Friday, May 27, 2005, 09:05 GMT
<<I mean, in the US, they have subtitles when watching British TV programmes, but in Britain we don't, because Brits find it easier to understand an American accent than Americans do to understand a British accent.>>
I know others have commented but I just thought I'd take my turn to scold Adam, because we just had a discussion about this the other day on the forum and everyone said the same thing--British English is almost never subtitled in America. I'm not just talking about RP, either, even British sitcoms with fast, informal speech are almost always fully comprehensible to Americans. I've heard some pretty different UK varieties on various shows on BBC America, yet after a few seconds my brain adjusts and gets used to even the most "out there" accents.
<<The differences are extremely small and concern mostly colloquial vocabulary and a handful of idioms.>>
"Extremely" small, Mxsmanic? Then the volumes and volumes of linguistic research outlining the significant differences in all linguistic aspects of English varieties must be for naught. Just because they're (usually) mutually intelligible doesn't mean their differences can't be significant.
I know others have commented but I just thought I'd take my turn to scold Adam, because we just had a discussion about this the other day on the forum and everyone said the same thing--British English is almost never subtitled in America. I'm not just talking about RP, either, even British sitcoms with fast, informal speech are almost always fully comprehensible to Americans. I've heard some pretty different UK varieties on various shows on BBC America, yet after a few seconds my brain adjusts and gets used to even the most "out there" accents.
<<The differences are extremely small and concern mostly colloquial vocabulary and a handful of idioms.>>
"Extremely" small, Mxsmanic? Then the volumes and volumes of linguistic research outlining the significant differences in all linguistic aspects of English varieties must be for naught. Just because they're (usually) mutually intelligible doesn't mean their differences can't be significant.