Do the Americans speak English better than the British?

Brian   Thu Jun 01, 2006 9:32 pm GMT
-American

I hate the British, so sorry
Brian   Thu Jun 01, 2006 9:46 pm GMT
just kidding
Brian   Thu Jun 01, 2006 9:47 pm GMT
Just kidding, I'm British too.
We are great!
Guest   Fri Jun 02, 2006 2:30 am GMT
But do you "speak propah", "init" ?
Kabayan   Fri Jun 02, 2006 8:22 am GMT
I'm just curious.

D62........whatever
D66........whatever

Are you from west Java ?
A6027VA   Fri Jun 02, 2006 3:05 pm GMT
Kabayan:

"D62........whatever
D66........whatever"

It's a computer-generated serial number system I use in Antimoon because anyone can use your name.

No, I am most assuredly not from West Java.
Kabayan   Fri Jun 09, 2006 11:23 am GMT
A6027VA

Ohh..I see.

D ...........AB
D............BC
D...........and so on...

The letter D in front of a set of 1-4 numbers then followed by two letters, is indicating the police number of vehicles from Bandung, Capital of west java.
American Latino   Fri Jun 09, 2006 11:34 am GMT
All right, I would say nobody speaks it better than anybody, but the British accent to me is annoying. British people talk very lightly, like you're scared to say what you have to say. Like they talking right at the tip of their tongue. I like the way New England people talk, direct and heavy, because they dont sound like bitches.
Bonnie Zhang   Sat Jun 10, 2006 11:40 am GMT
I hope my viewpoint can be objective enough, since I'm neither British nor American.

Judging from what I've heard on television and radio, the average American does seem to be slightly more fluent than the working-class Briton. I mean, when the news reporters and interviewers go "into the streets of England", it seems as if no one at all can string a sentence together without five seconds of hesitation! (Followed occasionally by unintelligible mumbling.) On the other hand, the average American is mostly able to get across his point, disregarding the occasional slip of grammar.

I have to say, though, that at the TOP of the social ladder, British politicians, executives, and academics are MUCH more articulate than their American counterparts. Many of the specialists and politicians interviewed on the BBC are true masters of the English language. For all their faults, for all their corruption or snobbishness, you've got to admit that many of them are rhetorical geniuses. It's a pleasure to listen to them.

The average American politician's speech is a extremely trite, and American academics speak waaaaaaaay tooooo sloooowly. Once, the BBC interviewed an American academic working for the National Geologic Survey... and he kept spouting generalisations and clichés in such a slow, boring voice. The interviewer kept prodding him to use his brain, but he just kept repeating the same things over and over and over again. (Dr Condoleeza Rice is good, though. She's the only articulate official in the Bush Administration, methinks.)

What's your take on this, then? I agree that average Americans speak better than the average Britons... but do you also find that the "top Britons" are better speakers than the "top Americans"?
Kelly   Sat Jun 10, 2006 12:05 pm GMT
It's shame that even some BBC newscasters are using Cockney dialect on TV. Like that girl that was saying British televoting results at Eurovision song contest. [hoy oy ahm from you ki]
Liz   Tue Jun 13, 2006 2:41 pm GMT
American Latino,
you are a little biassed, aren't you? It is quite normal because you are American. BUT my question is: What kind of British accent are you talking about? There is no such thing as THE British accent. Maybe you are referring to the RP accent, the so-called BBC English (not exclusively RP any more, though still Standard English) or suchlike... But this is spoken by the minority of British people ( about 3%, I presume). There are plenty of other dialects in Britain: Cockney (London), Scouse (Liverpool), Brummie (Birmingham), Geordie (Tyneside, Newcastle), Estuary English (South-East of England - more of a sociolect than a dialect in my view) etc., just to mention the well-known English dialects in Britain, and of course there are the Scottish, the Irish and the Welsh dialects as well. So, I dont't think that all of these speakers "talk right at the tip of their tongue". By the way, what do you mean by talking "lightly"?
A question to all of you: What do you think of Estuary English? Is it a dialect or a sociolect, or a modified / modernised version of RP? Is EE an exact term (since it is spoken not only and not everywhere around the Thames Estuary)?Why do people (especially youngsters) pick it up? I would like to hear (rather: read:-)) your opinion about this issue.
P.S.: Sorry for my inaccurate categorisation of British dialects... Of cousrse, it is not an exhaustive list, I just wanted to give some examples.
Liz   Tue Jun 13, 2006 2:49 pm GMT
Oops...a typo: of cousrse=of course :-)
Adam   Tue Jun 13, 2006 6:43 pm GMT
"I think Americans are taught better in their English classes in their schools. In England people learn about poetry and shakespeare more than actually concentrating on correct grammar and how to speak properly. "

It's just a pity that you didn't use your English grammar properly, thus proving again that the Americans are not good at English.
Adam   Tue Jun 13, 2006 6:48 pm GMT
"All right, I would say nobody speaks it better than anybody, but the British accent to me is annoying"

Annoying annoying as the accents from America's southern states, which make the people who speak them sound a bit dim and "stoopid", and not as annoying as the accent that Californian teenage girls speak which makes then have to say "so" or "soooooo" or "like" in every sentence, such as: "That is, like, soooooo cool! I've, like, gotta get me one of those. They are so sweet! And it sooooooo hot here. I'm, like, burning. I've so gotta cool down."
Chris   Wed Jun 14, 2006 12:53 am GMT
>> There was a short time, basically in the 1970's and 80's, when the speech of Washington State kept pace with California. Californian innovations would find their way into the speech of Seattle teenagers virtually overnight. This is not happening anymore and a gap is developing between how young people talk in California vs the Pacific Northwest. It could be partly a sign that California's days as the nation's trendsetter have past. <<

Interesting. Is it because fewer movies are being produced in California?