When I listen to "News in Slow Spanish", the main presenters speak with a Spanish accent, and the sidebars are in Latin American Spanish. I have no trouble picking which one I prefer to emulate -- I have no interest in lisping my way through the language, so that feature never creeps into my speech, even though I'm happy to listen to the Spaniards for content. I also pay little attention to the vosotros conjugations, because I won't be using them, and it's more than I want to deal with right now. Surely it's just as easy for English learners to get through Britspeak vs. American. It's not that huge a gap.
BrE and AmE inevitably together?
The difference with Spanish is that the main dialects and most smaller ones too are all MUTUALLY as far apart as British from American. So Mexican and Iberian are that far apart, but so are Mexican and Argentine, and similarly Argentine and Iberian. And so on.
<<Britspeak vs. American. It's not that huge a gap.>>
It *IS* a pretty big gap, because there is even phoneme overlap. You definitely don't speak this way:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQAihUx0ZM4
If learners listen to lots of different varieties and they don't make a conscious effort to speak ONE variety, they'll end up mixing up vocabulary, grammar, and phonemes. So either you are willing to make that effort, or you just decide to speak a variety that is understandable enough, but which is neither British nor American. In such "random" varieties that a learner might pick up, there might be odd features which can be optional, for example: "boy" and "buy" might sometimes rhyme and sometimes not, and the same goes for "meat" and "mate", or "cart" and "cot", or "fart" and "fat", and so on. Also, "pants" might mean both "trousers" and "underpants", and "pissed" might mean both "angry" and "drunk".
That's what happens when you just use English but you don't make a conscious effort to stick to one variety. It seems it's necessary, but what if I don't feel like it, or I think it's not convenient?
It *IS* a pretty big gap, because there is even phoneme overlap. You definitely don't speak this way:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQAihUx0ZM4
If learners listen to lots of different varieties and they don't make a conscious effort to speak ONE variety, they'll end up mixing up vocabulary, grammar, and phonemes. So either you are willing to make that effort, or you just decide to speak a variety that is understandable enough, but which is neither British nor American. In such "random" varieties that a learner might pick up, there might be odd features which can be optional, for example: "boy" and "buy" might sometimes rhyme and sometimes not, and the same goes for "meat" and "mate", or "cart" and "cot", or "fart" and "fat", and so on. Also, "pants" might mean both "trousers" and "underpants", and "pissed" might mean both "angry" and "drunk".
That's what happens when you just use English but you don't make a conscious effort to stick to one variety. It seems it's necessary, but what if I don't feel like it, or I think it's not convenient?
***Tom avoided this problem by listening only to American English***
I'm not at all sure that you are correct in this assertion, but even though it seems to me to me that Tom does appear to favour American English over British English if his postings in this Forum are anything to go by, but I don't for one moment think that he "listens only to AmE". If that was so then why did he set up a thread recently asking Britons to enlighten him over the "lunch" and "inch" articulation here in the UK.
Speaking from a European viewpoint here I think it's also true to say that many learners of English on the Continent (beyond the borders of the UK) make the choice to study the American version rather than the British for various reasons, one of which being the greater exposure they have to the former over the latter via the media and films. I hesitate to add "tourism" as I reckon the Continentals are probably more familiar with British tourists and visitors to their respective countries than they are with the Americans simply because of the much closer proximity of the UK. Correct me if I am wrong here.
Even so, I believe that many learners of English on the European Continent do prefer to use AmE, both in its speaking and in spellings and in the use of colloquialisms, and this may be even more the case in Eastern Europe, including Russia. I have heard a number of Russians and others from EE speak English in the media and some did use an accent heavily influenced by the American form of English.
I have also heard Scandinavians and even some Dutch and German people speak English with a distinct American flavour.
That is, of course, their prerogative.
In our local Tesco store here in Edinburgh there is a lovely wee Polish lass employed on the delicatessen section who is charm personified and she seems to have been here for quite a long time now (I must ask her for how long the next time I see her - I reckon she is here for the duration). She is very efficient and helpful, she speaks excellent English with what I take to be the typical Polish accent but with no trace of Amerianisms at all. What is noticeable though is that she is now displaying signs of a developing Scottish flavour to her accent, especially in the way she pronounces certain words. It's so cute, even when serving up a haggis or corned beef or pork pies.
