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US vs UK English for learners | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Kyle Corrie Senior Member United States Joined 4830 days ago 175 posts - 464 votes  | Message 113 of 136 09 September 2011 at 1:41am | IP Logged | ||
I assume you're aware of the fact that a German from Munich won't sound the same as a German from Hamburg. Which is correct then? Which will you sound like? If they're both correct then what makes an Austrian unacceptable to you? 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| ppfarj Newbie United Kingdom Joined 4953 days ago 5 posts - 8 votes Speaks: Portuguese* Studies: English | Message 114 of 136 09 September 2011 at 4:17pm | IP Logged | ||
I reckon it's a matter of personal preferences... I certainly understand that you'd appreciate to learn the language from those who've spoken the language from the very beginning, as for myself, I think of other many practical circumstances. No doubt English became the "lingua franca" in business, technologies, media, politics etc because of the USA. Up to WW1/WW2,French was the most important language due to its political/economical influences..once Europe (the UK inclusive) declined, the US turned into the new Global superpower. Zillions of people all over the world swapped French for English because the French simply couldn't export their culture at the same pace as before, since it was recovering from the wars. While the Americans started bombarding western countries with their movies, music, and technological advancements, cartoons, Disney,etc. Why would those people learn the dialect from Scouse or Geordie, or even the British RP if, their main goal is to communicate / understand effectively with Americans and US related goods and services?? I could say the same about Brazilian Portuguese and Continental Portuguese. I might be a bit biased, since I was born and bread in Brazil, but Portugal as a country is going down the hill.. I'm half Portuguese and feel bad about it. On the other side, you've got Brazil booming economically. Currently Portuguese people watch Brazilian media (soap operas, films, TV new, etc), they listen to Brazilian music and read books from Brazilian authors. Many are even emigrating to Brazil. The majority of speakers of Portuguese live in Brazil as well. Brazilian or Brazilian Portuguese has become so important lately that Portugal, along with most other Portuguese speaking countries made many concessions to unify and make up one single official Portuguese orthography - 98% percent identical.There are no 2 different ones, any more. Therefore, it made things even easier for students, since now you just need to worry about which accent you prefer speaking/ listening to - btw the Brazilian one has been the most popular, so far! ;-p 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Ygangerg Pentaglot Senior Member United States Joined 5319 days ago 100 posts - 140 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Arabic (Written), Mandarin, French Studies: German | Message 115 of 136 09 September 2011 at 5:00pm | IP Logged | ||
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@ georgiqg: Really, the name of a language is just a name. And languages aren't "invented," except ones like Esperanto and Klingon. Languages change constantly; they become what they are, and they certainly don't stay that way. No one in England invented English. Actually it came about from a collision of several migrant tribes, followed by years of Norman French rule.
I'm curious what you would say of languages like Catalan and Urdu and Navajo, which happen to not be named after any sovereign nation at all? Edited by Ygangerg on 09 September 2011 at 5:26pm 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| georgiqg Triglot Newbie Spain Joined 4905 days ago 36 posts - 50 votes Speaks: Bulgarian*, Spanish, English Studies: German, Russian | Message 116 of 136 11 September 2011 at 9:36am | IP Logged | ||
@Kyle Corrie, the German pronunciation is correct, but so are the Austrian one, the Swiss one, etc., I just like most the pronunciation of what they call "Hochdeutsch", which is just a variety of the Standard German language. @ppfarj and @Ygangerg, I'm afraid that you misunderstood what I was saying, but maybe I didn’t express myself well. I just wanted to say that when I’m studying a language, I always want to pick a determinate pronunciation, and that is my way to pick it. And please, don’t get me wrong, I like Brazilian Portuguese, Austrian German, Australian English, American English, Irish English, Mexican Spanish, etc.; I just always want to pick one pronunciation per language and aim at it. -- Georgi -- 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Steffen Newbie Germany Joined 4972 days ago 27 posts - 63 votes Studies: German* | Message 117 of 136 11 September 2011 at 12:42pm | IP Logged | ||
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I have to admit that I rather strongly dislike the American English accent. This is probably highly unfair
