I Speak thirty seven dialects of English...all of them badly. How about you?
I have a southern draw, that breaks into hundred different varients depending on what region of the country I'm in so alot of bad english. I speak some ok italian and bad german that's mostly curses and swearing.
Fizz
Ek het twintig jaar in Suid Afrika gewoon.
wo xian zai shi yi wei Taiwan ren.
I was born in Oxford, England.
Haer, see yoo Jimmy, me mam come frae Glasgae.
Afrikaans, Mandarin, Oxford English, Glaswegian.
I speak German and English. I live in Texas, but in far west Texas, so there's no Texas drawl, but I can fake one pretty good because a lot of my family has a southern or Texan drawl.
German is my native language but I do not have a German accent, except that sometimes I'm told I sound a little bit like I'm from Minnesota, which has a large German immigrant population which has flavored their regional accent.
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I speak German and English. I live in Texas, but in far west Texas, so there's no Texas drawl, but I can fake one pretty good because a lot of my family has a southern or Texan drawl.
German is my native language but I do not have a German accent, except that sometimes I'm told I sound a little bit like I'm from Minnesota, which has a large German immigrant population which has flavored their regional accent.
You must be up for the Hitler joke then...How tall was he? Put horizontal finger just under nose..."THIS HIGH!" Where did he come from? Right handed Nazi salute indicating somewhere in Europe (requires Big wall map to be really effective)..."OVER THERE!"
Sorry..."Bromwell High" Addict.
Technically I speak 3 languages, Danish, English and German, but my German is rusty like a piece of metal from one of the numerous ships sunk when the British attacked our capital (let's see if anyone gets that historical reference).
I can still understand a lot of it, but as for me having to concoct sentences... not so much.
I can also pronounce a mean French, even though I don't understand any of it. :-D
The couple of times I've visited the US, people over there were genuinely surprised that I was from Europe, which goes hand in hand with my British ex-girlfriend telling me to stop talking like an American (a waiter at the best breakfast place in London even guessed me to be American too).
I'd love to be able to do Scottish and Irish accents, but I generally suck at it.
"Welcome to all things Scottish, if it ain't Scottish IT'S CRAP!"
Ek het twintig jaar in Suid Afrika gewoon.
Afrikaans
And apparently I understand a bit of Afrikaans, since I can see that Taliesin lived in South Africa for twenty years (okay, so maybe it has more to do with the likeness to Dutch, which looks a bit like German).
German--my birth language, no less!--has atrophied to the point where all I can do in it now is count and cuss. There is no conceivable way for me to string together a coherent sentence in it anymore. My French used to be good, but is rapidly following my German into the purgatory of lost languages.
Living in Texas, I need to learn Spanish pronto, but there is little opportunity to learn it. In the mountains of Jamaica, I rapidly picked up the ability to understand some of the Patois (it's amazing what total immersion will do), but I haven't heard any in years.
But I can at least speak and write in proper American English, which puts me ahead of 90% of the U.S. population.
Boku wa nihongo ga chotto hanasemasu.
I can speak a little Japanese.
And as a lifelong resident of southern California, refusing to learn Spanish is one of the few ways I can resist the literal invasion by Mexico that's going on here.
Well my native tongue would be English (specifically Southern drawl). That's right I'm one of those sweet Southern bells that make you think I'm giving you exactly what you want while accually getting exactly what I want from you. :-) I also happen to speak Italian fluently and French and Spanish fairly well. I'm working on German and a little Latin. Also a smattering of Norwegian and Russian but nothing I would be able to hold a conversation with lol. Interesting thread by the way.
'Zola
P.S I sing opera. That's why all the languages.
The only Italian I know I learned years ago, courtesy of Cartoon Planet on Cartoon Network. Anyone else remember this show? Brak, Zorak, and Space Ghost himself, broadening young minds everywhere. The first one is particularly useful:
Si bella a la luna de candela.
You look beautiful by the candlelight, buddy.
La porte vata de zuppe.
The door is made of soup.
Apolgies for any mangled spellings. I teach English, not Italian.
Well, I'm Irish, and can tell you that most US Irish accents we hear suck, making us sound like helium sucking Luck Charm mascots or simpering loons. The Irish accent one hears on TV tends to be kinda generic and so sounds fake, but in fact our region accents are very different. I'm sure that Dialect CD Paizo has gotten in can help iron out such wrinkles ;)
My own accent is pretty soft and generic, so that other locals can't place it.
Over here, I keep getting hit on by Waitresses; "Oh my, are you IRISH?!? I'm Irish too! I'd love to go to Ireland! Oooh say something, it's just too cute..."
