Is American English lazy English?

Ville_maddengurl wrote:

i want to escape from American accent and get English accent... it is the most intelligible one !

You'll never succeed, American English will chase you and will catch ya! It's everywhere, you can't run away, you can't hide... it'll eventually find you, and it'll be like: "Oh my God Ville Maddengurl, it's been like, a while, so whassup? We are like, going to the mall or something. Are you coming?" ---- And then it'll be too late to run away, Ville Maddengurl, you're gonna answer: "Oh my God, like, totally!"

Ok now, seriously, I don't think British accents are simpler to understand. I actually don't know what accents are simple to understand, I would say American, but probably because I'm only used to American English. So the simplest is probably the one you use everyday or hear most of the time. Italian is simple, for example, isn't it?

Ville_maddengurl wrote:

i want to give American accent up and learn English accent to talk more intelligible...is it OK now, MrP ..?

I'm sorry, VM, you're going to have to speak much more slowly.

In fragments. 

Without verbs.

And say "er" and "um" and "right?" a lot.

And add quite a few expletives.

Preferably in a glottal mumble, through your nose.

Then British people will understand you...

MrP

Oh yes, use "and stuff" all the time. Use it for "etc.", or when you can't think of anything else to say, e.g.

_____

ESL student: "So, how was your weekend, MrP?"

MrP: "It was, um, ok."

ESL student: "And did you do anything interesting? Did you go to a film, for instance, or read a book? Or visit some friends?"

MrP: "Well, um, you know, er, not really. Just, um, watched tv and stuff."

_____

"Um" and "er" and stuff are very important to BrE speakers. They allow us to make our sentences (and thus our conversations) much longer than they would otherwise be, without actually saying anything.

("Actually" is useful, too. Three syllables. Can't be bad. Fills many an awkward gap.)

MrP

>> I got what you meant MrP ... When i make a conversation , i use them (um, er..etc) involuntary. For example if we were talking face to face , i would say 'i use them ,umm,invotuntary.' . Because i would think to find a fit word...

In my opinion , i have not found that kind of expressions necessasy so far. I will use them frequently from now on. <<

I hope you know that he was being droll (at least I hope). I would ask that you not attempt to overuse such words. He was pointing out how unclear some English dialects can be.