When are you British?

[DRM]

So how come he wasn't called Pontius McPilate?







IGMC

May I suggest Pilate McPilate face

 

[cookiemonster]

Anyone notice that when foreigners come here, they're migrants but when the British go abroad, magically we all become 'ex pats'??. Guess some Brits feel the word migrant is 'dirty'?.

I call myself a migrant as that's what I am. An economic migrant. I don't think I've ever used the word 'ex-pat' at all.

 

[oldwheels]

Strange that, in all the places I’ve been, the Belgians invariably speak better English than 99% of the UK’s citizens, as do the Dutch, it’s frankly embarrassing how bad we are at learning foreign languages.

Strange indeed. Perhaps they were foxed by our Scottish accents as we were often thought to be German. I can only go by our experience but found that the ordinary person in the street did not understand our language tho’ more “ academic” types did.

 

[gbb]

Strange indeed. Perhaps they were foxed by our Scottish accents as we were often thought to be German. I can only go by our experience but found that the ordinary person in the street did not understand our language tho’ more “ academic” types did.

I never understood the failure to understand Scottish accents (although i remember once in the early 1980s stood listening to two lorry drivers, i couldn't understand a word and assumed they were foreign drivers, when that was very unusual...then it dawned on me they were indeed Scottish, but perhaps from the Highlands. Glasgow accent etc, i have no real problem understanding, apart from words not used in England)
I'm certainly not academic but perhaps the difference is just taking time and trying to understand accents etc, obviously something some folk don't bother doing/

 

[oldwheels]

I never understood the failure to understand Scottish accents (although i remember once in the early 1980s stood listening to two lorry drivers, i couldn't understand a word and assumed they were foreign drivers, when that was very unusual...then it dawned on me they were indeed Scottish, but perhaps from the Highlands. Glasgow accent etc, i have no real problem understanding, apart from words not used in England)
I'm certainly not academic but perhaps the difference is just taking time and trying to understand accents etc, obviously something some folk don't bother doing/

Your lorry drivers may have been from Aberdeen as there is a fair amount of trade with continental Europe from there. They do speak a different language there called Doric which I can understand to a slight extent. When my wife was last in Denmark visiting her sister about 10 years ago she found that many people such as shop assistants did not understand English but in the social circle she moved in it was universally understood.

 

[captain nemo1701]

Strange indeed. Perhaps they were foxed by our Scottish accents as we were often thought to be German. I can only go by our experience but found that the ordinary person in the street did not understand our language tho’ more “ academic” types did.

I once saw a little ten minute film on Channel 4 which interviewed Glaswegians. Their accents, OK to me, were pretty thick so the film had subtitles in English.

Since Brexit, including that embarrassing display in London of tabloid newspaper-inspired nationalist jingoism on 31/1, I'm considering pretending I'm Scottish. I can do a pretty good accent so much so that a Scottish friend from the west coast was impressed by it. 40 years of listening to the Big Yin. I'm becoming embarrassed to say I'm English now, especially with a morally bankrupt philandering liar in No. 10.

 

[oldwheels]

I once saw a little ten minute film on Channel 4 which interviewed Glaswegians. their accents, OK to me, were pretty thick so the film had subtitles in english.

Since Brexit, including that embarrassing display of tabloid nationalist jingoism on 31/1, I'm considering pretending I'm Scottish. I can do a pretty good accent so much so that a Scottish friend from the west coast was impressed by it. 40 years of listening to the Big Yin

Once at a trade fair I was talking to a Welsh guy and said “ och aye “ in the general run of conversation. He was quite astonished at this and said he thought only people in plays on the telly said things like that. The Big Yin has an accent which does not reflect his shipbuilding background. It is rather too refined.
Re subtitles we are expected to understand impenetrable English accents with no sub titles. I have problems with some call centres as not only do they have a strange accent but they talk too fast as well.

 

[MontyVeda]

I once saw a little ten minute film on Channel 4 which interviewed Glaswegians. Their accents, OK to me, were pretty thick so the film had subtitles in English.

...

There's an old (early 60s) LWT doc about Spitalfields market. A couple of stallholders from the North are interviewed and they too had subtitles in English

 

[CanucksTraveller]

Strange that, in all the places I’ve been, the Belgians invariably speak better English than 99% of the UK’s citizens, as do the Dutch, it’s frankly embarrassing how bad we are at learning foreign languages.

Agree. Add Danes, Swedes, Germans.. you can go on.

I actually find it more embarrassing just how bad we are at our own language, never mind learning a new one. British people routinely make embarrassingly bad mistakes that foreign people never make. "Could of"? You're 43 years old, and you haven't grasped that it's "could have / could've"? That's staggering.

And perhaps more galling is the British people's habit of not even being willing to learn their own language, and accept a correction that might help that learning when they err.
"It don't matta" apparently.

 

[Andy in Germany]

I once saw a little ten minute film on Channel 4 which interviewed Glaswegians. Their accents, OK to me, were pretty thick so the film had subtitles in English.

Japanese TV routinely has subtitles because accents can be very distinct, the Tokyo/Osaka difference is apparently quite strong, and the further you go to the north or east the stronger they get.

Also, there are many tales of people from different German regions speaking in English because it was easier then dealing with their own dialects, and our local dialect is inpenetrable, in fact it's considered a language in itself. It even has variations over a few kilometres...

 

[gbb]

Agree. Add Danes, Swedes, Germans.. you can go on.

I actually find it more embarrassing just how bad we are at our own language, never mind learning a new one. British people routinely make embarrassingly bad mistakes that foreign people never make. "Could of"? You're 43 years old, and you haven't grasped that it's "could have / could've"? That's staggering.

And perhaps more galling is the British people's habit of not even being willing to learn their own language, and accept a correction that might help that learning when they err.
"It don't matta" apparently.

The scourge of Eastenders etc IMO. Watchers, children as well, are deluged in remarkably poor lazy English. Of course, those there Landoners may disagree

 

[matiz]

I grew up with a black country accent ,(much mocked on tv by comedians) then moved down south where everyone in the West country seemed to talk at half speed ,and found myself wanting to finish sentences off to hurry them up.
But now the local kids sound much the same everywhere with their London gangster speak innit bruv.

 

[pjd57]

Strange indeed. Perhaps they were foxed by our Scottish accents as we were often thought to be German. I can only go by our experience but found that the ordinary person in the street did not understand our language tho’ more “ academic” types did.

We go on holiday to Bulgaria a lot.
Sunny Beach area, big mix of nationalities, so menus tend to be multi lingual.
Waiters tend to hand them to us opened at the German section.
When you turn to the English section they're either puzzled or some just say " Scottish "

 

[captain nemo1701]

The scourge of Eastenders etc IMO. Watchers, children as well, are deluged in remarkably poor lazy English. Of course, those there Landoners may disagree

I know what you mean. I think Eastenders must have a special voice coach for the accents.

 

[DRM]

There is a language issue which is annoying me at the moment. An S4c thriller called Craith (shown in English as Hidden) has a policewoman born and raised in North West Wales but the part is being played by an actress who speaks South Walian.

Now I realise that when they subtitle it into English the vast majority of the audience wont know any difference but it is winding me up, surely there is one North Wales actress who could have played the role.

Similar thing, but on Emmerdale a lot of the actors are clearly Lancastrian, and on Coronation Street they’re from West Yorkshire,there was even one actress from Barnsley at one point, but she is very well spoken, she would have needed subtitles if she spoke as most folk from there do! it doesn’t annoy me, as much as bemuse me, as obviously other regions would never pick up on it,