Hours until native listening?

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Irena
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Re: Hours until native listening?

Postby Irena » Tue May 30, 2023 2:40 pm

Le Baron wrote:Despite the terrible background noise, I caught all but one word of the William McKinley video. His economics trails far behind Lincoln's very modern grasp. Here's what I got from it:

My fellow citizens...recent events have imposed upon the patriotic people of this country a responsibility (word inaudible) greater than that of any since the civil war. Then it was a struggle to preserve the government of the United States, now it is a struggle to preserve the financial honour of the government. Our creed embraces an honest seller, an untarnished national credit and it puts revenues for the uses of the government; protection to labour and industry; preservation of the home market and reciprocity which will extend our foreign markets. Upon this platform we stand and submit each declaration to the sober and considerate judgement of the American people.

Apparently this is not McKinley at all, but a recreation recording made by another speaker in a studio in 1901. Yet it's still in the library of Congress as McKinley.


I'm extremely impressed. :) Just to be clear: yes, the main problem is the background noise, not the accent or anything like that. On the other hand, I'm not surprised to hear you had no problems with the Scottish one: if you've had a lot of exposure to Scottish English (and of course, many Brits have), then that one should be easy. For people who lack such experience, though...

Oh, and good catch about it not actually being McKinley! Was that in the YouTube comments? Apparently, the Serbian one I linked to also wasn't original, and was actually performed by some actor (or so claim some people in the YouTube comments). It makes sense: it probably wasn't feasible (technologically) to make such recordings outside of studio settings back in those days.
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DaveAgain
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Re: Hours until native listening?

Postby DaveAgain » Tue May 30, 2023 3:19 pm

Irena wrote:On the other hand, I'm not surprised to hear you had no problems with the Scottish one: if you've had a lot of exposure to Scottish English (and of course, many Brits have), then that one should be easy. For people who lack such experience, though...
I'm English and there were some parts I had to re-listen to. If he was chatting to a pal, rather than to a TV interviewer, I'd probably be lost. :-)
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Irena
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Re: Hours until native listening?

Postby Irena » Tue May 30, 2023 3:24 pm

DaveAgain wrote:
Irena wrote:On the other hand, I'm not surprised to hear you had no problems with the Scottish one: if you've had a lot of exposure to Scottish English (and of course, many Brits have), then that one should be easy. For people who lack such experience, though...
I'm English and there were some parts I had to re-listen to. If he was chatting to a pal, rather than to a TV interviewer, I'd probably be lost. :-)

Right. It'll depend on the Brit in question. Some have a lot of experience with Scottish English, and others don't. However, there are very, very few people outside of the UK/Ireland who have a lot of experience with Scottish English. There are some, no doubt, but not many.
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Le Baron
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Re: Hours until native listening?

Postby Le Baron » Tue May 30, 2023 4:10 pm

Irena wrote:
DaveAgain wrote:
Irena wrote:On the other hand, I'm not surprised to hear you had no problems with the Scottish one: if you've had a lot of exposure to Scottish English (and of course, many Brits have), then that one should be easy. For people who lack such experience, though...
I'm English and there were some parts I had to re-listen to. If he was chatting to a pal, rather than to a TV interviewer, I'd probably be lost. :-)

Right. It'll depend on the Brit in question. Some have a lot of experience with Scottish English, and others don't. However, there are very, very few people outside of the UK/Ireland who have a lot of experience with Scottish English. There are some, no doubt, but not many.

This can be over-egged though. There are plenty of people who live further up than where I'm from, almost border, and still can't understand even local accents. Lots of mainstream comedians have fairly strong Scots accents, like Kevin Bridges. There are lots of Scottish people in London.
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Irena
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Re: Hours until native listening?

Postby Irena » Tue May 30, 2023 4:25 pm

Le Baron wrote:This can be over-egged though. There are plenty of people who live further up than where I'm from, almost border, and still can't understand even local accents. Lots of mainstream comedians have fairly strong Scots accents, like Kevin Bridges. There are lots of Scottish people in London.

Some British people understand Scottish English with ease (even if they aren't from Scotland), while others don't. Would it be fair to say that both groups are quite large? Well, it's not easy to find Americans who can understand it with ease. Of course, it depends on what sort of Scottish English we're talking about! For instance, I have no trouble whatsoever understanding someone like Neil Oliver. But he speaks a kind of "standardized" Scottish English, if that makes sense. It's intended to be understandable for people who've never set foot in Scotland (me, for example).
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Re: Hours until native listening?

Postby Le Baron » Tue May 30, 2023 4:45 pm

I used to take umbrage at the suggestion that our accents in the north 'troubled' those from the south. Or that some Americans needed subtitles for films like The Full Monty. It's never best to extrapolate from one view, but I've never had a major problem with any UK accent - maybe some of the older west country accents. I can understand quite a few accents around France, some of the accents in Belgium (there are some really weird ones though) and Dutch accents. However with all those I can't really see huge distinctions in the way UK accents are different from one another. Likely I just can't hear all the differences.

I have a strong interest in accents and dialects. I look for videos of accents around the south of the U.S. from as far back as you can go to before the 1980s. There are some good ones of people from before or during the American civil war who filmed in the 1930s, some sound quite English; but also accents from around Texas in the 50s and 60s and 70s. A lot has faded away as speech has homogenised.
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