I disagree. French may be bizarre (for historical reasons) but it's consistent. Most French dictionaries don't even tell you how to pronounce a word, no need.
English on the other hand is wildly inconsistent. We are in dire need of a spelling reform.
BTW, the first test said I'm Southern, the second Northeastern!
My results were Western for both quizzes. Not a huge surprise, but San Antonians by and large don't have the stereotypical Texas drawl like you'd find in other parts of the state. A favorite example: "May I bar-ee your pen?"
A couple anecdotes:
"I'm from New Jersey. No, I don't talk that way.
I watched too much TV when I was young."
from John Gorka - "I'm From New Jersey"
On business in Lynn, Mass. Had some free time so I went bike riding along Revere Beach on an unusually warm autumn day. I asked some locals, "Is there a water fountain around here?" They hadn't a clue what I was saying. Got the "whadda fewtain" down before I left, though.
A couple anecdotes:
"I'm from New Jersey. No, I don't talk that way.
I watched too much TV when I was young."
from John Gorka - "I'm From New Jersey"
On business in Lynn, Mass. Had some free time so I went bike riding along Revere Beach on an unusually warm autumn day. I asked some locals, "Is there a water fountain around here?" They hadn't a clue what I was saying. Got the "whadda fewtain" down before I left, though.
I grew up in lower Michigan and lived a few years in upper Michigan (the great state of Superior). More than a decade after leaving he region, and after living in several other regions of the U.S., I lived in suburban Washington, D.C. On several occasions acquaintances identified me as Canadian. It wasn't really a problem - I had already figured out that, culturally and sociologically, I had more in common with that "foreign nation" to the north, than I did with folks from below the M-D line within my own country.
Dale
Sault Ste. Marie is the only place I've lived east of the Mississippi. The UP is beautiful countryside, but they can keep all the snow.
So what? That is just spelling, the simple part.
Take German for example: In english you use 'the' and it never changes, in german their version of 'the' changes according to gender (that's 3, masculin, feminine and neuter) and case. Since there are four cases and 3 genders that makes 12 version of 'the' in the singular plus 4 cases in the plural, resulting in 16 different version of 'the' which one has to get right to be understood.
The genders themselves appear to be assigned fairly randomly. For example the car is neuter while the machine is feminine, the skirt masculine while trousers are feminine etc.
Spelling is one thing but compared to german there is next to no grammar to learn with english. It is by far the easiest language I have ever learned or tried to. Btw english is my first foreign language and I am fairly fluent in it by now. Other languages I attempted to learn are latin, russian, italian, portuguese, dutch and shona but english is easier then any of these and by a huge margin. Italian is the easiest to spell though, if you can say a word you can spell it and vice versa. Plus italian uses fewer letters than other languages, there is no J, K, Q, X or Y and h is only used to modify a preceding c or g (c is pronounced 'ch'; ch pronounced 'k', similar things happen with g). Their grammar is a killer though…
PS: About two weeks after I started my first job in the UK (I am a welder by trade) most others working in that company came to me to correct their english spelling and grammar. Personally I would have been way too embarrassed to ask someone who at that point had only been in the country for a couple of months to correct my own use of my mother tongue but to be fair I did english in school for seven years which is probably longer than most british kids did english in their schools. I did german for essentially 12 years but the grammar only started making sense after I started my four years of latin.
Cheers Charles (who is speaking english with a slight 'germingham' accent)
It tells me, a german living in the UK, that my accent is Northeastern which I doubt as the people that I have met from there speak very different english from mine.
I do agree though that dialects use different words, in Scotland they say 'to greet' instead of 'to cry' (the one with tears, not shouting).
And then there are the well-known differences between american english and english english like 'fag' (a cigarette in the UK), 'faggot' (a kind of slimy meatball in Britain) and 'fanny' (female genitals in the british isles).
Ah, as the Windsor house Charles.
Not quite.
Germingham is an amalgamation of 'German' and 'Birmingham'. I dare say Charles accent is Eton (a friend of mine could tell by the accent which public school one attended. Btw in Britain we have state schools, the crappy free ones and public schools which are very expensive to attend).
But then and unlike myself Charles Windsor is only half german and half greek and considerably richer.
Glad the royals changed their name as Windsor is a lot quicker and easier to write than Sachsen-Coburg-Gotha.
Funny thing local dialects - I lived in Pittsburgh until age 17 when I moved to Detroit where I have lived for 41 years. While Pittsburghese is widely recognized and pretty distinct I was largely oblivious to it until the move...I guess I just thought national TV personalities went to some weird speech school. In Detroit I soon noticed everyone spoke strangely and had trouble understanding some of my phraseology, like when I'd suggest to a roomate we should "redd up" (Pghese for clean) the place. Over time I gradually purged most of my Pghese and on visits back to the 'burgh family would remark on my Detroit "accent". When I meet someone I can usually correctly identify within two sentences if they are from the Pittsburgh area.
Weel.. ah'll beeee...
Which American accent do you have?
My Results:
Neutral You`re not Northern, Southern, or Western, you`re just plain -American-. Your national identity is more important than your local identity, because you don`t really have a local identity. You might be from the region in that map, which is defined by this kind of accent, but you could easily not be. Or maybe you just moved around a lot growing up.
Ah came up Neutral on the dialect test... proud te' be' Uh-Merican I guess
Which American accent do you have?
My Results:
Neutral You`re not Northern, Southern, or Western, you`re just plain -American-. Your national identity is more important than your local identity, because you don`t really have a local identity. You might be from the region in that map, which is defined by this kind of accent, but you could easily not be. Or maybe you just moved around a lot growing up.
Ah came up Neutral on the dialect test... proud te' be' Uh-Merican I guess
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