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US vs UK English for learners

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Rout
Diglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5713 days ago
326 posts - 417 votes 
Speaks: English*, German
Studies: Spanish
Studies: Hindi

 
 Message 33 of 136
06 May 2009 at 12:57am | IP Logged 
I'm one of the few Americans I know that use British pronunciation frequently and, to some extent, vocabulary. "Advertisement" "landscape" (more like landskip) "waistcoat" (American "vest." I pronounce it "weskit") I try to avoid saying "buffy" though because that will get you a strange look so I just say "smorgasbord". =P

I guess I'm quirky like that, but I think it's not all that uncommon to find mixes between the two. Especially in the North East. I don't add 'R's between my vowel ended words or anything but I know plenty of people that do. It might not be standard but I've heard a lot of educated people say "harassment" instead of "huh-ASS-ment." Maybe this is what Olekander means by sounding ridiculous. I was taught from a young age that English should be as evenly stressed as possible. I think you'd be received okay if you had something in between British and American but American English does seem to be more clear. I confess I had to watch the British movie Scum entirely in subtitles.

Cheers. =)

(P.S. I don't think I'm Madonna.)

EDIT: Typos.

Edited by Rout on 06 May 2009 at 10:52am
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Alkeides
Senior Member
Bhutan
Joined 6149 days ago
636 posts - 644 votes 

 
 Message 34 of 136
06 May 2009 at 9:32am | IP Logged 
Rout wrote:
I'm one of the few Americans I know that use British pronunciation frequently and, to some extent, vocabulary. "Advertisement" "landscape" (more like landskip) "wastecoat" (American "vest." I pronounce it "weskit") I try to avoid saying "buffy" though because that will get you a strange look so I just say "smorgasbord". =P

I guess I'm quirky like that, but I think it's not all that uncommon to find mixes between the two. Especially in the North East. I don't add 'R's between my vowel ended words or anything but I know plenty of people that do. It might not be standard but I've heard a lot of educated people say "harrassment" instead of "huh-ASS-ment." Maybe this is what Olekander means by sounding ridiculous. I was taught from a young age that English should be as evenly stressed as possible. I think you'd be recieved okay if you had something in between British and American but American English does seem to be more clear. I confess I had to watch the British movie Scum entirely in subtitles.

Cheers. =)

(P.S. I don't think I'm Madonna.)


I think you mean waistcoat :).

I don't understand what you mean by "harrassment" instead of "huh-ass-ment", do you mean to say that some people drop the "r" in the middle?

Unfortunately there are a substantial number of Americans with a very myopic worldview who don't even recognise that non-rhotic accents are a standard way of speech in some parts of the world. I recall reading a post where someone who was asking for "Barb" in a non-rhotic accent got directed to "Bob" - which might have been avoided even so if the father-bother merger hadn't spread so wildly in recent years.

On the other hand, it's interesting to note how the "o" and "a" vowels alternate throughout Germanic history. Proto-Germanic seemed to have merged short "a" and "o" into "a" and long "ā" and "ō" into "ō". Much later on, with Old English "ā" mutating to [ɔː] in Middle English we get "loaf" with a long "o" coming from Old English "hlāf". In this sense, the father-bother merger might be seen as the latest emergence of an old Germanic tradition :P.

Edited by Alkeides on 06 May 2009 at 9:41am
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Olekander
Triglot
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 5884 days ago
122 posts - 136 votes 
Speaks: English*, French, Russian

 
 Message 35 of 136
06 May 2009 at 9:34am | IP Logged 
Lmao I was a little harsh but I just find it funny (excuse me ) when americans say things and spell things in a different way.

Aluminum -Aluminium

Ant(I) - Antee

Math - Maths

Color - Colour

Weed whacker - strimmer

Sem(I) - Semi

The list continues.
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cordelia0507
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 5839 days ago
1473 posts - 2176 votes 
Speaks: Swedish*
Studies: German, Russian

 
 Message 36 of 136
06 May 2009 at 9:54am | IP Logged 
"February"

One thing that gets very strange is when Americans play Brits in a film. A few female actresses have done a good job, but other than that it is incredibly distracting from the plot of the film, since it sounds avery fake.

