On January 01 2009 08:19 0xDEADBEEF wrote: Hmm... British English speakers sound a bit funny but "classy" American English speakers sound very colloquial, "chewing gum English". I never liked that Americans pronounce "can't" like they pronounce "can"... this is confusing sometimes. British speakers pronounce "can't" with a long aaa sound, it's more clear but doesn't sound so badass. Still, I prefer AE over BE in every other case. I absolutely hate German accent when speaking English... for example if you watch a Mondragon interview you'll immediately know what I mean. It's ugly. I always take care not to sound like that when speaking English. In general I like English very much... always did. So it doesn't really sound strange to me... it has almost become as familiar as German since I read and write so much English, and also watch a lot of English movies, and play English games all the time. Oh, and my operating system and programs, even my keyboard layout, is all US English.
Can't = can not. Makes sense to pronounce both can and can't the same.
Awesome, I want to see more non-speakers do it ^^.
Also, the hardest English speakers to understand (who speak it natively) for me are definitely proper glasgow scottish and jamaican
I don't have much trouble with glasgow accents, as I have had a few friends from there. All scottish friends I've had were girls, though, so sometimes it is hard to understand the guys (but then I don't wanna talk to guys, LOL I AM NOT GAY AMIRITE LOL).
It also happens that those two are the best accents ever ^^ Scottish and Jamaican :D
Chinese dialects are so different from one another, it would be impossible for two Chinese to speak to each other if they do not know a common dialect. You'd be able to pick out a couple words that sound similar, but not enough to understand. Good thing most Chinese know Mandarin in addition to whatever their local dialect is, if any. It's not difficult to understand someone who speaks English with a different accent than you do.
who would understand that without subtitles?
wow
I understood that PERFECTLY
WHAT THE HELL was that language?? ._.
Edit: Oh, wait nvm lol it's that fake english like the other video
Chinese dialects are so different from one another, it would be impossible for two Chinese to speak to each other if they do not know a common dialect. You'd be able to pick out a couple words that sound similar, but not enough to understand. Good thing most Chinese know Mandarin in addition to whatever their local dialect is, if any. It's not difficult to understand someone who speaks English with a different accent than you do.
i grew up playing pc games like everyone else around tl i guess. so when i played diablo at age 9 or sth like that (in germany you regularly start learning english in school at 10) i didnt understand shit, but i figured a way to "translate" it, just like everyone does, by context. i always loved english and probably ever will, although i may not be perfect when it comes to theoretical grammer :D
so i guess this and what was said about getting used to english by hollywood anyway makes english sound very familiar and nice in my ears. i also agree on what was said about german accented english which is really groce
Chinese dialects are so different from one another, it would be impossible for two Chinese to speak to each other if they do not know a common dialect. You'd be able to pick out a couple words that sound similar, but not enough to understand. Good thing most Chinese know Mandarin in addition to whatever their local dialect is, if any. It's not difficult to understand someone who speaks English with a different accent than you do.
Edit: Oh, wait nvm lol it's that fake english like the other video
It's a combination, its an Irish/Gypsy accent. You would have seen it if you've ever seen the movie Snatch. Comedian Tommy Tiernan has it as well, just not to indistinguishable.
On January 01 2009 06:24 PanoRaMa wrote: always wondered what british and australians thought about the various american accents, if they're as funny to them as their respective accents are to us
I have always wondered this too, because sometimes I just start laughing when I hear them talk.
We always make fun of strong british accents and strong southern USA accents, but when I listen to the USA guys casting VODs and stuff, nothing really stands out. Strong British accents make the person sound incredibly stuck up and pansy, while strong american accents just sound plain retarded lol.
A strong australian accent is also pretty funny to us. Everyone says they love plexa's accent but I don't see what's so distinctive about it haha. The New Zealand accent was developed way back when ppl from britain and stuff started colonising the country, and apparently the mix of Irish + British + French + native Maori children at schools was where the accent came out from, so it's kinda mix of everything and doesn't have anything too distinctive.
Interestingly South Island has a much more Irish accent because of the history of gold mines and stuff. It's also a tad "backwards" like southern USA
You say fush instead of fish and chups instead of chips and you say we have a funny accent?
