British English or American accent?

[Tdol]

I meant the sort of copybook cliched English acccent, rather than someone form Liverpool, or suchlike.

Originally Posted by tdol

I meant the sort of copybook cliched English acccent, rather than someone form Liverpool, or suchlike.

I kind of figured his accent was put-on but he is from England. He was born in 1910 in Belgrave Mansions, London. But perhaps his accent is "put-on", just like most other actors of his time. They were taught a screen accent, whether it was American or otherwise.

This would explain Shirley Jone's abominable use of the word "fer" in all of her unfortunate Rogers & Hammerstein musicals. She spoke perfectly articulated English except for a few words thrown in to make her sound like she was from the country. "What ya gonna do that fer, Curly?" Let's just say it DIDN'T work. Just makes my skin crawl to hear that!

[Tdol]

I think his accent was genuine, but tourists arriving expecting to here many people talking like that nowadays will get a shock.

[valtango]

haha even teachers get it wrong.. To here??? or to hear?

[Tdol]

Ooops- homophone errors creep in when trying to type fast. ;-(

[queenmaabd]

I'm an American. I was born in Spain, but raised in the states (and I'm a legal american citizen). At present, I'm living in southern Spain and work as an ESL teacher.
I find that other than accent, which people don't really mind too much about, most teacher here are worried about vocabulary. There are many words that differ between BE and AE, and other teachers here have a very hard time accepting AE words, specially when there's another way to say it in BE, such as balaclava, for ski mask... I'm the only AE speaker in my school, and always speak up, but my point of view is never accepted. I have recently started a vocabulary list with the differences between Be and AE so that the students can be aware of what's going on.

[Casiopea]

Originally Posted by queenmaabd

I'm an American. I was born in Spain, but raised in the states (and I'm a legal american citizen). At present, I'm living in southern Spain and work as an ESL teacher.
I find that other than accent, which people don't really mind too much about, most teacher here are worried about vocabulary. There are many words that differ between BE and AE, and other teachers here have a very hard time accepting AE words, specially when there's another way to say it in BE, such as balaclava, for ski mask... I'm the only AE speaker in my school, and always speak up, but my point of view is never accepted. I have recently started a vocabulary list with the differences between Be and AE so that the students can be aware of what's going on.

I recently came across the following variants in New Interchange:

USA jail
British gaol

Kewl. :D

[Tdol]

Nowadays, the American form is more common here, though many stick by that rather bizarre spelling.

[queenmaabd]

Originally Posted by Casiopea

I recently came across the following variants in New Interchange:


USA jail
British gaol

Kewl. :D

Yeah, try the clothes, those are really funny.
AE pants= BE trousers
BE pants= AE shorts (underwear)

Talking about the accents. I'm not a native English speaker, and I've never been to any foreign country so far, (unfortunately), but most of the foreigners, who I've ever happened to communicate with, tell me that I've got an American accent. One Englishman even asked me once whether I've been educated in the US. No, I have not. But I think that this domination of American English mostly came to us from watching American movies, listening to American songs and so on. I don't blame Americans for that, no, I like an American accent and I don't mind talking with it. But I, ike British accent as well, though I must admit that it's harder to speak BE than AE.