What English do you read, write, speak?

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ambodach
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Re: What English do you SPEAK?

Post by ambodach »

Interesting that Mick F had to learn RNspeak in order to be understood by most people. Pity some of the call centres in England do not have the same approach. I have had the misfortune recently to use several southern English call centres. Mainly high pitched female voices with a strong accent of some kind talking at high speed. They must have got fed up with me asking them to speak more slowly and distinctly and repeat everything several times. I am still not sure what some of them told me but I had to try to interpret as best as I could. Male voices are generally easier as they mostly speak at a more reasonable speed and I think the pitch makes a difference. Scottish and Irish ones are best all round as most people can understand them reasonably. Northern English ones without too much accent are generally ok also.
PS They were definitely English and not from the Indian sub continent.
Cyril Haearn
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Re: What English do you SPEAK?

Post by Cyril Haearn »

ambodach wrote:Interesting that Mick F had to learn RNspeak in order to be understood by most people. Pity some of the call centres in England do not have the same approach. I have had the misfortune recently to use several southern English call centres. Mainly high pitched female voices with a strong accent of some kind talking at high speed. They must have got fed up with me asking them to speak more slowly and distinctly and repeat everything several times. I am still not sure what some of them told me but I had to try to interpret as best as I could. Male voices are generally easier as they mostly speak at a more reasonable speed and I think the pitch makes a difference. Scottish and Irish ones are best all round as most people can understand them reasonably. Northern English ones without too much accent are generally ok also.
PS They were definitely English and not from the Indian sub continent.


Maybe they found it hard to understand you too, but I thought the Highlands English accent was not so strong - because the people spoke Gaelic and were made to learn English unlike the people in the Central Belt who took up English earlier and developed strong accents
?
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ambodach
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Re: What English do you SPEAK?

Post by ambodach »

I speak standard educated west of Scotland. Perfectly easy to understand by anyone who can understand standard English. I have no pronounced accent but can if required understand and speak Scots. That is what I spoke in primary school near Falkirk and later on farms in Renfrewshire and Ayrshire. Then we moved to “ posh “ Helensburgh which was a dormitory town for the lawyers, accountants, bank managers and such like crooks who had mostly gone to fancy fee paying schools where standard English was required.
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Re: What English do you SPEAK?

Post by Audax67 »

Norn Iron with a smattering of Scots and Yorkshire expressions and inflections, although I can do an RP you could cut with a knife. Can do good imitations of German & French accents but Russian evades me.
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Re: What English do you SPEAK?

Post by PDQ Mobile »

Here's another interesting accent.Native German speaker.
Heinz Wolff. RIP.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-42378765

He moved to Britain at the age of 11.
He is unusual I think in that he retains a very marked accent for one who started another language so young.
This early cementing/acquisition of language phonetics does suggest something akin to birdsong?
There are other factors though, including how motivated one is in becoming "someone else"!

It's a kind of follow on to my other example David Mcallister from ( bottom of page 6 this thread)
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Re: What English do you SPEAK?

Post by Cyril Haearn »

PDQ Mobile wrote:Here's another interesting accent.Native German speaker.
Heinz Wolff. RIP.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-42378765

He moved to Britain at the age of 11.
He is unusual I think in that he retains a very marked accent for one who started another language so young.
This early cementing/acquisition of language phonetics does suggest something akin to birdsong?
There are other factors though, including how motivated one is in becoming "someone else"!

It's a kind of follow on to my other example David Mcallister from ( bottom of page 6 this thread)


His special accent was a *gaijun bonus*, maybe he kept it deliberately, one wonders whether his German was rusty after so many years

Gaijun = stranger (Japanese)
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Re: What English do you SPEAK?

Post by Vorpal »

PDQ Mobile wrote:He moved to Britain at the age of 11.
He is unusual I think in that he retains a very marked accent for one who started another language so young.
This early cementing/acquisition of language phonetics does suggest something akin to birdsong?
There are other factors though, including how motivated one is in becoming "someone else"!

I think that people have a wide range of language capability that is partly early acquisition, partly, the capability to hear and distinguish the varied sounds, and partly the capability to reproduce them.

