To our Foreign Friends

[Rob W 0]

Info please

 

In the English speaking countries it is normally the case that people who are smart, on the ball, cosmopolitan etc etc (like me) speak quickly and that anyone speaking slowly (eg people from SummerZet or the Deep South of the USA) are characterised as stupid, low IQ hicks

 

Is it the same in furrin languages such as Jorman, French, Eyetalian etc etc ?????

[MattM4 0]

I think in France it is more a question of local accents.

 

You have rather strong accents in all corners of the country. In the south east (around the Marseille area), In the south west (Toulouse and Basque country). These accents are rather similar and are viewed, when rather strong, as being very rural.

In the north west, I have a mate studying in LeHavre and he keeps ripping people for the way they speak.

 

There's not so much a stigmatisation in terms of the pace of speech, so no I don't think so.

[Guest alex]

Info please

 

In the English speaking countries it is normally the case that people who are smart, on the ball, cosmopolitan etc etc (like me) speak quickly and that anyone speaking slowly (eg people from SummerZet or the Deep South of the USA) are characterised as stupid, low IQ hicks

 

Is it the same in furrin languages such as Jorman, French, Eyetalian etc etc ?????

99035[/snapback]

This is a trick question isn't it? Because I can't believe you don't already know this.

 

[Rob W 0]

I don't - which is why I'm asking - I know the Spanish make fun of each others accents and I was once horribly mocked in Majorca for ath-king for uno servetha - the valenthian acthent

[Renton 17628]

How come different accents are obvious to natives of the country concerned, but foreigners can be oblivious to them? I can detect the difference between a geordie and a mackem, but there's no way I could tell if someone was from Paris or Lyon. Even in the states, I can probably only split the accents into North, South, West coast, and New York. Does a cockney sound like a Geordie to an American?

I digress, but is it also true that people can tell indiviuals of their own race apart easier than those of other races. Hence "all black people look the same etc?".

[sweetleftpeg 0]

My mam used to go to school with this lass with a French nana. As a result she was fluent in French. Unfortuantely, she'd constantly get bollocked and ended up getting poor marks for her french exams because her nana was the French equivalent of a Geordie, didn't used the King's French or whatever you would call it so how the lass wrote it and spoke it was fluent but grammatically shite. Sort of the French version of writing 'I'm was ganning yem like' in your english exam.

[Guest alex]

How come different accents are obvious to natives of the country concerned, but foreigners can be oblivious to them? I can detect the difference between a geordie and a mackem, but there's no way I could tell if someone was from Paris or Lyon. Even in the states, I can probably only split the accents into North, South, West coast, and New York. Does a cockney sound like a Geordie to an American?

I digress, but is it also true that people can tell indiviuals of their own race apart easier than those of other races. Hence "all black people look the same etc?".

99070[/snapback]

Someone from outside the region would struggle.

[Rob W 0]

I once worked with an engineer who had this unbeievable BelfASt accent - the real fingernails down the backboard variety - a guy from Londonderry reckoned he could place her within a few streets... but she was actually Norwegian and had learnt her English from her partner........

 

I can pretty much tell the main Spanish accents apart - Madrid is quite precise, Valenthia is all soft, flowing sylables, Basque is very chopped up, Galicia is really rough -

 

Australia has very few IIRC and the USA only 3 - 4 accents I think