On January 01 2009 06:24 PanoRaMa wrote: always wondered what british and australians thought about the various american accents, if they're as funny to them as their respective accents are to us
I have always wondered this too, because sometimes I just start laughing when I hear them talk.
We always make fun of strong british accents and strong southern USA accents, but when I listen to the USA guys casting VODs and stuff, nothing really stands out. Strong British accents make the person sound incredibly stuck up and pansy, while strong american accents just sound plain retarded lol.
A strong australian accent is also pretty funny to us. Everyone says they love plexa's accent but I don't see what's so distinctive about it haha. The New Zealand accent was developed way back when ppl from britain and stuff started colonising the country, and apparently the mix of Irish + British + French + native Maori children at schools was where the accent came out from, so it's kinda mix of everything and doesn't have anything too distinctive.
Interestingly South Island has a much more Irish accent because of the history of gold mines and stuff. It's also a tad "backwards" like southern USA
You say fush instead of fish and chups instead of chips and you say we have a funny accent?
Oh man the first time I saw that video I was dieing from laughter. I'M BEACHED AS BRO. The only kiwis that have that kind of accent are the hardcore maori, but it sure as hell is funny when you hear it.
I find extreme australian accents annoying insetad of comical like "fush and chups" because it sounds like almost whiny and it sounds like they have a blocked nose haha, but hardly any australians are that bad.
Haha yeah, one of my fav. youtube videos, they actually sold tshirts of the whale in some clothing stores here for a while.
And yeah it's definitely the extremes that we find amusing.
Personally I like American English. It sounds plain and often "hillybilly" but at least you can be understood easily. My old job required me to call many people around the world and believe me, Americans, Swedes and people from the Czech Republic were the easiest to be understood. Yes, they were easier to be understood than people with British accent.The British secretaries speak as if they had cocks stuck in their mouths. Speaking of "mouths", I hate all the "th" words. "Keith" - this word hurts me when I hear it pronounced with the British accent.
As for British - received pronunciation sounds classy, but is harder to be understood than American Engish. Unfortunately for some reason very few people seem to actually use it. Maybe the British dont have TV or something. Most of them speak like junkies using cockney or some other pikey accents that resemble groans and moans made by zerg units. "Aight".
There are worse things. Irish. It sounds so incredibly bad. Do you remember the scene from Snatch where Brad Pitt was using this Pikey accent? That's how Irish sounds to me.
I actually always wonder how is it possible that the British, Germans (to some degree) and perhaps even the Chinese have so different accents that they have problems in understanding each others. You dont have TV or schools? o_o
I've never really thought of how english "sounds" much because of the fact that i've been exposed to so much english during my life. Sweden doesn't dub english moves for example, they just add subtitles, so It's always felt pretty "natural" to me. I've got to agree on that Brittish english sounds a bit more fancy than American english though, but I actually enjoy hearing different english accents. I for one love the Irish accent, I also dig the Australian one ;O
I've always thought that all the asian languages sounds the same though, and I really HATE swedes who can't really eliminate the swedish prounounciations when they speak english, so I try to keep as far away as possible from sounding swedish when I speak english.
English sounds so different depending on who is speaking I live in the UK for the last couple of years (but I am not a native English speaker), and the number of different accents and dialects is astounding.
Some people speak very clearly and are easy to follow, some speak in such a way that I need them to repeat the phrase two or three times to catch the meaning.
Generally, I find it that "classic" English with proper pronounciation is very easy to follow, even if you don't understand some words it is not a problem to get the sentence structure and single out the words; however, "local" English accents are a nightmare because they sound as a uniform sequence of random syllables with no structure whatsoever.
There are quite a few British/Irish accents I can't always understand, I guess the hardest would be Geordie, ugliest being Hull/Yorkshire and Scouse of course which is a horrible bastardization of English.
Outside UK Nigerian English is brutal. It's like they couldn't be fucked learning it properly after a certain point. In Europe Scandinavians hide their accents the best, bloody show offs. American English is like dubbed down English for beginners and is surely the easiest to understand for a non-native speaker, it's like listening to English in slow motion whereas Brits speak a lot faster.
EPT
