Search results for 'tag:American English tag:Interviews' matching tags 'American English' and 'Interviews'

Re: Canadians and their English

Anonymous — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 21:56:02 GMT

Well, you are supposed to write about the *new* trends in Canadian English. Not the history of CE. I think that the Canadian Shift would probably be your best bet--it is a very recent innovation, and thus is one of the few features of CE that could be considered new. It also has many interesting Sociolinguistic variables associated with it--for example, young women are leading the change, whereas males, older women, and young children are much more conservative. You could include information on the early interviews--e.g. where they first discovered it. It is also interesting because this shift moves the vowels in the opposite direction from that of the Inland North dialect in the US. The Canadian Shift also affects some speakers in the Western US. There is also a related shift in California as well that contains many of the same features. The Canadian shift is thought to be triggered by the cot-caught merger. This is because, the merger of "cot" and "caught" leaves a hole in the vowel system, and many other vowels have to move around to maximize the difference between them. The cot-caught merger is an innovation in certain North American dialects. What is does is to cause speakers that have it to make no distinction between the vowels in words such as "cot" and "caught", or "bot" and "bought" or "tot" and "taught". They still have both vowels, but they apply them indiscriminately to those words: so if they were speaking to someone without the merger, and they said the word "cot" the non-merged individual would sometimes think that they were saying "cot" and at other times think they were saying "caught". Fortunately this rarely causes confusion, because most of the words are not able to be confused: e.g. because of context, it's impossible to confuse the words "cot" and "caught". The c-c merger is one of the mergers that is an innovation in North American English. It affects all of Canada. It is unknown exactly why. One hypothosis was that it was imported from Pennsylvania (which also has some c-c merged individuals). The merger is also universal in the Western US. The Midwest however, is predominately unmerged--most Midwesterners still have a distinction between those vowels. Several decades ago, there was no such thing as the c-c merger, but since then it has spread to cover a large section of North America. However, due to the configuration of vowels in other dialects, such as in much of the Midwest, it is unlikely to spread to those areas. This means, that crossing the border in many places between the US and Canada will immediately change dialects. The most extreme case is that between Detroit (US), and Windsor (Canada). Although they are so close geographically, the accent changes immediately, with no transitional area right at the border. Detroit is affected by the Northern Cities vowel shift, which is triggered by the fact that the "a" in "cat" is raised and is diphthongized. Detroit is completely c-c unmerged as well. Windsor is completely merged. The Northern Cities vowel shift (US) shifts many vowels in opposite directions as that of the Canadian shift. Thus the word "mop" in Detroit, sounds like how someone from Windsor would say "map". I even remember reading someones blog (that was from Windsor), and what happened when they asked for a "map" in Detroit. Just a few decades ago, when neither shift existed, this confusion would be impossible. You can read more about the Canadian shift, by going to Wikipedia. Go the the article on the English Wikipedia entitled "Canadian English", and find the section called the Canadian Shift. It then links to an article that contains a technical description of the shift. In fact this is one of the only places on the internet that contains info on the shift. And because it is such a recent innovation there are very few books on it. Then check out the Bibliography in that Wikipedia article. Then if you go to scholar.google.com you can type in the Bibliography items and in many case read the full text of the actual studies on the CVS!

Re: "Do you mind?" & "Are you mind?"

Yankee — Wed, 14 Mar 2007 17:14:28 GMT

Marius Hancu wrote:
"Are you mind?"
seems to be non-standard/slang for "Do you mind?"

Deek Magazine - Popular Underculture

Are you mind? DEEK: No, I don't mind. SHADE: Hey, Ilya, baby, we're kind of in the middle of an interview. ILYANA: Okay, so sorry. Sorry ! DEEK: No problem. ...

That's a pretty wild assumption to make based on a single Google result. Actually, it doesn't even seem to be slang. It is clearly and simply a non-native speaker mistake. If you read further in this interview, you'll find out that the famed Ilyana is from the Ukraine. In the same interview, you can find another mistake that Ilyana makes. She says "Oh, you are not having to." instead of "You don't have to."

----------------

Sea Wolf, 'are you mind' is not used in American English. I have never heard any native speaker use 'are you mind' instead of 'do you mind' -- not even in Pittsburgh.

Re: waiting for ur execises , I enjoy alot !!!

Logicman — Sat, 16 Sep 2006 11:45:40 GMT

Hello again, Zara.

Thank you for your very kind words. Just as you say that I have given you encouragement, so I must say that you in turn have encouraged me to continue giving some of my time to help you and others here on this forum.

Strangely enough, I have never taught English before. I study how language works, and I use computers to help me. Computer building is one of my hobbies. Another thing I like to do is search the internet for interesting web sites about language. That is how I found this web site.

