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Inchoateknowledge
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291019
Thu, 09 Nov 06 09:55 AM
Which speech pattern of speakers of English as a foreign language makes your hair stand on end most, you, natives?
I have a funny German sample; how about it:
http://www.home.no/vavika/sinking.wmv
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Beep! Beep! :)
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Mister Micawber
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291036
Thu, 09 Nov 06 11:01 AM
That's funny, IK. Honestly, I have never considered that EFL speakers could 'make my hair stand on end'-- I just don't see language use (or misuse) that way. I have plenty of students who eat lice for breakfast and take a bus before bedtime, but I seldom notice such idiosyncrasies as such.
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'The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'which is to be master-- that's all.'
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Cool Breeze
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Thu, 09 Nov 06 10:28 PM
 Mister Micawber wrote: |
That's funny, IK.
Honestly, I have never considered that EFL speakers could 'make my hair stand on end'-- I just don't see language use (or misuse) that way. I have plenty of students who eat lice for breakfast and take a bus before bedtime, but I seldom notice such idiosyncrasies as such.
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Hi MM That's a nice thing about native speakers of English, particularly Americans. They don't look down on nonnatives as frequently as speakers of some other major languages. Language is for communication. By the way, a Finn might confuse you by talking about tinkers instead of thinkers since the initial sound of thinkers does not exist in Finnish. Formula one driver Mika Häkkinen was a good example of never producing that sound. On the other hand, unlike the Japanese, rice and lice cause no problems for us. Cheers CB
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"I hope you'll all live to be 150 years old - and the last voice you hear is mine!" Frank Sinatra on stage in Oslo, Norway, 28 September 1991
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J Lewis
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Fri, 10 Nov 06 11:19 AM
Considering how little effort the British and the Americans generally make to learn foreign languages, I always appreciate whatever attempts my students make to learn English, however imperfect. My hair doesn't stand on end because of mistakes connected with their own language. The only thing I object to here in Italy is mistakes coming from preconceptions about English, which have no basis in the Italian language. The main one concerns the letter "a", which many Italians are convinced is pronounced like an "e". Partly this comes from a simplification of the "ei" diphthong, so they pronounce "David" as "Devvid" and "Glade" as "Gled", but mainly form a mis-hearing of the Southern English, and particularly the American, short "a", so they talk about "feshion", "news flesh" and "menegers". In vain I tell them that no one in Britain says anything like "Hugh Grent". In vain I ask them why, if they have to say "Internetional", they don't also say "Emnesty". Of course, we British do equally bad things with the letter "a" when saying foreign words. Knowing that the short southern "a" is not appropriate, we substitute it with the equally inappropriate "ah" in "lasaahnya", "Iraahn", "Don Geeovaahni" etc.
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nona the brit
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Fri, 10 Nov 06 12:11 PM
I can't say there is any accent that puts my teeth on edge.
Sometimes the rythmn and tone of speech can sound quite unwittingly aggressive when people bring the intonations over from certain other languages. Some nationalities are 'louder' or more 'fierce' sounding compared to your standard Brit. That can be a bit confusing sometimes. You can think someone is being rude, aggressive or sarcastic at you when they don't intend that at all.
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The name says it all.
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Zerox
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Fri, 10 Nov 06 06:20 PM
What do you natives think of monotous speech. My current English teacher said that in his last visit to England he talked of this with some Englishmen, and they considered it as a bit boring way of talking. Nothing serious, though.
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-It is rational that the irrational contradicts with the rational-
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nona the brit
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Sat, 11 Nov 06 11:47 AM
It is boring to listen to someone with a monotonous voice. They can be of any nationality though, you get plenty of boring English people too. It's a shame because the content of their language may be very interesting. I have to be careful because when I'm nervous my speech tends to get rather monotonal - if I'm giving a presentation for example I have to be aware of how I'm talking and make an effort to keep it interesting.
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Somnambulist
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300784
Tue, 05 Dec 06 12:09 PM
Most of the english learners over here in Turke have got some problems with 'th' sound coz they look really funny when they try to make that sound,and it is really difficult to tell the difference between a voiced 'th' in ,ei; their,they,breathe and voiceless 'th' in ' both,thorn,or thick etc. Sometimes to get over this problem I suggest that they can make the sound 'f' in place of voiceless 'th' just like the cockney do.I don't know how right it is![Smile [:)]](/emoticons/emotion-1.gif)
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Marvin A.
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Wed, 27 Dec 06 05:10 PM
| J Lewis wrote: | Considering how little effort the British and the Americans generally make to learn foreign languages, I always appreciate whatever attempts my students make to learn English, however imperfect. My hair doesn't stand on end because of mistakes connected with their own language.
The only thing I object to here in Italy is mistakes coming from preconceptions about English, which have no basis in the Italian language. The main one concerns the letter "a", which many Italians are convinced is pronounced like an "e". Partly this comes from a simplification of the "ei" diphthong, so they pronounce "David" as "Devvid" and "Glade" as "Gled", but mainly form a mis-hearing of the Southern English, and particularly the American, short "a", so they talk about "feshion", "news flesh" and "menegers". In vain I tell them that no one in Britain says anything like "Hugh Grent". In vain I ask them why, if they have to say "Internetional", they don't also say "Emnesty".
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In some dialects of North American English, /æ/ is indeed pronounced as [ E ] . This is particularily true in Northern Midwestern dialects that have only a partial NCVS. Dialects with the NCVS pronounce it as [ e@ ] . Many other dialects also realize /æ/ as [ e@ ] when it is followed by /n/ or /m/, including California English.
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