Oh, and like most Irish folks, I have a decent understanding of Irish (don't use it, you lose it). My French is terrible and my German isn't much better.
My wife tells me my American accent is truly awful, once she stops laughing.
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Well, I'm Irish, and can tell you that most US Irish accents we hear suck, making us sound like helium sucking Luck Charm mascots or simpering loons. The Irish accent one hears on TV tends to be kinda generic and so sounds fake, but in fact our region accents are very different. I'm sure that Dialect CD Paizo has gotten in can help iron out such wrinkles ;)
I worked with a guy from Donegal for a summer--I picked it up from him.
I worked with a guy from Donegal for a summer--I picked it up from him.Well, I'm Irish, and can tell you that most US Irish accents we hear suck, making us sound like helium sucking Luck Charm mascots or simpering loons. The Irish accent one hears on TV tends to be kinda generic and so sounds fake, but in fact our region accents are very different. I'm sure that Dialect CD Paizo has gotten in can help iron out such wrinkles ;)
Ahh, good stuff- most accents tend to be gotten off the Telly, so it's a copy of a bad copy.
Donegal accent is very nice; soft and warm- most Ulster accents are heavily colored by Scotland, especially the Belfast accent- that one's pretty harsh.
Rone, the wannabe polyglot can't get enough of language. I speak or write (to no great affect):
English
Spanish
Latin
Russian
Hebrew
Norweigan
Hungarian
Some Old Icelandic, Japanese, Mandarin Chinese, Sumerian, and Middle English
Teensy bit of Italian, French, Swahili, Dutch... and I've made a fool of myself trying to nail down Hawaiian but I am still trying!
When I meet people from other countires I always show great interest in their culture and their usually happy that I made the attempt to speak their language, and so they often teach me more. I get rusty very quickly if I don't have a native speaker to talk to.
As for accents... I've a musical ear so I love to speak in accents. It must be very annoying for my business partner when I berate him all day long in a thick and surly Scottish accent, but so long as I'm amused, ya know?
I speak my own homebrew English language and a wee bit of German.
I find that thinking in German helps; learned that from the Firefox movie...
I also know enough Spanish words to speak it really badly.
Firefox? My friend and I saw that in the early 80's and we lampooned a certain line to death over the next three months.
Some guy, to Clint Eastwood: "Can you fly that plane?"
"Yeah, I can fly it..." (squint) "I'm the best there is."
So whenever we asked each other if we could do something we'd respond uniformly, with great intensity and mock gravel: "Yeah, I can (bake cookies, touch myself, walk home)... I'm the best there is."
Native language is English, but in my younger days, I was pretty good w/ reading Latin, Old English, and Old Norse. Until about 8 years ago, my Norwegian was pretty damn good. It's sadly rusty now. Passive understanding of Swedish (best if spoken) and Danish (best if written). Can figure out basic German and a tiny bit of French.
I sing opera. That's why all the languages.
Hawt.
I can read most of the romance languages fairly proficiently (I'm sure I have a horrible accent to natives). Latin I adore, to the extent I'll speak it in my sleep (I have no recollection of the event, but apparently it was sufficent enough to creep the hubby out - I wonder what I was saying). Used to be quite good at Russian, too. Only thing I remember from Russian is swearing (go figure).
Geek and Technobabble are my main languages. :P
Well, I'm Irish, and can tell you that most US Irish accents we hear suck, making us sound like helium sucking Luck Charm mascots or simpering loons.
On related note, I sometimes do really crappy English accents to annoy my British friends..."Fancy a cuppa, love?" I should practice more on Dick-van-D@@%-in-Mary-Poppins imitation, which is credited as definite reference point on awful English imitations :)
My normal English...some non-native speakers mistake me for English (and I have bit of Oxford in my speech), those who don't (and native speakers of course) often think I am German.
On my mother tongue Finnish I speak normally rather mid-southern dialect, close to "proper" Finnish.
Then I also speak Swedish (where it is clearly identifable that I am Finnish),
some French (to the extent that when I try to speak it, most French people switch to speaking English)
and some German where I can actually form almost intelligent sentences understood by people...but what German I have learned is Swabish, which is often thought by other Germans to be stupid and unintelligible dialect :)
And from knowing Swedish I get bits of Danish and Norwegian too, and French helps on Spanish and Italian, and German in Dutch, and Finnish in Estonian...
Let's see... I grew up in Germany, speaking German and English.
At one point in my brief military career, I could order beer in 7 languages.