My brother and I were both raised in a multi-lingual household, but I barely had to do more than attend class to get top grades in any language (Latin, English, French...), whilst he struggled to get passing grades.
Mr. V had some German in school, and can learn to read other languages, but he cannot distinguish many of the sounds in Norwegian, and he has thus far failed introductory Norwegian courses 4 times. I have known people who can learn to speak a language entirely without a discernable foreign accent in a few years, and others who speak a language with an accent their entire lives.

Mini V who was 6 when we moved here still says a couple sounds not exactly like locals. She doesn't sound foreign, but I think that a language specialist could likely identify English as her mother tongue. Littlest was 3 when we moved here, and if he speaks any language with an accent, it's English. English words that he has learned in school, he often pronounces the way Norwegians do. He also says some things in English that are clearly translations from Norwegian because they are structured like Norwegian, rather than English. He prefers to watch movies & television in English, but he reads better in Norwegian.
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Re: What English do you SPEAK?

Post by Cyril Haearn »

Mr V failed the Norwegian test several times, hope he won't be deported. Where came he from, was English his first language?

Language acquisition is a queer thing I think, some smart people find it difficult. Helping small children to learn is great

Rowan Williams (a bearded intellectual from Wales) is a good example, he reads and/or speaks many languages, +1
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Re: What English do you SPEAK?

Post by Vorpal »

Cyril Haearn wrote:Mr V failed the Norwegian test several times, hope he won't be deported. Where came he from, was English his first language?

I dunno, he's an Essex boy. :wink:
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Re: What English do you SPEAK?

Post by Cyril Haearn »

The Grauniad reports that many people want to learn Luxembourgish, it looks like a mixture of German and French, not difficult to read
Luxembourg might be a good place for people unsatisfied with the UK after the referendum. Living in Germany is pretty good but in Luxembourg one can cycle easily into three other countries, +3
It is inspiring to read how towns on borders are growing together, Frankfurt/Oder and Slubice for example. Some children in Germany are learning Polish as well as English, +2
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661-Pete
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Re: What English do you SPEAK?

Post by 661-Pete »

Surprisingly (to me, at any rate) Google already has that covered:
Cyril Haearn, translated into Luxembourgish wrote:De Grauniad mellt dat vill Leit wëllen Lëtzebuergesch erliewen, et gesäit aus wéi eng Mëschung aus Däitsch a Franséisch, net schwéier ze liesen Lëtzebuerg kéint e gutt Platz sinn fir Leit unzefänken mat de Groussbritannien no dem Referendum. Wunnen an Däitschland ass zimlech gutt, awer zu Lëtzebuerg kann een einfach an dräi aner Länner kucken, +3
Et ass inspiréiert ze liesen wéi d'Staden op Grenzen zesummegesat sinn, Frankfurt / Oder a Slubice zum Beispill. Verschidde Kanner an Däitschland léieren Polnesch an och Englesch, +2
Looks to me like the language gets a lot more from German than from French - and there seems to be a bit of Dutch thrown in for good measure. Not a language I have any plans to get to grips with - I'll more than bet that 90% of Luxemburgers speak English...
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Re: What English do you SPEAK?

Post by Cyril Haearn »

There are many Portuguese people in Luxembourg
One might get by best with Franglais
Last edited by Cyril Haearn on 3 Jan 2018, 4:23pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: What English do you SPEAK?

Post by irc »

Vorpal wrote: I sometimes have to translae for a couple Scots who work here.


Yes, I have found that few Americans speak Glaswegian. I often have trouble making myself understood. And I was brought up in a leafy suburb rather than the city so my accent is not as strong as some. Americans can't usually identify my accent as Scottish - it isn't anything like Scotty from Star Trek or Sean Connery. Irish, Dutch, and German are frequent guesses.

I was packing food away in my panniers at a Kansas Walmart a few years ago when a local couple stopped to ask me about the bike. As soon as I finished my answer the female said "and when are you heading back to Scotland?" Turned out she was a retired long distance telephone operator who would have heard every accent going.
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Re: What English do you SPEAK?

Post by Cyril Haearn »

Just read a review of a novel written in Esperanto and published in German
Turmstasse 4, Hans Weinhengst

Esperanto seemed to be the future back then, but now English has taken over, plusminus?

Anyone learnt/used Esperanto?
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Re: What English do you SPEAK?

Post by mjr »

Jes. Kial ne?
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