Bilingual in Europe versus USA

Hello, Dave!
You wrote on Fri, 25 Aug 2006 21:13:51 +0200:

?? On Fri, 25 Aug 2006 10:51:21 +0100, "Ian F."
?? wrote:
??
?? "Dave Frightens Me"
?? wrote in
?? message
??
?? Come on, American is English! It's the same language
?? with a few different nouns, and a different accent!
??
?? And some appalling verbs, like "gotten".
??
?? Forget/forgot/forgotten ?

DFM Oddly no one says "I've gotten to do that."

Probably because "gotten" is past tense. The Scottish "proven"
is also used too.

James Silverton
Potomac, Maryland

E-mail, with obvious alterations:
not.jim.silverton.at.comcast.not

On Fri, 25 Aug 2006 12:15:37 -0600, "spamfree"
wrote:

A better description would be Québecois and North American,
as Canadians and Americans speak almost the exact same language.

But do all US Americans speak the same English ?

No, absolutely not. I will probably forget some but here are the major
language variations in the USA: West Coast, Southern, Northeastern,
Northern, and Midwestern. The Northeast, especially Boston, has
a nasal accent. Southerners can be impossible to understand even for
native-born Americans. Alabama residents can be impossible to
understand, as you wrote, but Mississippi residents are just as bad.
But even this is regional. Huntsville, Alabama might as well be in
Illinois, an oasis of neutral accents in an otherwise Southern state, due
to the large number of non-Southerners who moved there. The
Carolinas and Virginia have a delightful light Southern accent. (well,
at least the women do :-) ) Northerners can often sound like
Canadians (I grew up in the North). Midwesterners generally have
the most neutral accent in the country and all of our major news-readers
have a Midwestern accent. California is a world all its own and is the
source for many of our teenagers' stupid phrases.

What is a "neutral" accent?

But the UK has regional differences as well. I have no idea what
areas these are, but some people in England have a very mild accent.
Londoners can have a very strong accent.

What the hell are weak accents and strong accents?


************* DAVE HATUNEN ) *************
* Tucson Arizona, out where the cacti grow *
* My typos & mispellings are intentional copyright traps *

On Fri, 25 Aug 2006 09:54:44 -0700, Hatunen wrote:

On Fri, 25 Aug 2006 10:51:21 +0100, "Ian F."
wrote:

"Dave Frightens Me" wrote in
message

Come on, American is English! It's the same language with a few
different nouns, and a different accent!

And some appalling verbs, like "gotten". And leaving out prepositions, as
in "A couple Eurostar questions".

Actually, "gotten" was retained in American from the British of a
couple centuries ago, while the Brits went on to change to the
use of the appalling "got" in its place. American English retains
quite a few old Britticisms now deplored by Brits who ought to
know better.

The Italians HATE the verb get. If I want to confuse someone, I simply
use it with phrasal verbs in every sentence. They quickly revert to
Italian, which is what I prefer to speak with them!
--
---
DFM - http://www.deepfriedmars.com
---
--

On Fri, 25 Aug 2006 21:13:51 +0200, Dave Frightens Me
wrote:

On Fri, 25 Aug 2006 11:21:18 +0100, Keith Anderson
wrote:

On Fri, 25 Aug 2006 10:51:21 +0100, "Ian F."
wrote:

"Dave Frightens Me" wrote in
message

Come on, American is English! It's the same language with a few
different nouns, and a different accent!

And some appalling verbs, like "gotten".

Forget/forgot/forgotten ?

Oddly no one says "I've gotten to do that."

"I've gotten to do that; I did it a week ago."

But "I've got to do that" means you hope to do it in the future.

************* DAVE HATUNEN ) *************
* Tucson Arizona, out where the cacti grow *
* My typos & mispellings are intentional copyright traps *

Hatunen writes:

Anybody can say they studied linguistics.

Anybody can say that someone else didn't.

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a.spencer3 writes:

Surely, the tonal elements of Chinese add an additional complexity on top of
normal language learning?

There is nothing abnormal about the tones in Chinese. They are
different from the phonemic features of European languages, but they
are not abnormal, or any more difficult, nor do they represent any
"additional complexity" on top of anything.

Chinese is a fairly simple language, as most old languages tend to be.

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Giovanni Drogo writes:

But we (I believe in all european languages at least) apply tones to
sentences, not to single words or syllables.

English applies stress to individual syllables, which involves making
several changes in the pronunciation thereof, and this does not seem
to be much of an obstacle for Anglophones.

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Ian F. writes:

And some appalling verbs, like "gotten".

And some significant improvements, such as draft instead of draught,
and learned instead of learnt.

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Giovanni Drogo writes:

But do all US Americans speak the same English ?

To a much greater extent than the British, yes. And most Canadians
speak the same English.

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James Silverton writes:

Probably because "gotten" is past tense.

As it is in "I've got to do that."

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