I came here just now because I wanted to respond quickly to your kind remarks. I hope to come back again and again. For now, I am going to try to help you in just a few ways. As before, I shall mark some parts in blue. Why blue?   Well, I think that most people see red ink as marking something bad. In writing, I don't think of good or bad, but rather clear or not clear.

If you go to this web site, you will find about 850 words listed.
http://ogden.basic-english.org/basiceng.html
If you search around there, you may find many helpful ideas and new words. If there are any words that you don't know, or don't understand, please ask here for help.   There are many people here who are very keen to help you, and others like you.

I am now going to change some of what you have just written. You will notice that I have not said that I am going to correct it. It is for you to choose what is correct. I can only advise.   There are many kinds of English. There is British English and American English. Then there are Australian, Canadian, New Zealand and South African English. I suppose there is also a Burmese English. In each country there are different choices about what words mean, and there are different ideas about style.

First,    I want to thank you very much for taking the time to write a very knowledgeable encouraging post. I really appreciated it and itâs really helpful.     [or - " ...for giving your time to write... "]

Yes, you are absolutely right. English is really flexible. I often get confused by the different ways of saying the same thing . It's hard to understand all of them sometimes. I also like to watch interviews, so Iâve found thereâs a lot of different ways of saying things. As you said, itâs really flexible and also complicated. [or - "...ways of saying the same thing."]

And I enjoyed reading Theseus & the Minotaur . But I have to read it again because there's a lot of words I don't know and I have to look them up in a dictionary .   [vocabularies are lists of words]

Oh , Do you have any idea of how to learn a vocabulary . Somebody told me that I should learn five words per day from the dictionary, but I think it's a very hard idea . And I can't learn them all, I mean there's millions of words . But I do it like this: when I have found a new word, then I look it up in a dictionary but the memory doesn't last long, I forget them in a short time . Sometimes I feel exhausted trying to catch those thousands of words.

[I like the idea, the mental picture, of catching words.   It's poetic! I would have just said "...trying to remember all those words."
You see, that is your choice of phrase. You would never find that in a book about grammar.]

I hope you can give me some good suggestions.

Thanks again.
..................................................................................
You are most welcome.

Do you see where I have used italics? The idea is to show where in speech you would stress, or emphasise a word.

I hope to come back and see what else you, and others, have written.
Goodbye for now.

Re: Mistake from where

Danyoo — Tue, 27 Dec 2005 03:47:15 GMT

For the whole, I enclosed herewith my resume for your kind consideration and I hope my solid experience would properly help myself to develop my career in this field.
Suggestion: Herewith I have enclosed my resume for your kind consideration and hope my solid experience will enable me to further develop my career in this field.
-For the whole is not needed.
-I hope my.....will....not would.
-Better to say further develop since you are saying you already have experience.

I would like to success your business if future great cooperation can be achieved.
Suggestion: I am looking forward to getting an opportunity to contribute to the future success of your company.
-This is very poorly constructed sentence.

I look forward to being granted an interview, when I shall be glad to explain myself to you more detail.
Suggestion: I look forward to being granted an interview, at which time I will be glad to further explain more about myself.
-shall be is not commonly used in modern day English...at least not in American English.

Re: British vs American English

Guest — Wed, 11 Aug 2004 09:39:08 GMT

It's actually only rather pompous British speakers who contract the internal sounds in words like terrorist. Most of us pronounce it thoroughly, though we maybe do not labour it so very much as some southern American speakers.

As for words like school, there is a great deal of variation. It is often said as skoo-ul but just as often it's pronounced in the typical American way -- skool.

There are many words that do genuinely differ in pronounciation, but if you're trying to learn British Engligh, attitude is most important...

British kids have drummed into them in school the idea that they don't own the language! Language is treated by the majority of British people as something to be learned not created. Thus, only if there is the dire need for it, is it considered acceptable to create a new word when speaking. I heard a TV interview with Madonna a few years back where she used the words "emotionality" and "physicality". Over half of the British people in the room groaned. "Why couldn't she just say emotional and physical sides?"

Interestingly, I'm Welsh and find that Welsh people have an even more reverent attitude to the English language, though not to the Welsh language! It's simply considered proof of one's stupidity to be unable to express oneself using standard English. Perhaps, however, it's very much to do with the class system in the UK which is clearly very different in the States. I think most of us secretely love the idea of being not just very wealthy but also cultured, waited on, even aristocratic.

All that said, what I would really like to know is whether the American we hear on TV is accepted as standard American English? Apart from on the BBC we do know hear slang, even cringe-worthy language used on British TV. Since the only contact most British people get with American culture is in the form of TV shows and movies, have we developed an unfair view?

Sorry for the monologue!

Lee