very high-pitched voice instead. The same goes in the Mexican Spanish dub, when she speaks with both a high-pitched tone and also with a Mexico City accent, despite that accent is normally used as a stand-in for American English rather than British accents.
    • While it could sound obvious, Sombra in the Mexican Spanish dub speaks with stereotypical version of the higher-class Mexico City accent, basically the Mexican version of a Valley Girl.
  • In Persona 3, the Kansai accent during the Kyoto school trip and spoken by Jin is dubbed as American Southern. A few years later in Persona 4: Arena, Labrys' Kansai accent is instead dubbed as a Brooklyn one. In both games, the Kansai accent is mentioned by other characters, even in the English version.
  • Pokémon:
    • Bill's Kansai dialect is translated as a Southern accent in Pokémon Red and Blue. He loses this accent in future games, until Pokémon Let's Go, Pikachu! and Let's Go, Eevee! brings it back.
    • Averted with Whitney, who possibly has the thickest Kansai accent depicted in the series but is translated the same as everyone else in the English translation. Played straight in Pokémon Masters, however, where she does speak in a Southern accent.
    • Rika from Pokémon Scarlet and Violet speaks in a Kansai dialect too. In English, it's rendered as a non-specific country accent, while in Italian it's an extremely thick Roman accent.
    • Fantina from Pokémon Diamond and Pearl has this apply to her between versions. In the original Japanese Version, she speaks in an American accent, while in the English translation, she speaks with an French accent, and in the French translation of the game, she speaks English once again, though it's not too clear what her accent is this time. The former two were preserved for her voiced lines in the anime and Pokémon Masters. This was done by the developers to make Fantina seem like a foreigner no matter which version you played.
    • The Battle Chatelaine sisters from X and Y (and later Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire) slip into the Hakata dialect when excited. The English-language version translated this by having them slip into thick Irish accents. In Pokémon Masters, Evelyn and Nita have American accents, but their written dialogue dips into Irish-esque, especially Nita's when referring to Dana and Morgan.
  • At one point in Portal 2, British-accented robot Wheatley attempts to do an American accent (specifically Texan) to fool GLaDOS. (It fails miserably.) In the French dub this is replaced with a Quebecois accent, in the German dub with a Swiss accent, and in the Spanish dub an Argentinian.
  • In the Japanese version of Sonic Rush Adventure, Marine the Raccoon is The Idiot from Osaka. In the English version, she has a exaggerated Australian accent. Since Sonic Team is partially US-based, there's no telling which came first.
  • In the Japanese version of Splatoon 2, Jelfonzo is French (thus explaining his hat). The English translated instead made him speak in Ye Olde Butcherede Englishe.
  • In the Spyro Reignited Trilogy, the Fauns of Fracture Hills no longer speak with American Valley Girl voices and instead have Scottish accents to match the Satyrs.
  • In the Japanese version of Tales of Vesperia Yeager throws a bunch of Gratuitous English into his speech. In the English version, this became a heavy German accent instead, probably because he has a German name. This was the best idea ever, if for no other reason that he became The Ahnold.
    Yeager: See you in ze funny papers, liebchen!
  • In Team Fortress 2's French dub, the Spy is given a British accent.
  • Beat from The World Ends with You used informal language, considered rude when used with strangers. This was replaced with ebonics in the English version, which has similar social connotations.
  • Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Zeke and Dahlia have the Kansai accent in the Japanese version. In the English dub, Zeke has a London accent to contrast with his father's Received Pronunciation, and Dahlia has a Texan accent, to contrast with other Blades' more Midwestern American accents. Averted with the rest of the characters in the game; while the English language version has a broad range of accents, the Japanese version of the game used a standard Japanese accent for all the other characters.

    Web Original 
  • In If the Emperor Had a Text-to-Speech Device, Magnus is given a thick Australian accent, partly by accident; the voice actor tried to go for British and ended up with mostly Australian, but Alphabusa liked how it turned out and decided to settle it like that.
  • QSMP: The Spanish subtitles in Quackity's English YouTube episodes translate how he and Spreen refer to avocado toast differently, with Quackity calling it tostada de aguacate and Spreen calling it tostada de palta. This is likely a nod to their respective content creators speaking different dialects of Spanish in real life — Mexican and Argentine Spanish, respectively.

