What English do you read, write, speak?

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gbnz
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Re: What English do you SPEAK?

Post by gbnz »

Paulatic wrote:
Northumbrian guttural? That’s not how I would recognise it To me it’s soft and rolling especially the way they roll them rrrrrrrrs.


It varies hugely, depending on which end of the county an individual may be in. Berwick has strong Scottish overtones, Morpeth can be a generic English accent, Hexham and Tyne valley tend towards a Durham Dales/Pennines/well to do English accent.

But the bulk of the Northumbrian population, live in the blighted former coal strip from Newcastle to Alnwick and speak differently.

Kwok tera duu ussewanttttt (What tyre do you want). I couldn't understand the man at the tyre depot last week when buying two new tyres for a car ( :oops: ), so after ten minutes ended up opting for Dunlop.. On looking at the website later, I realized that "git fackin teer", was a "GT Falken tyre" which would have been a better option.

Eeeeeee hies ganin doon two jem (He's going to the gym), Eeeeee haakkk ull ee dooes is gan too ta jem (All he does is go to the gym).
Last edited by gbnz on 23 Nov 2017, 7:13pm, edited 1 time in total.
Cyril Haearn
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Re: What English do you SPEAK?

Post by Cyril Haearn »

PDQ Mobile wrote:Here's an interesting accent!
http://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-europe ... mcallister

David Mcallister Prime Minister of Lower Saxony.

Born Germany, raised bilingually, father was a Scot, Mother German.
Total command of both languages I would guess.

Yet there are, within his English, some of the usual differences seen in German speakers, small but still there. Bird Song?

One can only envy his command though.

Ps.sorry about Brexit subject matter, though IMV he talks some diplomatic sense!


+1

DMcA is my tip to replace Frau Merkel sooner or later %))
(he did not get re-elected, he works in Bruxelles now)
We need more like him, could save a fortune on interpreters
Soon Malta will be the only English-speaking country in the EU, Eire chose Irish Gaelic
Last edited by Cyril Haearn on 15 Jun 2018, 9:41pm, edited 1 time in total.
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661-Pete
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Re: What English do you SPEAK?

Post by 661-Pete »

Cyril Haearn wrote:DMcA is my tip to replace Frau Merkel sooner or later %))
(he did not get re-elected, he works in Bruxelles now)
We need more like him, could save a fortune on interpreters
Angela Merkel speaks English - though not as fluently as David McA of course.

Soon Malta will be the only English-speaking lish-speaking country in the EU, Eire chose Irish Gaelic
Maybe - but the principal official language of Malta is Maltese (which has some similarities to Arabic).

And very few people in Ireland actually speak Irish as an everyday language (to the chagrin of the Irish Government). On my visits to Ireland, I have only heard Irish spoken once (apart from on TV) - and that was a man speaking to his dog.... :)

Reminds me of the old tale about Charles V....

Oh, and of course there's "sláinte!" (corresponding to "cheers!") which, after several false starts, I think I can now pronounce almost correctly! That's a "must-know" word.
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Mick F
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Re: What English do you SPEAK?

Post by Mick F »

I speak with a generally northern accent. Partly Wigan, partly rural Lancs. It was the way we spoke when I was a kid growing up there.
After joining the RN as a (nearly) seventeen year old, I had to change the way I pronounced words so that people from other parts of the UK could understand me. They too had to do similar.

These days, my Lancs accent is still very much there, but now it's interspersed with Cornish idioms and Westcountry pronunciations.
Mick F. Cornwall
reohn2
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Re: What English do you SPEAK?

Post by reohn2 »

Mick F wrote:I speak with a generally northern accent. Partly Wigan, partly rural Lancs. It was the way we spoke when I was a kid growing up there.
After joining the RN as a (nearly) seventeen year old, I had to change the way I pronounced words so that people from other parts of the UK could understand me. They too had to do similar.

These days, my Lancs accent is still very much there, but now it's interspersed with Cornish idioms and Westcountry pronunciations.

You mean you've been diluted :shock:
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pwa
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Re: What English do you SPEAK?

Post by pwa »

Cyril Haearn wrote:
PDQ Mobile wrote:Here's an interesting accent!
http://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-europe ... mcallister

David Mcallister Prime Minister of Lower Saxony.

Born Germany, raised bilingually, father was a Scot, Mother German.
Total command of both languages I would guess.

Yet there are, within his English, some of the usual differences seen in German speakers, small but still there. Bird Song?

One can only envy his command though.

Ps.sorry about Brexit subject matter, though IMV he talks some diplomatic sense!


