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Dialects you can’t understand? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5768 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes  Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 33 of 54 15 June 2009 at 11:54pm | IP Logged | ||
Depends on my prior knowledge of the topic and the speaker. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| AntoniusBlock Diglot Newbie Sweden Joined 5925 days ago 31 posts - 36 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: French, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 34 of 54 16 June 2009 at 1:46am | IP Logged | ||
Yes, it is very unusual. Älvdalska is sort of an "island" of dalmål that has managed to stay quite isolated from the evolution of Swedish, and retain a multitude of archaic elements (parts of morphology, syntax, pronunciation, etc) from Old Swedish that are long gone in Standard Swedish. They even used runes up until 100-150 years ago. And yes, they can switch to Swedish without problems, they are bilingual. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Kris Newbie Australia Joined 5678 days ago 4 posts - 4 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Dutch, German | Message 35 of 54 16 June 2009 at 11:04am | IP Logged | ||
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I find English with a strong Indian accent hard to understand when talking face to face and near impossible when talking over a telephone. Whenever I get a telephone caller with the above accent I have to transfer it to another worker.
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| zerothinking Senior Member Australia Joined 6374 days ago 528 posts - 772 votes Speaks: English* | Message 36 of 54 16 June 2009 at 1:57pm | IP Logged | ||
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I can't understand Canadian French very well. But that's only because I haven't been
exposed to it. With exposure it'd be as easy as anything. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| cordelia0507 Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5840 days ago 1473 posts - 2176 votes Speaks: Swedish* Studies: German, Russian | Message 37 of 54 16 June 2009 at 2:36pm | IP Logged | ||
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Yeah, Indian English is a problem. I encounter it
1) In work - we outsource to India 2) HSBC call centre (and a few other ones too). It gets a bit better with practice, but it IS a problem and it's a mistake to believe that just because somebody can pass some kind of exam, they can communicate with native speakers in an efficient manner. I really appreciate the struggles that Indian people have though, it is not the fault of the individual that you are speaking to, it's the machinery behind. . My other reservation is related to the fact that I don't necessarily 100% sympathise with the ideas behind outsourcing in the first place, and the attitudes the whole concept brings about in some colleagues + myself on a bad day. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Zeitgeist21 Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5647 days ago 156 posts - 192 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, French | Message 38 of 54 16 June 2009 at 2:38pm | IP Logged | ||
I could say the same for Mandarin =D 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 Hencke Tetraglot Moderator Spain Joined 6896 days ago 2340 posts - 2444 votes Speaks: Swedish*, Finnish, EnglishC2, Spanish Studies: Mandarin Personal Language Map | Message 39 of 54 16 June 2009 at 2:59pm | IP Logged | ||
Yes, exactly. And thanks for clarifying the official English name of this dialect. I have previously seen samples of Elfdalian, with voice recordings and a complete written analysis of what was actually being said, and my spontaneous impression was that it is at least as far removed from standard Swedish as German, if not further. IMHO, based on linguistic grounds, it fully deserves to be classified as a separate language. It's not merely a matter of a funny pronunciation and differences in a number of vocabulary items. There are ancient verb forms and many other grammar features that are different too. Incidentally, did you know that there are isolated areas in Ostrobothnia ** in Finland with dialects almost identical to Elfdalian, that have also managed to survive over the centuries. In fact, I have personally spoken to someone from one of these areas (Närpes) who went to the Älvdalen area in Dalcarlia with a couple of others from his own village and when they started speaking in dialect the locals would simply not believe they were from Finland. They were accused of being from a neighboring village instead. If the official language status is achieved, you can probably throw in Närpes and some of the surrounding areas, perhaps doubling the number of speakers of this "new" language (though I have no idea how many they actually are). ** This link does not work due to the broken linking mechanisms on this site that remove the paretheses around (region) at the end of the url. Edited by Hencke on 16 June 2009 at 5:16pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| DaraghM Diglot Senior Member Ireland Joined 6153 days ago 1947 posts - 2923 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Russian, Hungarian | Message 40 of 54 17 June 2009 at 11:52am | IP Logged | ||
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Even if your an Irish native, some Irish accents can be hard to understand. I've had some difficulties with a strong regional Kerry accent, and some Donegal accents. When I was in school, our science teacher had a very strong Donegal accent, and asked the question, "What is a food permit?". She was greeted with silence, and asked the question again. This occured a couple more times until I eventually figured out she was saying, "What is a food pyramid?", and then I answered the question.
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