I've got a bit of Spanish (thank you, Encino Man), and I'm trying to learn Irish Gaelic.
As a side project, I can quote a line from 'Wayne's World' in English, German, French, Spanish, and Hebrew. I'm still working on Romanian.
Anyone fluent in Klingon? I've been wondering about that translation.
Wow, lots of polyglots here.
I can have some pretty engaging conversations in my second languages (French and Mandarin) but I am really troubled by newpsapers and TV news.
My other languages are pretty limited to greetings, shopping and cursing, although I can catch some of the ordinary stuff my wife says to our daughter in Tagalog. She never speaks any with me so I fear I will never become a functional Tagalog speaker.
3 is enough, that's better than most. And like Balmer, I can order beer in ummm.... [counts fingers] 6 languages. It used to be 9 because I have an uncle who teachers classics and he taught me to order beer in Greek, Latin, and Hebrew, but I just can't remember anymore. Those dead languages are hard to remember.
Oh yah, I can speak hoser, too, eh.
Well, I probably know more about English than most peoples as I have me onna dem advanced Degree type things about it from an university. I can get by in German as I lived there a couple years but it has been a while, and can muddle by in Spanish and have most of my life which means I can and do watch Spanish tv or read instructions in Spanish and get most of it. I speak and read Middle English fluently and can do fairly well in Old English with time and study. My Latin is terrible, but I have lots of resources. My word horde rivals that of the greatest of dragons, but by memory isnt what it used to be. I speak Redneck often and it is probably my default language, but I dont take it seriously. I probably speak with a Southwestern drawl at the moment, but my ear for languages is tuned enough to change that with where I am.
My Father keeps trying to teach me Finnish as we are American Finns, but I dont have an ear for it and my Grandfather whom I grew up with kept at the same thing in his Irish, but I didnt have an ear for that either; but as I recognise words and made a study of word roots, parts of words and grammar through various languages and know more about this sort of stuff than most, I tend to approach language through comparitive study of word roots and origins. This is kind of a hobby of mine now since I decided not to do the doctorate thing. I read the Oxford English Dictionary, which is are only true lexicon, for fun.
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As a french-Canadian, I speak two languages fluently: French and English, apparently with a Canadian accent, but I don't trust Americans who tell me that I have an accent because I refuse to believe it. I'm sure I don't say a-boot! (Though I am guilty of saying 'Eh?' a lot. And I call people hosers sometimes, but that's really just a tribute to the great Canadian stereotypes of old).
As for French, I don't use it as often as English, but I can say that I'm honestly tired of French people (from France) telling me that my accent is quaint. And yet I (or people I know) are told that all the time from their French profs, or what have you. But I guess that's what happens when you're a small population, people find it quaint.
As a french-Canadian, I speak two languages fluently: French and English, apparently with a Canadian accent, but I don't trust Americans who tell me that I have an accent because I refuse to believe it. I'm sure I don't say a-boot! (Though I am guilty of saying 'Eh?' a lot. And I call people hosers sometimes, but that's really just a tribute to the great Canadian stereotypes of old).
As for French, I don't use it as often as English, but I can say that I'm honestly tired of French people (from France) telling me that my accent is quaint. And yet I (or people I know) are told that all the time from their French profs, or what have you. But I guess that's what happens when you're a small population, people find it quaint.
hehe all I have to do is hear how you pronounce the word - about - to know if you have a Canadian accent; there are several others clues of words and speach patterns; but this one rings the hardest. It tickles me funny to hear my French Canadian cousins who now live in the Southwest talk and think they sound like native Americans, lol.
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hehe all I have to do is hear how you pronounce the word - about - to know if you have a Canadian accent; there are several others clues of words and speach patterns; but this one rings the hardest. It tickles me funny to hear my French Canadian cousins who now live in the Southwest talk and think they sound like native Americans, lol.
See, what puzzles me the most about the whole 'a-boot' situation is that 90% of TV and 99% of movies that I watch are American, and when anyone says about, I think "Hey, that's exactly how I say it." Yet, Americans still swear that I'm saying aboot. It's crazy how that works. How you can be so certain you're saying it a certain way, and you're really not at all.
See, what puzzles me the most about the whole 'a-boot' situation is that 90% of TV and 99% of movies that I watch are American, and when anyone says about, I think "Hey, that's exactly how I say it." Yet, Americans still swear that I'm saying aboot. It's crazy how that works. How you can be so certain you're saying it a certain way, and you're really not at all.
