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 Mon Nov 19, 2007 15:48 pm Is it cocky/confusing to speak with a British accent? |
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| Englishuser wrote: | | Quote: | | It's not that you don't want Alan correcting you, it's that you don't want ANYONE correcting you. |
People sometimes correct me, but all those people do it as it is part of their job. |
So that means that if we take money from you, you'll accept our criticism without making your usual scene? I'll be first in line! Write me a check! |
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Jamie (K)
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| Mon Nov 19, 2007 15:52 pm Is it cocky/confusing to speak with a British accent? |
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| Englishuser wrote: | | How does one define 'native speaker' anyway? |
Oh, here we go again! How does one define "native speaker" anyway? What is reality? Who's to say what's insane? Don't you think the people in Cuba just have a different concept of human rights? Who's to say what's moral? Isn't everything relative? |
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Jamie (K)
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| Mon Nov 19, 2007 16:16 pm Is it cocky/confusing to speak with a British accent? |
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Hi EU,
Explain please:
| Quote: | | It is often possible to assume that someone is not a native speaker based on how they write a language, but this is not always possible. I think you have read texts written by non-native speakers without noticing or paying attention to it. |
Did you mean 'assume'? Not a correction just a comment, you follow.
Do you know gobbledegook? Bear in mind that you are the one who keeps on about 'native' speakers.
I'm perilously near falling right off my swivel chair if you keep on contradicting yourself. Have pity, I'm giddy.
Yours spirally,
Alan
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Alan
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| Mon Nov 19, 2007 16:37 pm Is it cocky/confusing to speak with a British accent? |
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| Jamie (K) wrote: | | Isn't everything relative? |
Yes, many things are relative, especially the term 'native' or what some people understand by it.
I much prefer Alan's description:
"someone's first language learnt at mother's knee". |
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Conchita
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| Mon Nov 19, 2007 16:43 pm Is it cocky/confusing to speak with a British accent? |
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| Conchita wrote: | Yes, many things are relative, especially the term 'native' or what some people understand by it.
I much prefer Alan's description:
"someone's first language learnt at mother's knee". |
However, I know people for whom English would be considered a native language, even though they didn't start learning until they were 5, and they didn't learn it at mother's knee, but among their peers on the playground. |
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Jamie (K)
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lost_soul
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| Mon Nov 19, 2007 18:09 pm Is it cocky/confusing to speak with a British accent? |
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| Jamie (K) wrote: | | Conchita wrote: | Yes, many things are relative, especially the term 'native' or what some people understand by it.
I much prefer Alan's description:
"someone's first language learnt at mother's knee". |
However, I know people for whom English would be considered a native language, even though they didn't start learning until they were 5, and they didn't learn it at mother's knee, but among their peers on the playground. |
Absolutely.
My mother's knees should have provided me with the faculty of speech in the English language, but it was the German speaking playground that won me over. Having lived in Ireland for a year, it was only at the age of 8 that I could speak English fluently. 20 years down the road I had lost my German native abilities, and a mischievous linguist could argue that I don't have a native language at all.
Different to many English users, I don't really care. I can't be fussed with acquiring an accent that is either close to the lost ideals of Dukes or bogmen. I do agree that you need goals, but perfection seems to high-strung a goal. To me the chocolate is more important than the box. If a viable message is wrapped up in an English, American or Finnish accent, then I don't care about mistakes on a phonological or syntactical level.
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Ralf
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| Mon Nov 19, 2007 18:31 pm Is it cocky/confusing to speak with a British accent? |
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| And I did this to illustrate my belief that it is possible to notice from what a person writes in English whether it is their native language or not. |
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Englishuser
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| Mon Nov 19, 2007 18:40 pm Is it cocky/confusing to speak with a British accent? |
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| Englishuser wrote: | Hi Alan,
| Quote: | | And I did this to illustrate my belief that it is possible to notice from what a person writes in English whether it is their native language or not. |
How does one define 'native speaker' anyway? I think distinctions like this are mostly irrelevant. It is often possible to assume that someone is not a native speaker based on how they write a language, but this is not always possible. I think you have read texts written by non-native speakers without noticing or paying attention to it.
EU |
Hi EU,
I think reconsidering your goals could be an option. Relax into the uneradicated features of whatever accent you could possibly have, don't think too much about your non-native-speaker-like slips and don't try to be what you are not. People will respect you more if you convey a natural impression.
Alan was right, you can always disguise a non-native speaker, and a non-native speaker who desperately presents himself as a native speaker or native-speaker-like speaker or whatever brilliant speaker is not much short of cutting a pitiful figure. And, as mad as it may seem, you will probably get closer to your goals in the end if you accept your weaknesses.
I don't want to patronise you. It's just that the bottom line of all our discussions revolves around your perfectionist demeanour, and I think it's time we move on.
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Ralf
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| Mon Nov 19, 2007 18:50 pm Is it cocky/confusing to speak with a British accent? |
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I would say 'sentences below' for a start. Where do your sentences come from? I'm not in the tease business.
Alan
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| Mon Nov 19, 2007 19:02 pm Is it cocky/confusing to speak with a British accent? |
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The reason I queried 'assume' because it doesn't sit well with the rest of the sentence, which has a negative sense and also linking the beginning with 'it is possible'. I would prefer 'divine'.
Alan
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| Mon Nov 19, 2007 19:18 pm Is it cocky/confusing to speak with a British accent? |
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| Englishuser wrote: | Hi Alan,
Thank you for letting me know what your preferred choice is. Now could you please let me know what you think about the sentences I have posted with 'aid' and 'below sentences'?
EU |
In a matter of hours this forum has turned into the EU-quizzes-Alan show, wow!
Now, EU, | Quote: | | could you please let me know what you think about the sentences I have posted |
earlier, and maybe also the little poem I wrote especially for you 
Once there was a woman from Finland
Who was in love with dead accents from England
Yet in her strive for peak sophistication
She lost touch with both earth and her nation
To be merged in her own private fairyland.
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Ralf
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| Mon Nov 19, 2007 21:16 pm Is it cocky/confusing to speak with a British accent? |
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| Ralf wrote: | Once there was a woman from Finland
Who was in love with dead accents from England
Yet in her strive for peak sophistication
She lost touch with both the earth and her nation
To be merged in her own private fairyland. |
Sorry for being meticulous but I think the "the" has been lost in your lyric. (I might be wrong - just in my dictionary it goes with "the")
(Just with "the" the verse scans better in my opinion)
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lost_soul
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| Mon Nov 19, 2007 21:18 pm Is it cocky/confusing to speak with a British accent? |
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As I said, 'the below sentences' is not natural to me. Clearly you are enjoying the oxygen of notoriety, to adapt a well known phrase, and I am afraid I shall have to switch off my injection of it into it. The 'discussion', if such a grand word can grace what is after all pointless banter, is of no interest to the community on the forum and contributes diddly-squat in the furtherance of learning how to use English.
Alan
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| Want to have an american accent? | Accomplishing a 'perfect' piece of writing |
Alas, of the Russian language 