What English do you read, write, speak?

[Cyril Haearn]

Speakwrite: that was a device something like a transcriber described in *1984* by Blair (Eric), Winston Smith spoke into a tube to change the history books

As cyclists we speakwrite quite a lot of special words (not accents)

Echelon
Peloton
Bonk, knock, sags, packet
Pringle
....

I can speak quite a bit of Railway English too

[Flinders]

I speak a well enunciated blend of American and British.

Carefully enunciated because I work mostly with people who speak English as a second language. The blended comes from having lived and worked in both countries. For some reason I acquire accents easily, so I tend to gradually sound more and more like the people I am speaking with. I'm not always conscious of this.

Americans say I sound British and Britons say I sound American. People who speak English as a second language often ask because they can't identify my accent. Norwegians sometimes think I am Australian, but if I ask why they thought that, I usually get something like, 'I've never heard an accent like yours before'.

They invariably tell me though that they understand me much more easily than either my British or American colleagues. I sometimes have to translae for a couple Scots who work here.

I have a fairly broad Lancs accent, though I can moderate it if I think about it when talking to non-Lankies (lived in London for years and worked in the arts up and down the UK).
When I was in the USA, after a little conversation, people would start to look puzzled and say something like 'you're not from London, are you?

In the West Midlands, there is a Welsh influence on the accent that is noticable.

[Cyril Haearn]

There is a mid-Atlantic accent as spoken by Alistair Cooke (letter from America, bbc) or Vorpal

I guess I speak a sort of mid-Northsea accent, probably how the denizens of Doggerland used to speak

[Rusty Rider]

My English is a hotchpotch, I was born in Bromley Kent, I've lived all over southern England (Kent, Cornwall, Somerset, Hampshire, Wiltshire and Surrey) so its a bit of all of it, but its certainly not what you'd call the Queen's English.

I would have put up a message earlier but the whole house has been down with various ailments the last 3 months.

[Cyril Haearn]

I speak a well enunciated blend of American and British.

Carefully enunciated because I work mostly with people who speak English as a second language. The blended comes from having lived and worked in both countries. For some reason I acquire accents easily, so I tend to gradually sound more and more like the people I am speaking with. I'm not always conscious of this.

Americans say I sound British and Britons say I sound American. People who speak English as a second language often ask because they can't identify my accent. Norwegians sometimes think I am Australian, but if I ask why they thought that, I usually get something like, 'I've never heard an accent like yours before'.

They invariably tell me though that they understand me much more easily than either my British or American colleagues. I sometimes have to translae for a couple Scots who work here.

I have a fairly broad Lancs accent, though I can moderate it if I think about it when talking to non-Lankies (lived in London for years and worked in the arts up and down the UK).
When I was in the USA, after a little conversation, people would start to look puzzled and say something like 'you're not from London, are you?

In the West Midlands, there is a Welsh influence on the accent that is noticable.

Humour is regional too
"They joke with such extraordinary seriousness in the Five Towns that one is somehow bound to pretend that they are not joking"
Arnold Bennett
Stoke-in-Print is in the mid-lands, right?

[pete75]

GBS said ""It is impossible for an Englishman to open his mouth without making some other Englishman hate or despise him," - there's still some truth in that.

[pwa]

A couple of years ago we had a family holiday doing the Warwickshire Ring, a tour of Midlands canals by narrowboat. It was lovely. Not being from that part of the UK we were struck by the accent. To an outsider it sounded like variations on Brummie. Now, very unkindly in my opinion, Brummie is sometimes said to be one of the most disliked accents. But after a few days of immersion in that accent I found that I warmed to it, appreciated its warmth. It became very easy on the ear. I had a similar thing when I first moved to South Wales, and I now love a good strong valleys accent. Perhaps immersion can make us appreciate any accent.

[landsurfer]

We met a couple in Cuba on holiday. Started meeting up for drinks in the evening after dinner, lovely couple.
Still meet up for boozy nights out in Nottingham.
Julie inquired which part of Birmingham they where from one night due to their very obvious brummie accents.

They recoiled in mock horror ..." We're not Brummies, we're from the Black Country ! "

Julie and i speak RAF accent English until alcohol takes hold when i turn to " Soft Belfast " and Jules to " Sexy Cornish" .... which is weird as she is a born and bred South Yorkshire pit village girl ???

[Cyril Haearn]

I thought all children in Germany had to take English, but the Statistisches Bundesamt reports that this is only the case in Nordrhein-Westfalen, the national average is 87%, 18% take French and 8% take Latin, +1
The Saarland borders on France, 60% take French there and only 54% English
Baden-Wuerttemburg borders on France too, there were plans to teach more French there but the parents revolted, they thought English was more important. Immerhin* 26% take French there and 88% English, that makes 114%,+1!

Immerhin=nonetheless

What languages are UK children learning now? I read that some pupils take no foreign language, is that true? What else is there to learn?

[landsurfer]

I believe some children in the UK are forced to learn an almost dead language that its few users insist is important in the modern world.
A language that is not even spoken all over it's "mother Land" but only in the north of the country.
Some primary schools only use this pointless language rather than English !!!
Madness !!

[ambodach]

Not forced but choose to. There is a significant difference.

[Cyril Haearn]

I believe some children in the UK are forced to learn an almost dead language that its few users insist is important in the modern world.
A language that is not even spoken all over it's "mother Land" but only in the north of the country.
Some primary schools only use this pointless language rather than English !!!
Madness !!

No no not madness, you are not forced to learn it

Without naming the Nation I think you mean: the kiddies learn English too, in primary school they are already fluent in two languages

More than the likes of me who learn as adults, we can use our second language well but will never be perfect, as soon as we open our mouths we identify ourselves as outsiders

How I envy those children brought up in two languages!

[landsurfer]

Sorry i meant Scotland where Gaelic is taught exclusively in some primary schools ...
Inverness has a Gaelic only primary school , where the only language used is Gaelic .... equipping an entire generation for a life in a backwater ........
oh .. it gets masses of subsidy .... English, Ulster Scots and Scots English speaking pupils have to pay for the school bus but the Gaelic kids get free transport .... why ???

[landsurfer]

Not forced but choose to. There is a significant difference.

Compulsory part of the curriculum ????

[Cyril Haearn]

The lucky little angels will be able to watch and understand "Kerry is Kirsty", a real cycling programme in Scottish Gaelic, see live thread here

The rest of us have to use subtitles