+1

DMcA is my tip to replace Frau Merkel sooner or later %))
(he did not get re-elected, he works in Bruxelles now)
We need more like him, could save a fortune on interpreters
Soon Malta will be the only English-speaking lish-speaking country in the EU, Eire chose Irish Gaelic


I know lots of people in Eire, some of them relations, and none speak more than the odd word of Gaelic.
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Re: What English do you SPEAK?

Post by Cyril Haearn »

One imagines Eire chose Gaelic partly to create jobs in the EU, also because English was already an official language

I understand Gaelic is taught in schools but is not as widespread as Welsh

German has *only* 100m speakers and could well die out in a few hundred years apparently
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Mick F
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Re: What English do you SPEAK?

Post by Mick F »

reohn2 wrote:
Mick F wrote:I speak with a generally northern accent. Partly Wigan, partly rural Lancs. It was the way we spoke when I was a kid growing up there.
After joining the RN as a (nearly) seventeen year old, I had to change the way I pronounced words so that people from other parts of the UK could understand me. They too had to do similar.

These days, my Lancs accent is still very much there, but now it's interspersed with Cornish idioms and Westcountry pronunciations.

You mean you've been diluted :shock:
:lol: :lol:

Chap I joined the RN with was nicknamed Jock coz he was Scottish. He came from Aberdeen, and he would tell you that when he went home, all his relations and friends would complain that he was speaking "posh".

Strong accents are all very well and good in the right environment, but when conversing with other folk from other parts of the country, we have to try to speak so they can understand.

When me and Mrs Mick F first met, I took her round to see my grandfather. He was broad Lancashire, and I mean BROAD. I was brought up in that environment, and I could understand him perfectly, but the future Mrs Mick F - of Liverpool and Manchester extraction - was completely mystified by his accent and could hardly understand a word. :lol:
Mick F. Cornwall
Cyril Haearn
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Re: What English do you SPEAK?

Post by Cyril Haearn »

When one does not understand...
Sometimes just speaking s l o w l y helps, just like on the road
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Re: What English do you SPEAK?

Post by Cyril Haearn »

How does Meghan Markle speak?

Not sure how Frau Dr Merkel speaks English but her German is good, she has a berlinisch accent, sounds *happy*
She learnt Russian first of course
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Mick F
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Re: What English do you SPEAK?

Post by Mick F »

A very good friend of mine can't speak any more.
He used to speak well, and now can't, even though he's absolutely fine otherwise.

He had a stroke three weeks ago. :cry:
Mick F. Cornwall
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Re: What English do you SPEAK?

Post by Vorpal »

Mick F wrote:A very good friend of mine can't speak any more.
He used to speak well, and now can't, even though he's absolutely fine otherwise.

He had a stroke three weeks ago. :cry:

Sorry to hear that, Mick! Do you know how severe it is? Some people relearn most things after having a stroke. A friend of mine who played cello in an orchestra had a stroke and lost his ability to speak at 68 years old. He has relearned to speak, but not to play the cello.
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pete75
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Re: What English do you SPEAK?

Post by pete75 »

Cyril Haearn wrote:How does Meghan Markle speak?

Not sure how Frau Dr Merkel speaks English but her German is good, she has a berlinisch accent, sounds *happy*
She learnt Russian first of course

I strongly suspect she learnt German first.
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Mick F
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Re: What English do you SPEAK?

Post by Mick F »

Vorpal wrote:
Mick F wrote:A very good friend of mine can't speak any more.
He used to speak well, and now can't, even though he's absolutely fine otherwise.

He had a stroke three weeks ago. :cry:

Sorry to hear that, Mick! Do you know how severe it is? Some people relearn most things after having a stroke. A friend of mine who played cello in an orchestra had a stroke and lost his ability to speak at 68 years old. He has relearned to speak, but not to play the cello.
Not too severe, but at first he couldn't swallow ............ which was very worrying indeed. He can swallow now, but has trouble with meat. No problem with beer though! He's getting speech therapy, so it'll be a slow process re-learning.

May see him again tomorrow down the pub.
Mick F. Cornwall
Cyril Haearn
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Re: What English do you SPEAK?

Post by Cyril Haearn »

Not quite English but..

Der Mann aus dem Eis / Iceman is a new film starring Oetzi, the ancient man whose corpse was found in a glacier in 1991

Experts dreamed up a version of Rhaetisch, the language that he might have spoken. Fortunately (?) the film is not subtitled, really looking forward too seeing it and trying to understand the lingo. Religious rituals are depicted too

Rhaetisch was spoken until the third century AD so no-one really knows how it might have sounded
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