Posts: 4486
From: Brussels, Belgium
Registered: Jun 2013
posted May 06, 2015 12:48 PM
Terry, Belgium of course is a Lilliput compared to UK but we have different accents as well. In France, there is a big difference between the North and the South accent. Tom, without starting any political or sensitive debate, what you are describing also happens in Brussels. You sometimes even hear now local Young Belgians talking with a foreign accent !
Posts: 7016
From: Long Island, NY, USA
Registered: Jun 2003
posted May 06, 2015 12:51 PM
My uncle told us he often hears German kids singing Rock songs in perfect English. Then he tries to speak English with them and finds out all they know is lyrics!
-------------------- All I ask is a wide screen and a projector to light her by...
Posts: 4001
From: New Zealand
Registered: Feb 2006
posted May 06, 2015 07:40 PM
Funny thing happened me this morning and just after the school run, when I was approached by a pretty young lady tourist in the car park. believe me "that" does not happen very often.
Anyway she asked first if I was local "I said yes" and could I help her with directions. As soon as I started talking she looked surprised ....are you from Scotland?.....yes...where are you from?...Sweden...so we had a good long chat. I do hope in the end she understood the directions I gave her
Dominique I hope you get a chance to visit Scotland, both Glasgow "people there are friendly" and Stirling Castle are worth a visit.
Guess who my favorite character from the Simpsons is"
posted May 08, 2015 06:15 AM
being a "scouser" from Liverpool I neither speak the Queens english nor the BBC's,indeed I doubt whether the Queen would understand me ! I once read an article many years ago that implied that if an 18th century englishman came back to life,he would understand the americans more than the english,due to the fact thet the anericans use obsolete english words ie sidewalk instead of pavement,trunk instead of boot etc,there are many more
-------------------- Let there be light,so god created the projector
Posts: 3468
From: Sunnyvale, CA USA
Registered: Sep 2011
posted May 08, 2015 12:08 PM
It amazes me that so many actors from the UK can speak with an American accent so convincingly. Nicolas Hoult comes to mind who was in About A Boy (2002) and had a very strong English accent. Then more recently he was in Warm Bodies (2013) speaking with an American accent. Other actors also have very good American accents like the late Barry Morse who played Lt. Gerard in the 1963 "The Fugitive" TV series...Hugh Laurie who played in the TV series "House"...and Ewan McGregor from Scotland who is a master of several dialects.
-------------------- Janice
"I'm having a very good day!" Richard Dreyfuss - Let It Ride (1989).
Posts: 4486
From: Brussels, Belgium
Registered: Jun 2013
posted May 08, 2015 12:23 PM
Interesting remark Janice. Some people never loose their accent while others impresively get the way the people around them talk. I remember two examples of Morocan students from my school. They both had a strong foreign accent as they came late in Belgium. I saw one of them only a few years after he left the school and he talked like any genuine Belgian citizen but was in the Belgian army ! The second one went to live in Québec (where as everybody knows people speak French as well). Surprise, he came to say hello after two years and he had a Québec French accent !
Posts: 3468
From: Sunnyvale, CA USA
Registered: Sep 2011
posted May 08, 2015 01:26 PM
Last May a friend of mine from Scotland came to visit. He has a very strong accent and at first I thought I might need an interpreter to understand him. I had to listen very carefully and after awhile I could tune in to understand him better. While he was here we did a webcam call to his wife and son. Despite the fact that his son has never been to the US...his accent was much more American than Scottish. He told me the kids at school told him the same thing....Go figure?
-------------------- Janice
"I'm having a very good day!" Richard Dreyfuss - Let It Ride (1989).
Posts: 7016
From: Long Island, NY, USA
Registered: Jun 2003
posted May 08, 2015 01:40 PM
To a large extend it's mass media and easy travel. Hundreds of years ago the average human being rarely got more than 5 miles from the place they were born.
-just the thing to keep accents and languages separated and intact.
A few years ago I got a ride to the airport and less than a day later I was in central Siberia. (-fortunately it was July!)
Had somebody tried this stunt roughly 1615 the odds of the getting there are slim, of ever getting home again almost zero.
-------------------- All I ask is a wide screen and a projector to light her by...