and certainly only a matter of personal taste. However, an RP accent usually seems much nicer to me, and with regard to beauty, plays in a completely different league than AE, which, with all its guttural sounds and the soft t-sounds, sometimes resembles a "chewed" language rather than a spoken one. Listen to some poems by Auden or Larkin, read by the authors themselves, and you will instantly know what I mean (hopefully). Sorry, I do not want to ruffle any feathers here. Like I said, it is really just a personal preference. I will also readily admit, that Mr Obama's AE its much more bearable than Mr Bush's (G.W.). By the way, I do not think it is necessarily more difficult to learn British English. There is an excellent learning source, which can be found here: http://www.amazon.co.uk/English-Pronunciation-Advanced-Answe rs-CD- ROM/dp/0521693764/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=13157372 63&sr=8-1&tag=acleint-20 Similar course books exist for beginning and intermediate level learners. Try it out, you will probably be very pleased with the results. Edited by Steffen on 11 September 2011 at 1:44pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Camundonguinho Triglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 4750 days ago 273 posts - 500 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, English, Spanish Studies: Swedish | Message 118 of 136 28 November 2011 at 8:36pm | IP Logged | ||
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I find the American accent easier. Well, the one that I'm using (cot caught merged), the one used in the MW Learner's Dictionary:
http://www.learnersdictionary.com/ But not all American accents are easy, East coast accents are difficult to imitate, so are the Southern accents, and the Great lakes accent (Norther cities vowel shift). There are Californians who have a strong Valley girl /Surfer Dude accent, but I don't like that accent, I like a more conservative version of Western US accent (used in Denver, Phoenix or San Diego). People from San Francisco sound funny too, like a mix of East Coast and West Coast, not really an accent you hear in Hollywood (which is basically a conservative Western US accent). You can compare various accents here: http://www.lel.ed.ac.uk/research/gsound/Eng/Database/Phoneti cs/Englishes/ByWord/Word_001_all.htm If I were to choose an European accent of English, I would prefer Dublin English to either RP or Estuary or Cockney. The Dublin accent is sexy, with unrounded [ä] in words like ''all, song, wrong, John'' this is shared with conservative Western US or Irish Newfie (St. John's) accents. Edited by Camundonguinho on 28 November 2011 at 8:45pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| numerodix Trilingual Hexaglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 6784 days ago 856 posts - 1226 votes Speaks: EnglishC2*, Norwegian*, Polish*, Italian, Dutch, French Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin | Message 119 of 136 28 November 2011 at 10:00pm | IP Logged | ||
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I used to have very strong opinions about this. I too find it a little grating to hear
people trying to sound British and doing badly at it. Growing up I used to think British sounds kinda stupid and I avoided it very consistently. I also used to think the Australian accent sounds ridiculous. It used to be that when speaking to people from these locales I would notice THE ACCENT in a huge way, as if it were flashing on a billboard, and I would notice what they were actually saying as a secondary thing. But after being around enough people with a myriad of accents I don't really notice them much anymore. I work with some people who have a very credible British, with South African, with various degrees of Dutchification, with Russian, and I speak American (not sure how "pure" people would judge it). And it all just works out. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| tritone Senior Member United States reflectionsinpo Joined 6121 days ago 246 posts - 385 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Portuguese, French | Message 120 of 136 29 November 2011 at 4:44am | IP Logged | ||
It should be noted that the pronunciation of colonial languages is usually much more conservative, while in Europe they change wildly, and this is certainly the case with English and Portuguese - the latter being the most extreme example. So, one who chooses to learn contemporary European pronunciation would just be following the latest linguistic caprices of Europeans. American varieties are more true to the language and the way words were meant to be pronounced. For example we pronounce Rs in North America, because they were always pronounced, that's why they're written there; the british have lost sight of this. Sometimes even our choice of words is more english than theirs: For example american term "the fall" (english) vs. british "the autumn"(yet another french word). Portuguese has changed so radically that it doesn't even sound a romance language any more, it's full of muted vowels and elisions. Brazilians still pronounce almost everything. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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