I have a hard time making out what people with British accents say 70% of the time. I can't help it. I can perfectly understand the thickest Southern American accent, but when I hear a Brit speak my brain goes "What? Say again? You did what?". I'm talking about movies/tv shows here, British ones being the only ones I watch with subtitles. I'm really afraid of embarrassing myself in a real life conversation with a British person.
>>23773 I'm not asking for help, mate. I just needed to share what had been bothering me for some time with someone. Guess this isn't the perfect place for that kind of thing.
>>23779 Interesting lad. I will profess to not knowing much about it other than probably wildly incorrect stereotypes.
What you have to remember when you're speaking to a British person is that the chance is they don't speak a second language, and even if you're dribbling words out in a semi-coherent manner or only able to understand simple sentences, you're still doing much better at a second language than most of us could ever hope to.
Perhaps you need to watch a bit of British tv? It's weird how you understand the American ones but not the British, I'm wondering if it's a certain regional dialect you become stuck with.
>>23779 >I imagine that snobby, arrogant attitude gets you really far in life, ladmate.
The whole point of that post was using words like tosh which is not a word an American would use along with some cockney rhyming slang. Never mind that Britain has many different accents and changes in dialect in such a small island could be part of the reason you have difficulty in understanding Brits.
>>23780 Well, there is not much to know. The country, as an independent nation-state, has only existed for a bit over than 20 years. Before that it was a member-state of the Soviet Union and even before the Soviet Union it had been under Russian imperial rule, Russians have lived here for hundreds of years. My ancestors on my father's side lived here way back when this territory was part of the Russian Empire. Today this place doesn't look like much, it's just your average failed ex-socialist third world shithole. If some of you are thinking of visiting it - don't waste your money, it's not worth it.
>What you have to remember when you're speaking to a British person is that the chance is they don't speak a second language
>you're still doing much better at a second language than most of us could ever hope to.
This sounds kind of arrogant to me. I don't want to be a complete twat to people and say "Hey, I'm better than you. So what I don't speak your language well? You only speak one!". I mean, if a native English speaker is upset with my lack of English skills and poor listening comprehension they have every right to be and I'm not going to judge them or get in their face because of it.
>It's weird how you understand the American ones but not the British
Maybe it has something to do with the amount of content produced in the States? I mean, I mostly watch/play American stuff and so does half of the world. I can't really say I've seen that many British movies in my entire life. Music, movies, video games, most of them are made in America these days. That is not to say that British entertainment is inferior to American, it's just not as popular, which is sad, I know there are many brilliant directors, actors and musicians in Europe, Americans just get most of the spotlight.
>>23781 It's hard to believe, but I find some of the thickest British accents, i.e. Scottish, Welsh, easier to understand than for instance London accents. Don't ask me, I can't explain how or why.
>Maybe it has something to do with the amount of content produced in the States?
Yes. Also, working class and northern people are severely under-represented in the British media, so you're not hearing a representative range of accents.
In my experience of studying foreign languages, phone-in radio programmes can be really good practice for understanding accents and dialects. You get to hear a different accent every few minutes. You're hearing ordinary people talking in their real accents, not media personalities who've had voice training. There's usually a topic of discussion, so it's easier to guess at what people are talking about. It's how I finally learned to understand Low German.
I can recommend Late Nights with Iain Lee - he doesn't screen the calls, so you hear a lot of nutters and drunkards.
A few months ago I was without internet and unable to sleep so I ended up listening to a BBC Radio Stoke call in at about 1AM. Without a doubt the most depressing half an hour of my life.
>>23783 I was never really ever exposed to modern London accents before I watched Attack the Block and I couldn't understand shit and I'm from 30 miles away.
To be fair I grew up in a council flat in London and watching that film was like a flash back to my secondary school days rather than anything I encountered either before or after.