    Western Animation 
  • The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius: Sheen Estevez speaks with a Japanese accent in the Mexican Spanish dub, because of his name (sounds like the Japanese name "Shin") and looks.
  • Aladdin: The Series, had one or two episodes featuring Vikings. The Norwegian dub lumps their dialects right into New Norwegian.
  • The Norwegian dub of The Animals of Farthing Wood have every characters speaking New Norwegian, making it one of the few shows were the whole series is dubbed into it.
  • In Aqua Teen Hunger Force, while the character Oglethorpe speaks with a German accent in the original, he speaks with an Austrian one in the German dub.
  • The Swedish dub of Batman: The Animated Series gave Jonathan Crane, the Scarecrow, an American accent.
  • In the German dub of Count Duckula, the German accent of Dr. Von Goosewing is dubbed into Saxon dialect. In the Mexican Spanish dub, Dr. Von Goosewing retains his German accent.
  • In Danger Mouse, Stiletto Mafiosa's lines were re-recorded in a cockney accent for the international versions, presumably for Bowdlerization. Incidentally, the DVD releases published many years later by A&E kept the Italian accent, which may come as a surprise to longtime overseas fans not familiar with it.
  • Rolf from Ed, Edd n Eddy speaks with a Kansai dialect in the show's Japanese dub, as opposed to his vague accent within the show's original English version.
  • Eduardo from Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends has an American accent in the Mexican Spanish dub. An example of the Funny Foreigner accent change, since he speaks frequent Spanish in the original version.
  • The original American English run of The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy features Grim speaking with a Jamaican accent. The Malaysian dub has him speak Negeri Sembilan Malay, a divergent dialect influenced by the Minang language spoken in West Sumatra, Indonesia.
  • The British dub of Insektors gave most of the characters accents from various parts of Britain — Fugg is Welsh, for example. The exception is General Wasabi, who has a Japanese accent. Pearl has a surfer accent, and boasts about not "wiping out" in battle, rather than never having been injured before.
  • In the Dutch dub of KaBlam!, June speaks with somewhat of a Japanese accent for no apparent reason, considering she doesn't have any kind of accent in the original version.
  • In Kick Buttowski: Suburban Daredevil, Gunther's family are supposed to be Norwegian. So to distinguish Gunther's parents from the rest of the cast, they speak a rural northeastern dialect in the Norwegian dub.
  • In the French Canadian dub of King of the Hill, called "Henri Pis Sa Gang", the Texan drawls are replaced by a variety of thick blue-collar Quebecois French accents. This was part of a shift of the entire show from being set in small-town Texas to small-town Quebec, which was highly unpopular, as the original show is so Texan in nature that it stopped making sense even with the relentless changes. The European French version, "Les Rois du Texas", uses natural accents but is explicitly set in Texas.
  • In the French dubs of Looney Tunes, Pepé Le Pew is given an Italian accent.
  • In the original French version of Miraculous Ladybug (which takes place in Paris), guitar legend Jagged Stone has a noticeable American accent. In the English dub, the French characters all have American accents and Jagged Stone (likely being a sendup of Mick Jagger) has an English accent instead.
  • In the Mexican Spanish dub of ¡Mucha Lucha!, the Flea speaks with an over-the-top Mexico City accent.
  • My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
    • Applejack uses Northern Mexican Spanish in the official Mexican Spanish dub. The pilot dub used a neutral accent instead.
    • In the Japanese version, Applejack uses a regular Japanese accent, but she speaks more loudly than usual, possibly to reinforce the Americans Are Cowboys stereotype.
    • In My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic S2 E6 "The Cutie Pox" Apple Bloom gets (among others) a Fleur-de-lis cutie mark and starts to speak French. In the French dub, since they couldn't change language due to the Fleur-de-lis, she went from speaking normal French to Ye Olde Butcherede Frenche.
  • The Mexican Spanish dub of Pixie, Dixie and Mr. Jinks was notable for the accents the characters received: Pixie spoke with a thick over-the-top Mexico City accent and Dixie spoke with an also thick Cuban accent in his voice. On the other hand, Mr. Jinks spoke with an equally pronounced Andalusian accent.
  • In the Japanese dub of The Powerpuff Girls (1998), Fuzzy Lumpkins spoke pseudo Tohoku-ben, making this a case of reborrowing and adaptation.
  • Quick Draw McGraw:
    • Quickdraw and Baba Looey have "dopey" and stereotypical Mexican accents respectively in English, but in Spanish Baba Looey (now known as Pepe Trueno) speaks with a heavy Northern accent, while Quickdraw (now known as Tiro Loco) is given a heavy American accent.
    • In Brazil, Quickdraw's (Pepe Legal) Southern accent is equally country, a mix of caipira and Northeastern. Baba Looey's (Babalu) Mexican one is mostly played straight, if only because the Spanish-speaking neighbors give a good reference.
  • Recess:
    • An episode had a Norwegian student (speaking English with a pronounced and thick Norwegian accent) visiting the school. In the Norwegian dub, he was given Nynorsk dialogue with a southern accent.
    • The Swedish dub cast a real Norwegian as the student, since most Swedes and Norwegians understand each others language pretty well. The Danish dub also has the student in question speaking Norwegian, which also works for mostly the same reason.
  • In the Norwegian dub of The Replacements, Agent K (who has a British accent in the original), is voiced by an actress with a southern accent that helps to distinguish her.
  • In the Italian dub of Rocky and Bullwinkle, Boris was given a Sicilian accent despite being still portrayed as a generically Slavic spy from a fictional Soviet republic.
