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Would an American trying to speak British English be rude?
- Thread starter w00tmaster
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mpw said:Oooo I could wax lyrical about Brazilian too, I'd love to get my tongue around it. But was never any good at languages
So you're not the cunning linguist that you want us to believe?
mpw said:
Your link first made me laugh. The second time nearly made me puke! Check out the guys arm.
L
Lau
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iBlue said:
As would I. There's absolutely no way for someone who hasn't been told in advance to know the correct pronunciation of those words, and hell, I've lived in the UK all my life and have got strange place names wrong when I've moved somewhere new.
As for the original poster's question, I say that doing it all suddenly might make you seem like a pretentious tit, but more gradually adding words and phrases in might be ok. Just don't do it consciously "I will use a British word... here", but if you immerse yourself in the culture (whether it be through living here or watching films or whatever) you'll find it all comes a lot more naturally.
In a similar vein, of course, there's Beaulieu = Bewlay. Names in general are good fun: Marjoribanks = Marchbanks, Featherstonehaugh = Fanshaw, Dalziel = Dee-ell, etc, etc.Lau said:
Island people...we chop the lanuage right up and its fun. Wi tek it, run it, mash it and back pon it.
Bless
Bless
Backt on topic... I would guess some American dude's "British English" would most likely be perceived as contrived and idiotic.
Abstract said:
As established in this thread, I would say most Americans have equal amount of State pride as National pride, and often times more so.
Originally, each American state was a sovereign nation. Each state has dozens of "counties" inside it, and each county has districts within that. American counties are akin to provinces or states of other, smaller countries.
dpaanlka said:
Indeed. Whenever I meet an American and they introduce themselves as 'American', I (usually) ask which state, purely because there's such differences between states and regions. Well, that's what it seems like to me, 'tho I've never actually been to any of 'em
I took a medieval english lit class in college, the professor was fluent in middle english. We read Spencers " The Fairie Queen" in it. It was beautiful, an entirely different language, but familiar enough it was easy to learn.
dalvin200 said:lol.. it's funny how americans pronounce:
Derby - in UK it's pronounced "DARBY", but they say dErby
Leicester - in UK its pronounced "LESTER", but they say "lie-sester"
Birmingham is like "birmingum" instead of birmingHAM
and the best one
Loughborough.. lol!! I remember I had a 10 min conversation with some tourists trying to say that town!! It's pronounced like "LUFF-BRA".. I won't even try to write down how others have tried to pronounce it
Or even Belvoir.. lol!! is pronounced as "BEAVER" not as "BEL-VOIR"
I used to live in Upper Darby and the spelling was changed to match the pronunciation over 100 or so years.
Leicester is one of many interesting converted Latin names. Cester comes from the Latin word for castle and the American pronunciation is more faithful to the original.
Loughborough will definitely give Americans trouble but as with everything else, people in the northeast U.S.A. are better equipped to deal with the name as they have similar names in their lives every day. I always thought that Slough was a difficult name because I'd expect it to sound like plough.
As for the original poster, would it be rude? No, but just remember: they're not laughing with you, they're laughing at you.
Best one i heard was when I worked in a museum, a group of American tourists went around and asked a question about a 'lep pre sion' ? what's a lep pre sion I thought to myself, it then dawned on me thats how they were saying leprechaun. strange
The irish names for places are really hard for travellers both UK and especially American to get their tongue around. Quite often it's pronounced completely differently to how it looks which doesnt help.
strange The irish names for places are really hard for travellers both UK and especially American to get their tongue around. Quite often it's pronounced completely differently to how it looks which doesnt help.
But it's not just Americans... we get the same things here. I've heard the following from Europeans:
Pontiac pronounced "Pon-chass" (???)
Illinois pronounced "Ill-i-noyss"
Chicago pronounced with what sounds like a "u" added in. Chicago is pronounced "Chi -kah-go" not "Chi-kau-go"
Peoria pronounced "Poura"
Lemont pronounced "Lemond" - it's "LemonT" according to everybody that lives there, so that's what it is.
