True Blood - Simple Swedish 3

So funny
You all have my southern english accent in my head - I can't do accents

@MLC, wait, so did you grow up in Ireland? Or in a predominantly Irish community/family? Accents aren't genetic! You can't just suddenly sprout a foreign accent when you're mad!

@Karen, sometimes they use subtitles over people with strong accents here too! I usually find this absolutely hilarious since I have no problem with most accents, having grown up in a city (and family) that's about 50% foreign immigrants. But then a fast-speaking strongly-accented Irishman comes on and loses me completely.

@Nix, very interesting that the inflection is part of the language. I wouldn't have guessed that! It's a concept that just doesn't really exist in English or French (or many other languages, no doubt) so it's no wonder that foreign learners have trouble with it! That would certainly make the language itself kind of musical. Which means I would be horrible at Swedish since I "couldn't carry a tune in a bucket with a lid on it" (to borrow one of Sookie Stackhouse's awesome southern expressions).

Nope, fansee. Born and raised in the US and most of my neighbors were of Polish, German or Italian descent. My dad's mom was the Irish/whatever else one and I hung around her a lot while growing up. I just don't remember her having any kind of accent though. Then again, I was young then and younger people tend not to notice stuff like that and she passed away while I was still pretty young. (I was her favorite! A fact I've never lived down.) It's something you need to hear AND see. My hands are definitely Italian and wave all over the place when I talk and it gets worse when I'm riled up.

* mustluvcatz misses her tiny little Gramma Cleo.. all 4'10" of her

Ah, that explains it. You must've learned the accent from your grandmother without even realizing it!

* fanseelamb taps into lee's spycam and steals MLC's milk bowl in an attempt to capture her Irish/Italian rage show on film

My dad was Czech, and I never thought he had an accent either - he was a Presbyterian minister, so we have quite a few of his sermons on tape. He died back in 1990, and when I was listening to one recently (I wanted to hear his voice) I was surprised at the thickness of the accent! So yeah - MLC definitely picked it up from her grandma!

I lived in Ireland for 3 years, as well as visiting on and off since for work. The hardest accent I ever came across was the Wicklow one - it wasn't so much the pronunciation - as the speed of it. They finish 3 sentences in the space of one. And when you have an accent that accentuates the R's and is speedy - you're absorbing the first sentence as they are getting into the 6th. I think it took me about a month before I could understand the accent enough to be able to keep up.

Mandarin and other chinese base languages are very very strong on inflection and musicality. And they have a very fine ear so words that sound exactly the same to us, are totally different to them. Chinese language is fascinating.

Um... I probably should admit at this point that I'm a bit of a nerd around languages and accents. I love hearing them and trying to emulate them.

Quote:They finish 3 sentences in the space of one. And when you have an accent that accentuates the R's and is speedy - you're absorbing the first sentence as they are getting into the 6th.

Guilty. Boy oh boy, did I used to get told to slow down when I talked! Although the 5 minute waits for people to catch up came in handy, lol. I do have fun with my R's when I get going.

My youngest tends to talk really fast and it drives me nuts. Not only does he talk fast, his tone of voice is in a range that's hard for me to hear. I'm constantly after him to slow down when he talks to me and he gets frustrated with me. The hearing in my left ear isn't the greatest (constant infections when I was a kid and a strangely bent ear canal) and he tends to stand on my left and talk too. Yes, he's written things down more than once. What goes around comes around...

*has Skype and wishes she could use it* I'd LOVE to hear everyone some day.

I'm on skype and would love to talk to you there MLC!

I have skype too

MLC I have a similar problem with my hearing too, which is why I find it hard when listening to people with strong accents, I like to see their faces too - but I don't have a webcam.

celebkiriedhel;17586 Wrote:I'm on skype and would love to talk to you there MLC!

I'd love that. But when I said I have it and wish I could use it? I really meant I wish I could. You need a mic at the least.. right? That's something I don't have outside of the one from my old job and that one won't work with a computer. The only reason I have that one is the company stopped buying them back, so I'm stuck with the darn thing. (70.00 and the only thing it's good for is sitting around gathering dust!)

MLC you only need a handset/headset if you're actually talking. If you're typing you don't need a mike. Sometimes my girls chat like on the phone other times we message, it's a bit quicker than the actual chat box. But I suppose that kinda defeats the point of accents

Karen