Get to know the English voice of the trams and subways in Budapest
If you have ever used the public transport in Budapest, even if only trams 4 and 6, you must have heard the voice of Rachel Appleby: she did the recording of the names of the stops in English. It is also her who says the name of the next stop in English at metro lines 2 and 4. Kossuth Radio made an interview with the woman who was born North-England but has been living in Budapest for years now, reports Index.
It turned out that Rachel teaches at the English department of ELTE (Eötvös Loránd University) and one of her colleagues told her that BKK was looking for a female voice with British accent and she happily undertook it. One can find out from the short interview, available in the article of Hirado.hu, that much editing was needed, but one can also notice how Rachel speaks in Hungarian quite well. It is worth listening, because it is unusual to hear the well-known voice in Hungarian, moreover, she talks about something completely different from what we got used to hear from her.
She tels that ll. János Pál papa tér was the most difficult to remember out of all the names of the subway stops, because the order of the names is not natural for her this way. And Puskás Ferenc Stadion is just simply difficult to pronounce.
She believes that it is possible to hear when someone on the other end of the phone smiles, so, when ‘Goodbye’ was recorded for the terminal stops of the trams and subways, she stopped for a moment and paid attention to smile when saying pronouncing the word.
Her colleagues and students often say that it is good to hear her on the tram or the subway, moreover, there was a student who said that it is impossible to forget the homework, because her voice can be heard during the whole way.
It also turned out that she usually has to go to the studio every third week to record some additions or small novelties, even for correction or for the Sziget Festival.
Rachel thinks that the subway in Budapest is better than the one in London because first, people do not talk on the subway in London and second, there is no replacement bus immediately if the subway stops working. We can also find out that she used to play the cello and the piano and worked at the marketing department of a music publishing company earlier. She loves the musical life in Hungary.
Photo: britishcouncil.hu
Copy editor: bm
Source: Index