Asian visitors seem quite comfortable saying American words correctly.
Pontiac pronounced "Pon-chass" (???)
Illinois pronounced "Ill-i-noyss"
Chicago pronounced with what sounds like a "u" added in. Chicago is pronounced "Chi -kah-go" not "Chi-kau-go"
Peoria pronounced "Poura"
Lemont pronounced "Lemond" - it's "LemonT" according to everybody that lives there, so that's what it is.
Asian visitors seem quite comfortable saying American words correctly.
I've found myself, with age and education my mannerisms and dialect has been mangled somewhat. People from 10 miles away from here think I talk "manc", which people actually mistake for the Salford accent which is like comparing malt vinegar to sulphuric acid. But some words come out as posh and I use cheerio as much as I use ta-ra. my girlfriends housemates down in Stoke think we all talk like Oasis. OH! and I've found myself doing that baubering fat posh man speak when you're trying to think of something. god knows where that came from...
oooh it's funny. that's the thing about real English, you have to pick a city/town and stick with it. else you come off like Brad Pitt in Snatch who somehow cycles through every Irish accent in the duration of the film.
Janet Street Porter and Talk Sport have put me off the London accent forever, sorry.
OH AND IT'S ED-IN-BRUH. NOT EDIN-BURG. ****
EDIT:I was having a bit of a chat with my granddad the other day about dialects. He was over somewhere in Yorkshire when he was a kid and was asked "whats yu code?"... which he later found out was "what are you called" love the Yorkshire accent in general. beautiful it is.
OH! and I've found myself doing that baubering fat posh man speak when you're trying to think of something. god knows where that came from...oooh it's funny. that's the thing about real English, you have to pick a city/town and stick with it. else you come off like Brad Pitt in Snatch who somehow cycles through every Irish accent in the duration of the film.
Janet Street Porter and Talk Sport have put me off the London accent forever, sorry.
OH AND IT'S ED-IN-BRUH. NOT EDIN-BURG. ****
EDIT:I was having a bit of a chat with my granddad the other day about dialects. He was over somewhere in Yorkshire when he was a kid and was asked "whats yu code?"... which he later found out was "what are you called"
love the Yorkshire accent in general. beautiful it is.
MacRumorUser said:Best one i heard was when I worked in a museum, a group of American tourists went around and asked a question about a 'lep pre sion' ? what's a lep pre sion I thought to myself, it then dawned on me thats how they were saying leprechaun.
The irish names for places are really hard for travellers both UK and especially American to get their tongue around. Quite often it's pronounced completely differently to how it looks which doesnt help.
*grin*
The best I've heard was a CNN International sports presenter who turned Gloucestershire into Glau-CHESTER-shire.
Mind you, it works both ways... Hauppauge (I think that's 'Hop-Hog'), for example. I also quite like the name Poughkeepsie ('puh-keepsie', I think). Cute.
[edit] Welsh places are cool too. Betws-Y-Coed. Llechwedd. Luckily, barring a few doubled-consonants, Welsh is pretty phonetic.
raggedjimmi said:
Actually Brad's accent in Snatch wasnt from any county in Ireland, but was the Irish Traveller (gypsy) dialect. And as indeciferable as it was, it was fairly accurate.
The dialect is pronounced 'kant' but is actually spelt as 'cant'
But other than the travellers, no where in Ireland do people speak like that.
Worse CRIME against Irish accents was 'Gangs of New York' that film astounded with its cringe worthy accents, and the funny thing is - you had the American doing the Irish accents (very badly) and the real Irish actors doing American accents.. totally back to front....
Other things that make me cringe are the 'top of the morning' kind of Irish accent in films, it's as bad as the Dick Van Dyke cockney londoner accent....
dpaanlka said:
Ah, but what part of Chicago do you hail from? My family comes from Bucktown, so we say "Shuh-caw-Guh". Just like Front-Room becomes Frunchroom somehow. lol.
Also, Middle English (ala Chaucer) makes my brain melt. I just got done doing 3 weeks of Chaucer for brit lit, and my head hurts. I'm glad it evolved!
