Re: [NTLK] OT - Do you speak BBC English?

My reply got rejected - here it is again (in the forwarded message)
Begin forwarded message:

> From: Apostolos Koutropoulos <der_admiral@mac.com>
> Date: September 1, 2007 3:22:19 PM EDT
> To: newtontalk@newtontalk.net
> Subject: Re: [NTLK] OT - Do you speak BBC English?
>
> What do you mean about the distance between english and british
> english?
> I watch the BBC news, and BBC shows and understand (almost)
> perfectly - I live in the US.
> Everyone you go, there will be a local flair or slang in the
> language, as well as a local accent. This makes the 'english'
> spoken in that part of the country slightly different from
> 'standard' english. While an australian, an american texan, an
> american new yorker, a british english person, and a canadian come
> together, they can all communicate, but because they are from
> different regions, their language might have some local flair -
> they are however mutually intelligible.
>
> Now people learning english as a foreign language pick up english
> from one of these english dialects because they listed to audio, or
> view video with people intentionally enunciating what they say. In
> general, people don't tend to mumble or have speech impediments in
> educational material (unless really advanced). Additionally people
> who learn english as a second language tend to use close to
> grammatically correct english, rather than take shortcuts like
> native speakers. If mistakes are made by speakers of english (as a
> foreign language), those mistakes are more easily understood from
> alike speakers. When you throw a native speaker into such a mix,
> when mistakes (or accents, or speech impediments) get in the way,
> comprehension and thus communication gets more difficult - but it
> is not impossible
>
> just my two cents
>
> disclaimer: all of the above is from personal experience and
> observation, I am not a linguist, but do aspire to be one.
>
> AK

====================================================================
The NewtonTalk Mailing List - http://www.newtontalk.net/
The Official Newton FAQ - http://www.splorp.com/newton/faq/
The Newton Glossary - http://www.splorp.com/newton/glossary/
WikiWikiNewt - http://tools.unna.org/wikiwikinewt/
====================================================================
Received on Sat Sep 1 15:24:05 2007