I'm not at all sure that you are correct in this assertion, but even though it seems to me to me that Tom does appear to favour American English over British English if his postings in this Forum are anything to go by, but I don't for one moment think that he "listens only to AmE". If that was so then why did he set up a thread recently asking Britons to enlighten him over the "lunch" and "inch" articulation here in the UK.
Speaking from a European viewpoint here I think it's also true to say that many learners of English on the Continent (beyond the borders of the UK) make the choice to study the American version rather than the British for various reasons, one of which being the greater exposure they have to the former over the latter via the media and films. I hesitate to add "tourism" as I reckon the Continentals are probably more familiar with British tourists and visitors to their respective countries than they are with the Americans simply because of the much closer proximity of the UK. Correct me if I am wrong here.
Even so, I believe that many learners of English on the European Continent do prefer to use AmE, both in its speaking and in spellings and in the use of colloquialisms, and this may be even more the case in Eastern Europe, including Russia. I have heard a number of Russians and others from EE speak English in the media and some did use an accent heavily influenced by the American form of English.
I have also heard Scandinavians and even some Dutch and German people speak English with a distinct American flavour.
That is, of course, their prerogative.
In our local Tesco store here in Edinburgh there is a lovely wee Polish lass employed on the delicatessen section who is charm personified and she seems to have been here for quite a long time now (I must ask her for how long the next time I see her - I reckon she is here for the duration). She is very efficient and helpful, she speaks excellent English with what I take to be the typical Polish accent but with no trace of Amerianisms at all. What is noticeable though is that she is now displaying signs of a developing Scottish flavour to her accent, especially in the way she pronounces certain words. It's so cute, even when serving up a haggis or corned beef or pork pies.
Hey, we've got weird dialects, too. Jamaican is pretty far from either American or British. Scottish is all on its own -- nothing else sounds like it. And to hear some people talk, the speakers of some varieties of Northern English and Southern American would be downright incomprehensible to each other.
Then there are Australians. The Brits think they sound sort of American, Americans can barely tell them from the British. So some things are just highly subjective.
So when people act like there's this huge gulf between standard GA and standard RP, it's good to remind them that there are so many other varieties, and it could be worse! But as with Latin American and Iberian, we can at least divide English speakers into major camps that have a fair amount of overlap.
Then there are Australians. The Brits think they sound sort of American, Americans can barely tell them from the British. So some things are just highly subjective.
So when people act like there's this huge gulf between standard GA and standard RP, it's good to remind them that there are so many other varieties, and it could be worse! But as with Latin American and Iberian, we can at least divide English speakers into major camps that have a fair amount of overlap.
<<Hey, we've got weird dialects, too. Jamaican is pretty far from either American or British. Scottish is all on its own -- nothing else sounds like it. And to hear some people talk, the speakers of some varieties of Northern English and Southern American would be downright incomprehensible to each other.
>>
Yeah, now imagine there are 100 million Americans, 50 million Brits, 40 million Jamaicans, 40 million Scots, 30 million Australians, 30 million Indians, 20 million Cockneys, etc... The numbers are not so slanted in favor of one...
>>
Yeah, now imagine there are 100 million Americans, 50 million Brits, 40 million Jamaicans, 40 million Scots, 30 million Australians, 30 million Indians, 20 million Cockneys, etc... The numbers are not so slanted in favor of one...
<<the lowering of standards to meet the needs and "ambitions" of those whose main aim in life is to filch as much tax payers' money as they can via this Government's benign munificence through the social welfare benefits programs so that they can continue to play their computer games in between knocking back pints down the pub before setting out to impregnate the equivalent females thus ensuring a continuance of the welfare dependent lumpen proletariat who coudn't give a tinker's cuss about society at large.>>
... Proof that America and Britain share more than a language...
... Proof that America and Britain share more than a language...
Hello everybody,
It is a very interesting post. I don't know whether you will agree or not, but for my job I have to travel a lot and I hear diferent kinds of English from Native speakers and non-native speakers (NNS). Respect to NNS a lot of them mix American English and British English. So I think a lot of learners start to mix both dialects. So I think that in the future maybe "the international English" is going to be a mix of these two dialetcs. What do you think?
It is a very interesting post. I don't know whether you will agree or not, but for my job I have to travel a lot and I hear diferent kinds of English from Native speakers and non-native speakers (NNS). Respect to NNS a lot of them mix American English and British English. So I think a lot of learners start to mix both dialects. So I think that in the future maybe "the international English" is going to be a mix of these two dialetcs. What do you think?
