8 replies to this topic

[andr99]

....and not Jeremy Clarkson and all the others at Top Gear....when they speak ?


The guy speaks so well that I can understand nearly every word he says.

Apart that, I keep my own idea, widely accepted, that Celtic culture is the culture that generated in Halstatt-LaTene.

Edited by andr99, 28 March 2015 - 09:44 AM.

[hhh]

The man in the youtube clip is highly articulate, speaking in what would probably be considered an "upper class" educated accent, pronouncing every letter in each word. The Top Gear guys are less articulate with regional accents that slur many words and modulate the vowel sounds, sometimes to the point of making them unrecognisable to someone not fluent in English.

[andr99]

The man in the youtube clip is highly articulate, speaking in what would probably be considered an "upper class" educated accent, pronouncing every letter in each word. The Top Gear guys are less articulate with regional accents that slur many words and modulate the vowel sounds, sometimes to the point of making them unrecognisable to someone not fluent in English.

thank you.......normally I' ve got no problems to understand English when I' m in front of a mother tongue speaker, talking to me. It's different when I have to understand songs' lyrics or the movies or tv. Usually I understand something, but not all. With this guy I have missed probably two words at all. It's not bad after all as I' ve never been to England or to the USA...so it's all by myself.

[libertas]

The standard English pronunciation is generally know as "RP," for Received Pronunciation, or more casually as BBC or Public School English. It is standard in the sense that it is used by pronunciation dictionaries. However, no more than 5% of the British population uses RP and in the other 95% there exists a wide range of accents and dialects. There is no majority accent, and it is said that there is more linguistic variation within any hundred mile square of Britain than in the entire US. All three Top Gear presenters use RP, as does the gentleman in the video clip.

Try the audio clips in this article for some samples. You will find clips of the Top Gear presenters about halfway through the page. Or watch an episode or two of "Downton Abbey,' which displays a variety of carefully curated regional accents as well as RP.

The gentleman in the video speaks slowly and expressively. I suspect it is largely his pacing which makes him easier to understand, although as a native RP speaker I have no trouble with any of them so it is hard for me to judge.

[andr99]

The standard English pronunciation is generally know as "RP," for Received Pronunciation, or more casually as BBC or Public School English. It is standard in the sense that it is used by pronunciation dictionaries. However, no more than 5% of the British population uses RP and in the other 95% there exists a wide range of accents and dialects. There is no majority accent, and it is said that there is more linguistic variation within any hundred mile square of Britain than in the entire US. All three Top Gear presenters use RP, as does the gentleman in the video clip.

Try the audio clips in this article for some samples. You will find clips of the Top Gear presenters about halfway through the page. Or watch an episode or two of "Downton Abbey,' which displays a variety of carefully curated regional accents as well as RP.

The gentleman in the video speaks slowly and expressively. I suspect it is largely his pacing which makes him easier to understand, although as a native RP speaker I have no trouble with any of them so it is hard for me to judge.

One day I will get to England or Ireland and spend the most time I can, there, because the language is beautiful, probably simpler and less precise (which thing gives me some problems at times here in the forum) than italian, but beautiful. Italian is more precise and I explain you why. Let's say.....I have a cousin. In English you can't understand if the cousin you're talking about is male or female. In italian you can. (Io) ho un cugino (male) or (Io) ho una cugina (female). So cugin-is the root and o-a are the desinences. In italian you always know if what your talking about is male, female or neutral. Then there's another thing which helps you a lot......you don't need to always put the subject because it's the desinence of the verb that tells you which one the subject is. For example.....I chant- (Io) canto. You chant-(tu) canti etc. etc. Every person, singular or plural that it is, has got its own desinence and that means you can put the subject or not, it's the same. But let me say.....English, despite some lack of precision in comparison to what I' m used to, is very beautiful and well sounding. Then words are usually shorter which explains why English music is dominant. It is supported by a language than can easily go alongside with notes. I stop here. Nice language deserving a more accurate learning process than the one I got as a kid at high school.

Edited by andr99, 28 March 2015 - 03:36 PM.

[dasein]

I remember is speaking to a guy from Glasgow and not understanding a word, I thought he spoke an exotic foreign language - we switched to French, at which point I understood he said he was speaking English! while I can do brooklyn I have something of a mid-atlantic accent and normally have no trouble understanding people with ESL or Dubliners or even Cockney - but that was the one time I was stymied!

[dasein]

anyway - thanks for the link - the commentary is especially interesting - but the entire topic is beyond my ken!

[libertas]

One day I will get to England or Ireland and spend the most time I can, there, because the language is beautiful, probably simpler and less precise (which thing gives me some problems at times here in the forum) than italian, but beautiful.

My knowledge of Italian is elementary - I can read a newspaper, for example, but really not speak the language to any but the most basic degree. But modern Italian still keeps much of the formal structure of Latin, which I studied in school for many years, so that helps.

English has a fairly high degree of ambiguity - for example the word pen can be a noun or a verb; as a noun mean a writing instrument, an enclosure, a prison, the shell of a squid, or a female swan; as a verb can mean to enclose or confine, to write... You get the idea. Latin and Italian are much less ambiguous, as you point out, at the price of a more complex structure.

But where English is powerful is that over the centuries it has stolen words from many, many other languages. A basic, functional English vocabulary is only 850 words, yet the definitive Oxford English Dictionary contains over 600,000 words.

[andr99]

One day I will get to England or Ireland and spend the most time I can, there, because the language is beautiful, probably simpler and less precise (which thing gives me some problems at times here in the forum) than italian, but beautiful.

My knowledge of Italian is elementary - I can read a newspaper, for example, but really not speak the language to any but the most basic degree. But modern Italian still keeps much of the formal structure of Latin, which I studied in school for many years, so that helps.

English has a fairly high degree of ambiguity - for example the word pen can be a noun or a verb; as a noun mean a writing instrument, an enclosure, a prison, the shell of a squid, or a female swan; as a verb can mean to enclose or confine, to write... You get the idea. Latin and Italian are much less ambiguous, as you point out, at the price of a more complex structure.

But where English is powerful is that over the centuries it has stolen words from many, many other languages. A basic, functional English vocabulary is only 850 words, yet the definitive Oxford English Dictionary contains over 600,000 words.

thanks.....over the time I' ve learned more about your tongue and you guys give me daily lessons to understand it better and I' m grateful to you for that.

Best
g.g.