Most of the Canadians I met in my teens either never said aboot, or I never picked it up if they did. So, thinking of it as somewhat of a US pop culture invention, I considered aboot about as valid an accent usage as Lucky Charms and Boris Badenoff.
Then I ran into Canadians who said aboot all the time and expressed astonishment when I pointed it out because they could not hear it. It was subtle, but it was definitely aboot.
Same thing with out. "I'm goin' oot."
I watch US movies and TV as well (what with living here), but nothing is going to train away some of my early bad habits. I lived in many different states growing up and never developed an accent that stuck, but sometimes I like to say, "You'd better do (action)" and it comes out, "You butter..."
If any of you ever decide to shoot me in the face, please aim for the part in front of the think meat that controls speech and end this linguistic frailty of mine before I butter again!
As for accents... I've a musical ear so I love to speak in accents.
I piss people off all the time without meaning to, because when I'm in a conversation with someone who has an accent, I invariably start picking it up. Without knowing I'm doing it; it's not like it's on purpose or anything. But they often think I'm making fun of them and want to hit me, and I have to apologize and explain that I can't help it, it just happens.
Of course, if I TRY to do an accent, it fails miserably.
As for accents... I've a musical ear so I love to speak in accents.I piss people off all the time without meaning to, because when I'm in a conversation with someone who has an accent, I invariably start picking it up. Without knowing I'm doing it; it's not like it's on purpose or anything. But they often think I'm making fun of them and want to hit me, and I have to apologize and explain that I can't help it, it just happens.
Of course, if I TRY to do an accent, it fails miserably.
It must seem demeaning. I've never had anyone try to "do" me, well not that way anyway.
Imagine some Brits hearing you talk and they look at each other, giggle, and stare back intently, followed by a perfection imitation of your voice saying whatever you just said.
"Why are you doing that?" you ask.
"Erik, It's adorable!" they say in unison.
That happened to me, kinda sorta. I was told that when I speak Hebrew it sounds "cute." I don't have a perfect ear for it. I don't know Italian all that well, but the different dialect accent comes very easily.
lol; me too
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As a french-Canadian, I speak two languages fluently: French and English, apparently with a Canadian accent, but I don't trust Americans who tell me that I have an accent because I refuse to believe it. I'm sure I don't say a-boot! (Though I am guilty of saying 'Eh?' a lot. And I call people hosers sometimes, but that's really just a tribute to the great Canadian stereotypes of old).
I've never met a Canadian that pronounced -out as -oot. However, most of them have pronunced -out as -oat. And only about half of them overuse 'eh'. Hell, I'm American and I overuse it.
I lived in many different states growing up and never developed an accent that stuck, but sometimes I like to say, "You'd better do (action)" and it comes out, "You butter..."
That sounds like a NW Pennsylvania / SW New York accent to me. I lived in Erie for the first twelve years of my life, and I say that as well.
I'm not sure if this relates to language, but when I was in high school, I had a chance to go to Rome for a week. Apparently, I looked enough like a local to have a rather irate British woman mistake me for a pickpocket. She called me a "blurry wanker," than proceeded to kick me in the shin. I got the hell out of Dodge (actually the Vatican, but you know what I mean).
Imagine some Brits hearing you talk and they look at each other, giggle, and stare back intently, followed by a perfection imitation of your voice saying whatever you just said
In the Twilight Zone, it would probably happen that way. Here in Texas, it's usually someone from Mexico I'm talking to, and after awhile they hear me talking in the same rhythms/cadences as they are, so they switch to Spanish, which is a problem because my only Spanish phrase is "Soy un stupido Americano que no habla Espaniol." Of course, when I talk with native Texans for awhile, they pat me on the back and congratulate me for "losing" my accent.
She called me a "blurry wanker," than proceeded to kick me in the shin.
"Wanker" and "tosser" are my two new favorite epithets, after hearing Vinnie Jones' thoroughly impressive rant in Euro Trip.
I've never met a Canadian that pronounced -out as -oot. However, most of them have pronunced -out as -oat.
That's interesting... I suppose the way I've heard Canadians say out is somewhere between the two.
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As for accents... I've a musical ear so I love to speak in accents.I piss people off all the time without meaning to, because when I'm in a conversation with someone who has an accent, I invariably start picking it up. Without knowing I'm doing it; it's not like it's on purpose or anything. But they often think I'm making fun of them and want to hit me, and I have to apologize and explain that I can't help it, it just happens.
Of course, if I TRY to do an accent, it fails miserably.
I do that too. I'm like Zelig or something. I can tell that it either pisses people off, or I'm too paranoid or something.