central european english pronounce

[Maniak]

I have often problems to undrestand clean english pronounce, especially of UK colloquial english, how can I explain to speaker that I want from him to speak more central europe accent/speech/pronounce?


Try to speak more harder please.
or
Try to speak more harsh/hard/strict/strong accent please.
or
Try to use more harsh/strict/hard/strong accent.
or other sentence?

[Route21]

Hi Maniak

The problem you may have is whether you want to understand "English" English or English as spoken by a central/eastern European. That could determine who needs to help you.

I currently live in Thailand where some nationals, along with other nationals from "Indo-China", find it difficult to distinguish between the English letters "R" and "L". The endings of words are also omitted (where the meaning isn't immediately apparent) and the second letter of a double consonant cluster isn't always pronounced.

A typical example, when cruising along a motorway, was hearing the words, from my front seat passenger: "Why you not let me die!" which of course means: "Why don't you let me drive"! It was just a bit disconcerting at the time!

If I were to try to speak in "Thai-speak" rather than English there would be just an additional layer of confusion that could lead to very serious consequences.

Hope this helps
R21

[birdeen's call]

Route is right, Maniak. If you ask a native English speaker to speak a Slavic accent, then even if they try to oblige, you won't be satisfied with the outcome. It won't become more comprehensible to you.

You may try asking them to:
- speak slowly,
- speak clearly,
- make pauses between words so you can make out where one word ends and another begins,
- use simple English,
- avoid colloquial expressions,
- avoid phrasal verbs,
- avoid idioms.

All these are reasonable things to ask, but if the person is not trained in talking to people using English as a second language, they may and probably will find it difficult to satisfy all these conditions.

[Route21]

Hi Birdeen

In a related issue, I once used to edit colleagues' contributions to our client's monthly Project Report. One of my colleagues was an older East European Engineer.

If I read his contribution, as a NES, I would have great difficulty understanding it.
If, however, I tried to re-read it as he would have spoken it (complete with East European accent and phraseology), I could understand it reasonably easily.

I would, however, as you say, have significant difficulty trying to rephrase my English to make it understandable the other way round.

Best regards
R21