Stuffy English

Fredrik - what's wrong with the 'farmers in the midwest' thing? Most of those farmers are German and, yes, Norwegian, so you are dissing the speach of your own relatives here. : )

Depends on what parts of the Midwest one is speaking; Norwegian would be Minnesota, North Dakota, and northern Wisconsin, German would be southern Wisconsin, and much of the rest of the (Upper) Midwest as a whole.

Actually, although there are more Norwegians in Minnesota (where I live), North Dakota (where I was born), and northern Wisconsin (where I used to live) than any other part of the US, there are still more Germans in those areas than Norwegians. Either way, Germans predominate the entire upper Midwest.

Tis true, I should have mentioned that.

When I hear Scandinavians speak I very often think they are just about to break into song.....the accent sort of goes up and down like no other I can think of....it just undulates....I am not decrying it at all.....it's cool in an ever so slightly comical way.

Vytenis:

ESTUARY is now more or less the "lingua franca" of the younger (uner 30) people of the South East of England...its home base, but gradually spreading to other other areas....it's the accent in which the letter "T" especially has become redundant. Some modifications of Estuary have even infiltrated as far north as here in Edinburgh, Scotland.....the letter "T" is showing signs of diminution.

If you feel so inclined just look back through past threads in this Forum and you will get the whole Estuary scene in all its glory. You can find links on UK Google. Be'-er still, crash ou' in Miwl'on Keynes sometoime!

Oh my Gawd! They should use Valley Girl English for those kewl books!
It's like totally kewwwwwwl...Oh my Gawd! Just for the record, I don't like the English accent. It is a bore!

At least here in Wisconsin, "hated" or at least "severely deprecated" would not be an inaccurate adjective for describing the general attitude towards Valley Girl-speech as a whole.

> Just for the record, I don't like the English accent. It is a bore


English accent? What is THE English accent?

Scouse? Geordie? Manc? Yorkshire? Cornish? Cockney? Brummie? Posh? All of them?

JunJun, when most Americans speak of an "English" accent, they're referring to Received Pronunciation or maybe Estuary English, most certainly not any of the other stuff you listed there.

I would like to know whether British people can see a clear-cut distinction between RP and Upper RP. Being a foreigner, I can't tell them appart and this turns out to be a problem because I teach English in my country. The books I've used as a student and those I use to teach follow the British tradition. So, I'm very much afraid that the accent I try to adopt is out dated. I understand that speaking Refined/Upper/Conservative RP is not what I want, but at the same time, I'm afraid of choosing Estuary English for the sake of intelegibility. To cut a long story short, when you, native speakers, listen to a man speaking RP (nor Refined RP) does it bring to your mind the image of a queer guy? I was taught that speaking like John Cleese may sound queer to my Spanish ears, but it definitely is not affected English. Do you agree?
Thanks

franciscozabala@yahoo.com

<<English" accent, they're referring to Received Pronunciation or maybe Estuary English>>


PR: spoken by a small and declining minority of the population of England (mainly in the South and mainly used by people over the age of 50 I would guess)

EE: spoken by an increasing proportion of the population of England (again mainly restricted to the South East of England but spreading and used mainly by people under the age of 30, as I am getting tired of saying in this forum. I expect I will get banned for repetition someday soon).

Even in England itself this type of accent is subjected to scorn and ridicule.....justifiably. How the heck do you link it to "queer guys" francisco zabala? Is that how you think all English homosexual men speak for God's sake? The teacher needs some lessons himself. Apart from the grossly exaggerated camp style "gay speak" adopted by Graham Norton and others on TV the overwhelming majority of your so called "queer guys" use their normal regional accents bearing no resemblance whatsover to your quoted <<Refined/Upper/Conservative RP>>

Anyway, why not play safe and use American English speech models instead....maybe then you would be clear of any possible "queer" connotations...or is there something I should know?

Top and bottom of this, fz, is that your are right.....you need to update the style you use. If you want your students there in Spain to sound like an increasing number of their English peers then you may have no option but to use Estuary. Estuaryland is finding RP to be more and more repellent, if not quite incomprehensible.

On second thoughts...why not go Scottish? You certainly cannae go far wrong there!!! Bye the noo.

Honestly I don't care much about this Estuary English/RP thing. To those learning to speak English, one important thing to remember is that when we foreigners do speak English, most of the time we're not talking to native English speakers. The people we are talking to could be Swedish, German, Mexican, Japanese, Thai...whatever. And even when the people we talk to are indeed native speakers, they could be anywhere from the UK, America, Canada, Australia, etc. Only a very very small % of the people you'll be talking to will speak EE, RP or any particular regional accent for that matter. Again taking EE as an example, unless you're planning to visit England in the near future, you may not even meet one speaker with an Estuary accent over the next two or three years

So unless you're ashamed of your nationality -- or you want to be a spy disguising to be a native speaker living in a particular area -- there's no need for you to expend a great of energy imitating a particular accent. The most important thing is that you articulate clearly so that people can always understand you easily.

As a northerner I find most "southern" English accents quite camp. That's probably why southern English are known as softies, probably just down their accent. Estuary English and RP English sound camp to me. The standard American accent also sounds camp to me too.

francisco zabala , British people can understand Australian/American/Canadian/ and African accents like those from Zimbabwe and South Africa etc. Many foreigners these days speak in mixed kinds of English, like half American half British. But they always normally have a twang of their own. A Frenchman speaking English sounds French, and Spaniard speaking English sounds Spanish. Of course people can understand them aslong as they speak clearly.

The ones that speak the clearest English are normally those from Scandinavian countries aswell as people from Holland. Dutch people have their own English accent which sounds very natural, like English is their own language.

JunJun:

Aye lad, ah knows joost wat yer mean....a shoovels a damn shoovel oop North. Am I reet thurrrr? Is it true you need subtitles for Eastenders?

By the way, JunJun, from where I'm standing right now, thees the bloody Southerners as well whether camp or no! ;-)

Is that supposed to be a Yorkshire accent? I'm not from Yorkshire.

As for Eastenders....I don't watch it. I don't need subtitles but I find the high pitched squealing which is the cockney accent quite annoying. Also the fact that they sound like children who are learning to speak English after just learning to say "mummy" and "daddy". The word "little" for example is pronounced "li-uw", sounds very childlike.