Once I became an adult, the vast majority of "Modern Londoners" seemed to be the type of unspecific media job working cunt who moves to London after they graduate and is happy to pay a fiver a pint and a tenner a cocktail. I assume that almost everyone I went to school with is either dead or packed out to some kind of ghetto outside of the M25 or south of the Thames.
If we're playing Midlands Depression Top Trumps, I actually lived in Stoke for 18 miserable months. I basically didn't leave the house unless it was to go to the 24 hour Tesco and instead stayed indoors doing lots and lots of speed. It's just that kind of town, really.
If you Google the 'Speech Accent Archive', and then click on 'browse', 'atlas/regions', and then Europe on the map, there are about ten recordings of people from around Britain and Ireland reading aloud the same paragraph, which might help you in terms of noticing the slight variations between accents.
TL/DR: I came as Super Hans and will leave Malcolm Tucker. As such, I stand out like a broken toenail, even among the three of us locals here. Like with rallies, noncing and financial crime, the English don't even ban me, because having the chance while nothing comes of it hurts mo'betta. Rubbing shoulders with my fellow Slav on a regular basis, this feeling is of a more generic nature than my own antics induce. My 30s a mess of loneliness in culture and emotional deprivation, I am glad to have moved out of the way from where that was supposed to be different. Erstwhile people and venues went faster down that road than I. But that is more of a pyrrhic chip to shoulder. Be yourself, no matter etc.
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Always was the best English speaker about at a given time - growing up around GI brats, stroking my teary, lonesome soul to Blake and Auden in 'difficult years' and chuckling at Rowan and Ricky later, trolling b3ta (ask your dad) or making a leg on Soulseek (ditto.) You know, the 'helping teachers with vernacular, doctoring essays for a camberwell carrot' kind of git. And here, three steps from the Eurolines, asking something trivial from passers-by, just to get my bearings. But they all sound like http://vocaroo.com/i/s1K72R7RfuXs
A decade and some onward, my finding is: things are in a decaying orbit. Not only is it profoundly unappealing to either be stuck with the anxiously raucous man-child toffs that would tick ones 'age * degree + tastes' or the bug eyed Kerouac metastases that come with my subculture and political drum-beating. It's simpler, though. The Englishman has suffered centuries of crystallising social and regional diversity into an easy guide of whom to mistrust. From the 'fuck the poor' snobism in politics and commerce, to the endearingly patronising perspective on ARE FORRINM8S. That said, the lads that most openly told me to fuck off back home (Bethnal Green? Or perhaps Barnet? Chistlehurst was rather nice..) were themselves third generation pariahs.
With all my socials Orwelled out of town, Fiddler to (rip in peace) Fabric, the scumwork of pints and sarnies left to a younger, more desperate demographic, I have not met a Brit on matey terms for years. Kiwis, Canucks and Irish, yep, many new arrivals from Yurop and the Chinkywogs who get along beautifully. Their attitude to British values doesn't mind "die feine englische Art" past the chips, bowler hat, orroighmaet thing. Never had to. Pundits from RSA to Shoreditch make it clear: neoliberal posturing immunises our (apologies for that word) society to tick boxes on how to treat the alien and peculiar. The dialogue and (oh yes) conflict it takes to actually be in this together has been choked since New Labour. Which are Thatcher quoted as her most important legacy.
Sorry for the loose lips. The missus is abroad, haven't had a natter in a week.
Ahh, the golden days - PradeEEEep and the ancient old geezer with his missus, to epic voicepop abuse, sexy Talula.. Without discovering those and their free-for-all improbanter, I probably wouldn't have stayed. These days, all rather more Evening Standard, really. Cheers though.