  • In the Brazilian dubs of the Scooby-Doo franchise, Shaggy Rogers speaks with a caipira dialect accent, both to match his stoner aesthetic and to serve as a cultural analogue to his southern american accent.
  • In the movie Scooby-Doo Meets the Boo Brothers, there are characters that have Southern accents. In the French dub, these are replaced with Quebec accents, including several swear words. This caused controversy when the film was released in Quebec and it had to be recalled and given a higher rating.
  • The Simpsons:
    • There are two French dubs, one in European French and one in Quebec French:
      • In the European dub, most characters speak the standard Parisian accent, but black characters such as Carl (who has no accent in the original) speak with an inflected accent typical of a North African immigrant. Apu has a Portuguese accent. The Van Houtens are given stereotypical Belgian accents. Groundskeeper Willie's Violent Glaswegian becomes a Central French rural accent (the default for "peasant" characters).
      • The Canadian dub is a bit more interesting, because it's not a particularly straight dub and adds local references to Canadian politicians and celebrities. The accents are used to draw a class divide — most characters have a Quebec accent, the blue-collar workers like Homer and Barney speak in a very strong "joual" drawl typical of working-class Montrealers, and the town elite (like Principal Skinner and Reverend Lovejoy) speak in Parisian French, which would sound snobby and stuffy to Quebecois ears. Apu is given a creole dialect, Carl speaks with the accent of a black immigrant from Haiti and the episodes where the family goes to Toronto/London gives everyone Anglophone accents typical of Torontonians/Londoners who had to learn French in school and showed no interest in it. The accent also allows for a more comical resolution to Bart's attempt to communicate with a Parisian policeman for help who doesn't understand him — in the original English he realises that he can speak French thanks to exposure, in the European dub he accidentally words his plight in a way that sounds like he's just a homesick kid on a school trip and then realises he should tell him about how he's being abused and that his abusers are making wine with anti-freeze but in the Canadian dub, the cop doesn't understand Bart's accent and once Bart figures it out (after musing, "I thought they spoke French in France"), he speaks with a exaggerated Parisian accent.
    • In the Dutch dub, similar to the French version, the Van Houtens speak with Belgian accents.
    • The Mexican Spanish dub gives Apu a very thick Arabic accent.
    • The Japanese dub gives Apu no local accent but a very polite register, to emphasize his role as a humble shopkeeper (it works so well for his frequent "thank you, come again!")
    • In the Brazilian Portuguese dub, Lenny speaks with a northeastern Brazilian accent. Cletus speaks with a Caipira accent to provide an equivalent for his thick Southern accent in the original.
    • In the German dub, Uter, a stereotypical German exchange student in the original, becomes a Swiss exchange student with a thick Swiss-German accent.
    • In the Italian dub, several secondary characters are dubbed with local accents from different Italian regions: Chief Wiggum and Lou from Naples, Carl from Venice, Reverend Lovejoy from Calabria, Snake Jailbird and Lionel Hutz from Rome, Otto Mann from Milan, Groundskeeper Willie from Sardinia, and Fat Tony — to no one's surprise — from Sicily.
    • In the Swedish dub of The Movie, Cletus was given a southern Swedish accent, which is the standard "hillbilly" accent.
  • In the Latin American Spanish dub of South Park, Pip speaks with a heavy Spaniard accent instead of his British one.
  • In the Japanese dub of Star vs. the Forces of Evil, Star Butterfly speaks with a notable Southern accent in her voice, albeit she speaks Standard Japanese all the time. In this case, this is justified because her Japanese VA hails from the Kansai region.
  • In the Norwegian dub of Stōked, almost the entire regular cast speak southwestern dialects. This might be to reflect the show taking place in southwestern Canada, but it might also refer to Monstertorsdag, Norway's only surfing-themed feature film ever, taking place in Stavanger, southwestern Norway.
  • In the Italian dub of The Transformers, some characters suddendly start to speak with various kinds of accents between the end of Season 2 and Season 3 as a whole, even more various than the English dub ones. Slingshot and Onslaught have Russian accents, Scrapper has a German accent, Metroplex has a French accent, Gears gets a Sardinian accent, and Swindle a Neapolitan accent.
  • In the German dub of Transformers: Animated, Professor Sumdac's Indian accent becomes a Chinese one. In the Japanese dub, Blitzwing's German accents became American ones: Icy Blitzwing always sounds words out slowly, whereas Hothead Blitzwing's dialogue is full of Gratuitous English. However, his random personality loses the accent.
  • Winx Club:
    • Tecna in the 4Kids dub gained a British accent.
    • Layla (Aisha) is given a Cajun accent in the Dubbing Brothers dub for the movies.
  • Dick Dastardly in the Latin American dub of Wacky Races and Dastardly & Muttley in Their Flying Machines is given a heavy French accent. This goes along with his name in that version, "Pierre Nodoyuna".
    • He speaks with Edo-dialect in the Japanese dub, the natural accent of his voice actor Chikao Ohtsuka.

 
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Tullio Rossi's accent

"Explore". Tullio Rossi is established to be from the land of "Ytalli" in volume 7 of the novels. His dialogue in the original Japanese is written in Kansai dialect, and as is common with Kansai-ben speakers in anime, Daichi Kanbara's Japanese voice performance is rendered in the subtitles as an American accent. In the English dub, following the example of Yen Press's novel translation, Rossi's voice actor Nick Marchetti instead gives him an Italian accent to more closely correspond to his in-universe nationality.

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