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La angla kaj la usona

de robbkvasnak, 2010-decembro-15

Mesaĝoj: 20

Lingvo: English

robbkvasnak (Montri la profilon) 2010-decembro-15 23:53:05

Oni ofte diris al mi dum mia ĉi-somera vizito en Eŭropo ke "la angla" venkis. Eble tie sed mi ne parolas la anglan. Mi parolas la usonan. Nek mia vivkunulo nek mi komprenis tre bone la "anglajn" anoncojn en la trajnoj en Francio kaj en Germanio. Ni nur komprenis la nomojn de la stacioj. Feliĉe ni ankaŭ parolas la germanan kaj la francan!
During my trip to Europe this summer people told me that "English" was the common language. Maybe in Europe, but I don't speak English, I speak American. Neither my partner nor I understood the "English" train anouncements in Germany or France, only the names of the stations. Fortunately, we also speak German and French.

zekebourgeois (Montri la profilon) 2010-decembro-16 01:01:52

What problems did you have with understanding it? Most English people I've heard speaking are fairly comprehensible.

Alciona (Montri la profilon) 2010-decembro-16 02:03:24

Train announcements are a language all of their own. The announcements on Melbourne public transport are utterly unintelligible and I've spoken Australian English my entire life. rido.gif

yugary (Montri la profilon) 2010-decembro-16 03:04:14

I believe that the announcers at railroad stations and subway stations, at least according to my experience in North America, are specially trained to speak with loud but muffled, almost unintelligible pronunciation. This used to be true here in Korea too, but nowadays the situation has greatly improved.

erinja (Montri la profilon) 2010-decembro-16 03:56:58

Yeah I would call it speaking "English" versus speaking "Transportation announcement system".

I ride DC Metro to work every single day. I know the announcements by heart and I still have trouble understanding them sometimes.

Of course if you're in a country that isn't natively English-speaking, their English announcements may also be spoken with a non-native English accent, or else by a computer generated voice, and that can also be hard to understand.

ceigered (Montri la profilon) 2010-decembro-16 06:26:08

Alciona:Train announcements are a language all of their own. The announcements on Melbourne public transport are utterly unintelligible and I've spoken Australian English my entire life. rido.gif
Haha! Good to see it's not just the Adelaide Tram system.

"Now arriving at.... (MSADSDYGAID)aide (asduhsaud)tain(asdsad)tre"

(I'm not fluent in Tram-announcement-ese, but I think that was meant to be "Adelaide Entertainment Centre" (but hold on, isn't the Adelaide Entertainment Centre technically closer to a stop two stops down? Why is this stop called Adelaide Entertainment Centre? Well, they may have fixed that bug out)).

Actually, it's not so bad now, but it can be jarring hearing that third-Australian third-English third-American accent.

sudanglo (Montri la profilon) 2010-decembro-16 11:24:52

I remember when unintelligible announcements at stations or on trains were normal. But lately, here in my part of the UK, I have found that announcements are often precorded in faultless diction.

But how difficult it is for an American to understand the Queen's English, I wouldn't know. Though I have heard that some English programmes broadcast on your side of the pond carry subtitles.

We get practice in understanding your errant vowels from watching your stuff on our TV.

However, don't be surprised if an American 'hot' is understood in the UK as 'heart' or even 'hut' - and if you can find a Frenchman who doesn't pronounce 'money' as 'Monet', then congratulations.

ceigered (Montri la profilon) 2010-decembro-16 11:41:02

sudanglo:However, don't be surprised if an American 'hot' is understood in the UK as 'heart' or even 'hut' - and if you can find a Frenchman who doesn't pronounce 'money' as 'Monet', then congratulations.
Malheureusement, I already have a few I can think of off the top of my head. Does "mahnee/my knee" count? lango.gif

I do find there are certain minimal pairs like that which I find very very hard to understand when speaking to those with very strong northern accents, a plumber who recently came to install a new water filter would be an example, I pretended I was just tired to hide the fact I honestly could not understand what he was saying without him having to repeat it malgajo.gif.

'Twas such a cool accent too...

erinja (Montri la profilon) 2010-decembro-16 15:48:11

In DC metro, the problem is partially diction from bored train operators slurring out the name of the station, and partially poor quality of the PA system.

Plus it really annoys me that some of them still can't pronounce some of the stop names. You live and work here, and you announce stops - let's pronounce them correctly ok?

Grosvenor = "grove-ner", not "grove-sner"

---

RP English is not normally a problem for Americans but quickly spoken in a noisy environment, even RP can be an issue. Americans not understanding the slang and idioms can also contribute to problems.

But normally only regional accents get subtitled on US TV. And normally only in parts that are "hard to understand".

For reference, I think Americans are perhaps not very used to hearing 'foreign' accents. Reality TV shows in particular subtitle regional and foreign accents that I have no problem understanding, and also muffled speech.

For specific points, the UK version of Life on Mars was partially subtitled when it aired on BBC America. And I had some co-workers that had difficulty understanding parts of the recent Sherlock without subtitles (it didn't help that Benedict Cumberbatch would speak very quickly, in a very low voice, not very loudly, with very loud background music).

Alciona (Montri la profilon) 2010-decembro-17 01:05:19

The consonants and vowel sounds of most American accents are very clear compared to other international English accents. So much so that our Dean recommends academics from our faculty try to fake American accents when presenting at international conferences. It's a lot easier for someone with English as a second language to understand American English rather than an Australian drawl!

If someone were used to hearing US accents all the time I could understand why they would find other English accents unintelligible.

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