My boyfriend makes me speak UK English!

Koabr3gn   Thu Mar 19, 2009 10:40 am GMT
Background:
My boyfriend (English) and I (American) live in the Czech Republic.

As English teachers, we both have to speak British English at work(not the accent, just vocabulary and spelling).

Recently, my bf has been insisting that I continue to use English vocabulary at home.

At first I said no and asked him why...
he could not give me a definite explaination. He just "wants me to".


My questions:
Is insisting on another person speaking your paticular dialect somewhat pig-headed in your opinion?

If two people understand the dialect differences, does it really matter what brand of English you speak?

Would you ever ask someone to change the way they speak?



(Note: From the background above, it looks like my bf is some type of control freak... he's not. This is the only thing he has ever really asked me to do. Strange request don't you think?)
Damian in Edinburgh   Thu Mar 19, 2009 12:04 pm GMT
Yes, I do think....it's a strange request. You're not having us on here are you? Is this for real? On the assumption that it is then he has absolutely no right to impose his own native British style of spoken English on you, as an American, whatever that may be in the wider scheme of things. How unnatural is that! Your speech would be very stilited at times while you mentallty translate your innate Amerianisms into his innate Britishiscms. Do your own thing in your own home.

Does he have difficulty understanding any American expressions at all (highly unlikely as that is) or is he merely allergic to them to such an extent that he breaks out into a horrid rash whenever he hears them?

You could always dump him and take up with a cool Czech bit of hot stuff, of which there are many in Prague...again assuming that that is where you are located.

AAMOI - please give us some examples of these alien British terms he is allegedly forcing on to you?

***Would you ever ask someone to change the way they speak?***

Only if they come from Glasgow.
JM   Thu Mar 19, 2009 1:19 pm GMT
Why don't you just start speaking Czech-English to him?

BTW, I think this post is a troll
Leasnam   Thu Mar 19, 2009 7:41 pm GMT
I don't think his request is pig-headed, but rather he may be thinking of what is best for you and him in the grand scheme of things.

Seeing that you have to speak British English at work, he may be doing you a tremendous favor with helping you "stay in character".

Who knows, an evaluator may show up by surprise one day and you might have an embarrassing slip of the tongue...

I don't think he's trying to control you, just help you. Try and see it as this :-)

Heck, thank him for trying to help you and perhaps you may turn his opinions around (--we're suckers like that ;-)
Another Guest   Thu Mar 19, 2009 10:43 pm GMT
It seems to me that it's usually a lot easier for people to understand vocabulary from another dialect than to figure out what the term would be in another dialect.

Does your boyfriend do things like saying "militrary" instead of "military"?
CID   Thu Mar 19, 2009 11:09 pm GMT
<<"militrary">>

Wouldn't it be "militry"?
Uriel   Fri Mar 20, 2009 12:13 am GMT
If your boyfriend doesn't like how you talk, then he doesn't really accept you for yourself. He doesn't want to be dating you, he wants to be dating an idealized version of you -- what he wants you to be, rather than what you really are. In other words, run screaming!
Invité d'honneur   Fri Mar 20, 2009 12:55 am GMT
<<At first I said no and asked him why...
he could not give me a definite explaination. He just "wants me to". >>

Well, that what seems to be the main question, doesn't it? He necessarily expects an outcome out of you switching to his dialect. If he didn't, he wouldn't find it desirable.
Do you think he's hiding what he really wants from you or do you suppose he just has trouble identifying it?
Perhaps you could ask the question differently, in such a way that in order to answer it, he'll need to launch himself into the future. It could be by asking him what he thinks would happen if you switched to his dialect and how he would feel about it, or any other question that would help him visualize what he's expecting.
whyld   Fri Mar 20, 2009 3:09 am GMT
I don't think it's very strange. It's probably just a pet peeve. Some couples for example don't allow their spouses to wear certain clothes just because they don't like them.
Rick Johnson   Mon Mar 23, 2009 10:29 am GMT
I'm not entirely sure what differences there would be, standard English is pretty much the same both sides of the Atlantic. Do you have any specific examples?

Do you say things like:

'Nah listen here one minnit Mister, dontcha go gittin awl hissy 'n' tryin' ta make me tawk like you. Ahm real addled that ya don't think Amerikins tawk right. Ah've a mind ta chunk your begs out in that thaere street with the dawgs, yes sirree.
Ian   Mon Mar 23, 2009 1:42 pm GMT
"I'm not entirely sure what differences there would be, standard English is pretty much the same both sides of the Atlantic."

This statement is blasphemy! We all know that they are totally different languages otherwise Germans wouldn't have to make a choice of studying either "Amerikanistik" or "Anglistik"!

Some examples of how they are totally different languages:

BE AE
lorry truck
windscreen windshield
rubber eraser
Rick Johnson   Mon Mar 23, 2009 3:38 pm GMT
Isn't Amerikanistik just american studies i.e American Literature? I can't believe that they would come up with a whole different subject when the differences between British and American English can be explained in a one hour lesson.

I think if I were teaching English to foreigners I would teach them the word 'eraser' rather than 'rubber' which could easily be misunderstood. I occasionally use the word truck in preference to lorry, and the word windshield would be generally understood. Hood and trunk may pose some difficulties for some people though!
Damian in Edinburgh   Mon Mar 23, 2009 4:37 pm GMT
I studied British Social History at uni along with English, and completed a thesis on life in Britain during the Second World War, which I found to be a very absorbing and interesting topic....more than I ever thought it would be.

It really is difficult to credit that people living in the infinitely different Britain of the 21st century could ever begin to imagine what it was like to have been around at that time in our history considering the social, economic and material conditions, along with all the associated perils and dangers, of the late 1930s and the 1940s in Great Britain. Older inhabitants of the era still had memories of the First World War 1914-1918 in Britain but then the Home Front situation was nothing like as horrendous as it was 25 years or so later.

Early in 1942 many thousands of American service personnel began arriving in Britain and many Brirish people likened it to some kind of "friendly invasion" - some more than others (needless to say there was a very perceptible gender divide on that one for obvious reasons). Most people said at the time, using the terms of the time: "Better the Yanks than the Jerries!" No mater where in the United States they came from every "invading" American was called a Yank...the generic name for every American in Britspeak.

Anyway, each and every Yank stepping setting foot on British soil was issued with a booklet entitled: "Instructions for American Servicemen in Britain 1942" - I still hold a copy of it among all my notes and records from uni. Prominent in this booklet are instructions in the use and understanding of British English and a sort of glossary of British terms and expressions, and also a list of words common to both "languages" but which have totally different meanings on either side of the Atlantic.

In short, it hints at BE and AE being "two different" languages" in many respects.

Since then of course the British have become much more familiar with AE and vice versa - most probably to a lesser extent in the later case, but you could, I reckon, say they are "different dialects" rather than "different languages".
Amerikaner   Mon Mar 23, 2009 4:57 pm GMT
I was just reading a Linux magazine in this foreign tongue. It took me several pages to "realise" that fact.
Amerikaner   Mon Mar 23, 2009 5:00 pm GMT
Why not speak in the Cockney dialect? Especially the rhyming slang bit. I reckon a few weeks of that will cure him of that. I guarantee he'll be begging you to switch back to good ol' American English.