Why are English dialects are more intelligible than most languages? (1 Viewer)

[Yee-Ming]

All your base are belong to us.
you have no chance to survive make your time!

Sounds like that curious dialect known as Japlish...

 

[CharlesD]

David obviously has not been to Glasgow...

(for great justice)

 

[Todd Hochard]

Somebody set us up the bomb!

I can back up what Jeff said about Germany. Mind you, I speak about zero German, but I spent a few weeks with some "Immersion CDs" for a business trip to Bavaria. They speak much different than what I was listening to/learning. Another associate is from Gorlitz (East Germany/Poland border), and his accent is so far from Bavaria that I had real trouble understanding even the simplest of things. It seems the further north you go in Germany, the more they lay on the "Z" sound in everything.

 

[Yee-Ming]

I used to take German at the Goethe Institute; we once had a relief teacher, who was from Switzerland rather than Germany as most of the teachers are, and her accent was quite different. Also, I understand that the Swiss also sometimes use terms differently, but I believe that's not substantially different from the way Brits and Americans use different terms.

 

[Cees Alons]

What's fascinating to me is that considering the size of the US the variance in the accent across the country is much less than that of other countries

So is the density of the inhabitants.

You mean you never ever wished for subtitles in The Sopranos or some of the southern movies? And those are only movies (aimed at a nation-wide audience).

Cees

 

[Philip_G]

You mean you never ever wished for subtitles in The Sopranos or some of the southern movies? And those are only movies (aimed at a nation-wide audience).

interesting. FWIW a lot of the people I speak with from the netherlands or norway sound like californians, they have next to zero accent. The germans vary from barely noticeable to "can you repeat that slowly sir?" In fact, I'll take someone from norway over some areas of the UK and any part of scotland
I love it when the foreigners swear. I don't know why, but it always cracks me up.

there's a show on discovery health and leisure called "a car is reborn" every week (well, it is an old series being re-run..) they have someone take an old sportscar around a track with this scotish driver, I'm lucky to catch one word out of every phrase

 

[Ricardo C]

Spanish is a good example where speakers from different parts of the world had problems understanding each other.

What are you basing this on? It sounds oddly similar to your pulled-out-of-nowhere theory about the cultural values of the middle-class.

My native tongue is Spanish, and I have no difficulty understanding Spanish variations around the world. Slang words vary from place to place (the aforementioned "concha" example is a good one, which I discovered the hard way :b), but there's no difference between being a Venezuelan able to understand a Castillian and being an American able to understand a Londoner.

 

[David Baranyi]

Ricardo_C said:
What are you basing this on? It sounds oddly similar to your pulled-out-of-nowhere theory about the cultural values of the middle-class.

It is a foil to attract attention and replies to my threads. I know what I am saying is not true.

 

[Philip_G]

My native tongue is Spanish, and I have no difficulty understanding Spanish variations around the world.

I used to work with a guy who was spanish, and had lived in spain as much as possible because he liked it, anyway he had a very difficult time understanding mexicans, he could do it, but hated it.

 

[Cees Alons]

FWIW a lot of the people I speak with from the netherlands or norway sound like californians, they have next to zero accent.

American English was formed (influenced) by many immigrants. Irish was a considerable influence, but given the history of the US, the Dutch must have been at the linguistic roots too.

BTW, I yet have to see a major film in which I do not recognize a typical Dutch name in the end-credits (if they are there - the credits). Often several. And Haarlem is one of the oldest cities of Holland (about as old as, but more important than Breukelen ).

Cees