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Stephen Fry on Language | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Polyglots |  | |
| dmg Diglot Senior Member Canada dgryski.blogspot.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6823 days ago 555 posts - 605 votes  1 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Dutch, Esperanto | Message 1 of 7 08 January 2009 at 2:11pm | IP Logged | ||
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British comedian Stephen Fry has a great rant on language. It's an interesting take on language prescriptivists, as well as the evolution of language. It's a long listen (30m), but well worth listening to.
Stephen Fry on Language Transcript of the above podcast. A word of warning: if English is not your native language, you might have trouble penetrating his dense speech, but at the same time I'm curious to know if it would make good study materials.. Edited by dmg on 08 January 2009 at 2:14pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 Hencke Tetraglot Moderator Spain Joined 6706 days ago 2340 posts - 2444 votes Speaks: Swedish*, Finnish, EnglishC2, Spanish Studies: Mandarin Personal Language Map | Message 2 of 7 08 January 2009 at 2:54pm | IP Logged | ||
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Big thanks for the link. There are many interesting podcasts on that site.
I am baffled though by the "dense speech" bit. Such distinctly articulated and clear English is hard to come by anywhere these days, delivered in a pleasant expressive timbre of voice and at a leisurely pace to boot. I'd recommended Stephen Fry for non-natives as especially easy to follow. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| dmg Diglot Senior Member Canada dgryski.blogspot.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6823 days ago 555 posts - 605 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Dutch, Esperanto | Message 3 of 7 08 January 2009 at 3:19pm | IP Logged | ||
The prose itself was wonderfully constructed, words and phrases strung together with the ideas he was presenting. I just let the sounds of his discourse run over as I just sat and listened in awe as he went on and on. As a native speaker, then, there was a combination of active listening (because he's speaking at a fairly elevated register with complex ideas), but as the same time slightly hypnotic feeling. I just know at the end of it I needed to give my brain a rest :) But yes, I agree it was a pleasure to listen to. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| yobar Diglot Groupie United States Joined 6844 days ago 52 posts - 54 votes Speaks: English*, Russian Studies: German, Spanish, Irish | Message 4 of 7 08 January 2009 at 3:52pm | IP Logged | ||
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Pick up his podcast on Oscar Wilde, too. He talks a bit about language in it.
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| SlickAs Tetraglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5689 days ago 185 posts - 287 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French, Swedish Studies: Thai, Vietnamese | Message 5 of 7 08 January 2009 at 11:20pm | IP Logged | ||
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Thanks for that link. I enjoyed it too.
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| qklilx Moderator United States Joined 5998 days ago 459 posts - 477 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Korean Personal Language Map | Message 6 of 7 08 January 2009 at 11:21pm | IP Logged | ||
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Is it possible to listen to this without iTunes? I can't downoad it on these computers and the transcript has two uncloseable pop-ups and no horizontal scroll bar.
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| fanatic Octoglot Senior Member Australia speedmathematics.com Joined 6958 days ago 1152 posts - 1818 votes Speaks: English*, German, French, Afrikaans, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Dutch Studies: Swedish, Norwegian, Polish, Modern Hebrew, Malay, Mandarin, Esperanto | Message 7 of 7 09 January 2009 at 12:15am | IP Logged | ||
Yes, I had the same problem. I clicked on FAQ and learnt that you click on RSS and it gives you the option of simply downloading the file, which I am currently doing as I write. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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