I feel you fam. After a binge of East and North Lahndin art school type shitholes - a new, professional/family life in Harlow. Makes the worst chem hangover feel a minor shortage of tinnies. The whole borough feels like a toddlers lunch break of urban construction. Slappers and geezers, flanked by the Father Ted massive and the odd enclave of stupid money. Local aunties stop talking and gaze, fighting-dog propelled potato heads splutter 'Gipsy' behind my back, empty places feel more rapey than rural boozers fighty. Airport is close though. I clench my rosebud around the safety rope that is Brexit. Which is funny because it's an 8/10 commie construct. Practically Croydon-upon-Nature. Hang on..
Circular training with youtube.com/watch?v=NvpbW7JRu0Q - soundcloud.com/nosuchthingasafish - some Frankie Boyle for stretches. Lad, have I seen you at the gig of a certain ginger lad and his manic bird last month? If so, that shirt made my day. Tribal pride levels: НЕ ФИ ГА СЕ БЕ
>>23792 To add to this there's a lovely repository of historical British accent recordings on the British library website. Won't help op but it's certainly compelling.
I can't tell if you're an enduringly charismatic Polish hippy who's spent a few too many years down and out amongst the "trendier" areas of the capital, or some sort of chat-bot that's overdone it on 2CB and lost the plot.
Your words and sentences make perfect sense, but when I try to digest more than a paragraph at once, I become utterly lost; and you drop cultural references like a grime artist nobody has paid attention to since 2009 hoping to make a comeback.
>>23788 What is so bad about south of the Thames? I don't understand the hate south London gets, although I have never been there, I doubt it could be that bad.
Fecking wish it was possible to even share an office, let alone see work where they offer you a machine and those funny s with wheels under. Helps cover up the fact that I haven't had a haircut by someone I did not sleep with since Occupy. And then, imagine a CV and six-page career blurb written in that style. With a foreign name on, lucky if my thing gets that far though. Say, Harlow lad, why do people down this neck of the woods all set up shop in abandoned Victorian food or booze infrastructure?
Thank you. I have. Answers, if any, mostly in the ways of >>23840. Since tedious grown-up bullshit advances to displace a formerly thriving career of
>Brad Pitt in True Romance
it is strangely frustrating, having to deal with reading comprehension finely attuned to, er, imageboards. Not that he's wrong, save for the 2C's (who's offering?) but I just seem to blend in on Kaycee better. Reading 'Pale King' doth make things easier nary.
Curious remark. I did have a little rap thing going (grime is to hip hop like boxing to capoeira, discuss) That was way before you sprouted pubes though. But like the man with that clock around his neck said, stay in your real language, don't cater to trends, keep it personal and try to educate people. Thus, I rest my case..
Flats are as expensive as East and shittier parts of North but the roughness is way more palpable. Folks I knew moved out of town from the constant dread and dirt. There are the few glass and coffee 'creative' bunkers, bit of an entropy. More decent raves, some art and viable drinkies going on down there now since they singapore all the rest that hard. All else you need to know would be racist. Not that I am. There's just little of what goes on street-wise that makes much sense to me. Word.
Aha, more relevant piffle for our foreignm8 - things from the pages of http://b3ta.com/questions/worstsex/page9/ - check some pre-2010 QOTWs for classical long posts.
OH MARVELS a Briton what does the haughty sneerings. Whatever next? GAH AWN LAD do us proud. Accuse me of masturbation, for example. No, wait, I know.. medieval archery bantz? Hmm, bit rich. Ah. Now. Feel like a proper
http://www.fromoldbooks.org/Grose-VulgarTongue/v/vice-admiral-of-the-narrow-seas.html for coming on here, reading what little you could make out, then.. having an opinion.
Feel better now? Glad to help. And now go have a good hard thinkie about why pages like this work, how snide, clumsy mannerisms like that make you the Mister Bean of Europe (no, wait..) and probably got you ginger fanny beaten up in school.
>>23851 Ah mate. I like you. I wish I could unleash this sort of madness online still, brain doesn't seem to wanna have it though, all fuckered up and slowed down by the years of abuse and chemicals. Can't do the loose highly associative stuff like I used too, reminds me of older internet haunts.