I began learning English in British, but then quickly changed to American with the result that I talked during a large period with an American accent but with British features, for example the a in words like can, man, sand, I pronounced the British way.
<<So I think that in the future maybe "the international English" is going to be a mix of these two dialetcs. What do you think? >>
Plus whatever new features the non-natives decide to add to the mix, I'm sure. It will vary with the place where it is spoken, I would imagine.
Plus whatever new features the non-natives decide to add to the mix, I'm sure. It will vary with the place where it is spoken, I would imagine.
There is no such thing as "international English". A Chinese person sounds COMPLETELY different to a German person and makes COMPLETELY different mistakes.
Tom avoided this problem by listening only to American English.
//
There are many accents in the US,
you should chose only one accent and stick to it, for example Californian accent (popularized by Beverly Hills and Melrose place).
Shows like CSI NY , the Sopranos and the Nanny can mess up with your accent since they are so NYC-based.
Better than watching all these shows and various accent is to chose one actor and stick to his/her accent: I have chosen Alison Lohman, and her standard/conservative Californian accent is excellent for me: doll/call/cot/caught/wrong vowel is [A], low back unrounded vowel.
//
There are many accents in the US,
you should chose only one accent and stick to it, for example Californian accent (popularized by Beverly Hills and Melrose place).
Shows like CSI NY , the Sopranos and the Nanny can mess up with your accent since they are so NYC-based.
Better than watching all these shows and various accent is to chose one actor and stick to his/her accent: I have chosen Alison Lohman, and her standard/conservative Californian accent is excellent for me: doll/call/cot/caught/wrong vowel is [A], low back unrounded vowel.
Boyd Grossman is extremely strange. For starters, he sounds like he can't decide if he is speaking rhotically, or otherwise. He speaks with different accents on different words, even sometimes crossing them. When he accentuates, it's a General American accent. On words related to the emphasised one, it's a Boston accent with intermittent Kiwi and Aussie vowels. The other words are some weird mix of British accents with a Boston drawl. When he is aware of words, he puts on a strong Received Pronunciation accent. I could understand a
Boston/GA/diluted RP accent, but one thinks he is putting on a bit of an act.
Boston/GA/diluted RP accent, but one thinks he is putting on a bit of an act.
This YT clip of "The Office" is now very dated.....it is no longer the DSS (Department of Social Security) - it's the DWP (Department for Work and Pensions) and the change of title was made for a very good reason - social security and welfare payments in the UK courtesy of the British taxpayers who supply the dosh in the first place as a result of their hard graft at the coalface of employment should NOT be regarded as a God given "right" by the workshy feckless and feral, but much more of an "obligation" to the acquistion and retention of Work which in time should qualify for an earned Pension in the dueness of time.
Ricky Gervais, a Londoner "pretending" to run an office in Slough, Berkshire, England - he has been making some highly controversial comments in the British media this past week or so and he really does appear to be politically more to the right of Genghis Khan and Attila the Hun combined by calling for mass sterilisation and castration of the very same feckless and feral leeches in present day Britannia.
But he really is a good laugh in The Office so much so I am posting this clip again hoping the previous poster who did so does not object too much. The guy has all the sensitivity of a bulldozer on heat.
I think "The Office" is a shining example of the restrained tolerance of the British people at large as exemplied by this man's colleagues and subordinates in that office down there in Slough.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQAihUx0ZM4
Ricky Gervais, a Londoner "pretending" to run an office in Slough, Berkshire, England - he has been making some highly controversial comments in the British media this past week or so and he really does appear to be politically more to the right of Genghis Khan and Attila the Hun combined by calling for mass sterilisation and castration of the very same feckless and feral leeches in present day Britannia.
But he really is a good laugh in The Office so much so I am posting this clip again hoping the previous poster who did so does not object too much. The guy has all the sensitivity of a bulldozer on heat.
I think "The Office" is a shining example of the restrained tolerance of the British people at large as exemplied by this man's colleagues and subordinates in that office down there in Slough.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQAihUx0ZM4
Brits have been exposed to US television and film media for decades. Do we sound any more American now than we did 50 years ago? Nope, we sound different but not any more American other than a few superficial smatterings of youth vocabulary.
It hasn't happened and it's not going to happen.
It hasn't happened and it's not going to happen.