Another thing that also happens in US films is that a British actor is cast in the role of a British character who speaks an accent that he himself can't do. Usually the role is a posh person, but the actor can't do the accent convincingly. Had it been in the UK the same actor would never have been cast in that role because everyone would hear it was wrong.

These types of things always distract me when I watch films !
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Rout
Diglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5713 days ago
326 posts - 417 votes 
Speaks: English*, German
Studies: Spanish
Studies: Hindi

 
 Message 37 of 136
06 May 2009 at 10:48am | IP Logged 
Alkeides wrote:
Rout wrote:
I'm one of the few Americans I know that use British pronunciation frequently and, to some extent, vocabulary. "Advertisement" "landscape" (more like landskip) "wastecoat" (American "vest." I pronounce it "weskit") I try to avoid saying "buffy" though because that will get you a strange look so I just say "smorgasbord". =P

I guess I'm quirky like that, but I think it's not all that uncommon to find mixes between the two. Especially in the North East. I don't add 'R's between my vowel ended words or anything but I know plenty of people that do. It might not be standard but I've heard a lot of educated people say "harrassment" instead of "huh-ASS-ment." Maybe this is what Olekander means by sounding ridiculous. I was taught from a young age that English should be as evenly stressed as possible. I think you'd be recieved okay if you had something in between British and American but American English does seem to be more clear. I confess I had to watch the British movie Scum entirely in subtitles.

Cheers. =)

(P.S. I don't think I'm Madonna.)


I think you mean waistcoat :).

I don't understand what you mean by "harrassment" instead of "huh-ass-ment", do you mean to say that some people drop the "r" in the middle?

Unfortunately there are a substantial number of Americans with a very myopic worldview who don't even recognise that non-rhotic accents are a standard way of speech in some parts of the world. I recall reading a post where someone who was asking for "Barb" in a non-rhotic accent got directed to "Bob" - which might have been avoided even so if the father-bother merger hadn't spread so wildly in recent years.

On the other hand, it's interesting to note how the "o" and "a" vowels alternate throughout Germanic history. Proto-Germanic seemed to have merged short "a" and "o" into "a" and long "ā" and "ō" into "ō". Much later on, with Old English "ā" mutating to [ɔː] in Middle English we get "loaf" with a long "o" coming from Old English "hlāf". In this sense, the father-bother merger might be seen as the latest emergence of an old Germanic tradition :P.


I misspelled the transliteration (and the word harassment now that I reread it. o.o). "huh-RASS-ment" with an uneven stress on the middle syllable. I think the number to which you refer might not be so substantial; I'm not sure why you're criticizing this point. Maybe I'm not so good with transliteration. I say "waistcoat" just very fast so it sounds like "weskit." I don't say 'Pontefract' I say "Pumpfront."

I promise I know how to spell! Forgive me.

Edited by Rout on 06 May 2009 at 10:51am
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Alkeides
Senior Member
Bhutan
Joined 6149 days ago
636 posts - 644 votes 

 
 Message 38 of 136
06 May 2009 at 3:00pm | IP Logged 
I wasn't speaking of you specifically with regard to the father-bother merger!

But according to wikipedia, almost all varieties of American English but a few Northeastern dialects have this feature.
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Cainntear
Pentaglot
Senior Member
Scotland
linguafrankly.blogsp
Joined 6012 days ago
4399 posts - 7687 votes 
Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic
Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh

 
 Message 39 of 136
06 May 2009 at 3:05pm | IP Logged 
Rout wrote:
I was taught from a young age that English should be as evenly stressed as possible.


I misspelled the transliteration (and the word harassment now that I reread it. o.o). "huh-RASS-ment" with an uneven stress on the middle syllable.[/QUOTE]
English is a very heavily stressed language, so I don't see where you're going with this "even/uneven" stress thing....
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Hencke
Tetraglot
Moderator
Spain
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Speaks: Swedish*, Finnish, EnglishC2, Spanish
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 Message 40 of 136
06 May 2009 at 4:45pm | IP Logged 
Olekander wrote:
My only problem with the American accent is that I can't take it seriously.

Hmmm, why is it a problem? ;o).


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