american or british
<<Or (apparently I heard) is best to learn British English first as it is 'harder' compared to the more streamlined American English. So when you learn American English its simply taking a 'step down'. >>
take a 'step down'?? What you are saying implies that American English is phonemically easier than a particular British dialect. Long ago I used to support that idea, but now I've changed my mind. It's just that American English is everywhere in South America, products, films, etc. That's why English accents are seen as a rare thing, and as people are not used to hearing them, they think it's more difficult. It's just a matter of hearing and getting used to the dialect, just that.
If British English was phonemically easier than American, then how can you explain that almost no English person cannot fake an American accent succesfully. The same with Americans. Both dialects are two worlds apart.
The matter is that some might say North American English dialects are generally "easier" phonologically than English English dialects simply because the former make fewer vowel phoneme distinctions than the latter in many cases. Of course, though, that ignores all the other phonological details that are present underneath it all which do not make things nearly so simple in practice.
>>If British English was phonemically easier than American, then how can you explain that almost no English person cannot fake an American accent succesfully. The same with Americans. Both dialects are two worlds apart.<<
The distance between NAE dialects and English English dialects is not *that* great, actually, especially if one limits English English dialects to just southern English English dialects alone. Actually, such southern English English dialects are generally quite intelligible to most NAE-speakers, especially in the case of Received Pronunciation and things close to it.
Besides the phonological specifics that make it hard to emulate a rhotic accent well if one has a non-rhotic accent native or to get the vowel system of an English English dialect right if one natively speakers your average NAE dialect, much of such problems emulating accents are a matter of just simple lack of familiarity with the specifics of dialects on the other side of the pond combined with the characteristics that individuals *are* likely to be familiar with (such as /t/ and /d/ flapping) not being sufficient to successfully emulate a dialect with them but will likely actually end up sounding like a *badly* emulated accent; for instance, flapping /t/ before /@n/ instead of glottal-stopping it, due to having learned that NAE-speakers generally flap /t/ and /d/ between vowels, is the kind of pronunciation error based on insufficient knowledge about the phonology of a given dialect that will clearly mark one's accent as being clearly fake.
That should be "if one natively speaks your average NAE dialect" above.
<<much of such problems emulating accents are a matter of just simple lack of familiarity with the specifics of dialects on the other side of the pond combined with the characteristics that individuals *are* likely to be familiar with>>
Yes, the problem with truly imitating someone from another area is that it's not as easy as changing a few vowels and consonants in a few well-known positions. There are so many subtle things which must be mastered.
On another forum someone commented that Mike Meyers used [O] instead of British [Q] in a few pre-/r\/ instances when he was playing the British character Austin Powers. That's the kind of thing people are not likely to be aware of unless they've had a (good) dialect coach or are very familiar with the hundreds of subtleties even between just two different English dialects (that's quite a subtle distinction but is still noticeable to people who have and distinguish [Qr\] and [Or\]).
Similarly, it goes the other way around, as well. Many British actors playing Americans may be able to pull of a passable American accent for the most part but it's still rarely 100% accurate. I think I mentioned it before but in the movie "I Heart Huckabees" Jude Law plays an American and for the most part does a good job but I did notice that when he said "Shania is" he inserted an 'intrusive r', which was wholly inappropriate for the accent he was trying to emulate and sounded very odd from a person whose accent was more or less General American. Of course Jude Law wasn't consciously aware of it but examples like that one did betray his native accent.
I have a lot of respect for actors who are truly able to completely pull off another accent/dialect to the point that they can fool even the toughest of native speakers listening closely. Those kinds of actors are few and far between.
<<take a 'step down'?? What you are saying implies that American English is phonemically easier than a particular British dialect. Long ago I used to support that idea, but now I've changed my mind. It's just that American English is everywhere in South America, products, films, etc. That's why English accents are seen as a rare thing, and as people are not used to hearing them, they think it's more difficult. It's just a matter of hearing and getting used to the dialect, just that. >>
That's probably a good point. Also, a lot of it may just come down to subjective opinion, which everyone has. For some they may find it harder to emulate the features of British English as compared to North American English but it could just as easily be the other way around for someone else.
From a Western European/Germanic-speaker's point of view, the British phonemes are easier to imitate than the American equivalents. Also, some aspects of British pronunciation, including the "o" in "hot", make more sense to us. It's like this: How on earth did the Americans come up with "haat" for "hot" and what other people on Planet Earth pronounce "t" like "d"? The French don't, the Germans don't, etc.
I give the Americans credit for pronouncing "r" though. In that, they make more sense than we do!
>>From a Western European/Germanic-speaker's point of view, the British phonemes are easier to imitate than the American equivalents. Also, some aspects of British pronunciation, including the "o" in "hot", make more sense to us. It's like this: How on earth did the Americans come up with "haat" for "hot" and what other people on Planet Earth pronounce "t" like "d"? The French don't, the Germans don't, etc.<<
North American English dialects, just so you know, have been significantly shifting around and simplifying their vowel systems, most likely due to the loss of length differences associated with different vowel phonemes in it (it still has allophonic vowel length, which is another matter). And for whatever reason, /Q/ (the English English BOTHER vowel) ended up merging with either /A/ or /O/, depending on the dialect (most dialects in the US except some in the Northeast merged to /A/, while most dialects in Canada and some in the Northeast merged to /O/). Note though that merging to /A/ entailed just unrounding, and merging to /O/ entailed just raising, so such is not much of a change sound-wise.
We don't really pronounce /t/ like /d/, but rather in intervocalic positions except before stressed vowels (but there are exceptions to that as well) we pronounce both of them as alveolar flaps, [4] in X-SAMPA (think what is written as "r" in Castilian orthography).
>>I give the Americans credit for pronouncing "r" though. In that, they make more sense than we do!<<
Of course, English is not the only Germanic language to be "non-rhotic" in at least some of its dialects; a lot of people do not notice that most German dialects today are also "non-rhotic", albeit in a somewhat different way than most English English dialects.
" British English was phonemically easier than American, then how can you explain that almost no English person cannot fake an American accent succesful"
That's not true. Most Brits can speak with an American accent.
American is easier to learn and easier to speak than British.
All American is is simplified and lazy British.
This forum hits an intellectual low each time Adam posts. What's the point of posting senselessly over some petty axe to grind? Get over your emotional issues, you silly, fat, old cretin.
He's not wrong in the above statements though.
His above statements don't even make sense, though.
We drink TONS of tea, Jim C. If you want plain old tea, it's usually labelled as "black tea" or "orange pekoe". But I can't imagine it being particularly difficult to find in any store in the US! It's always staring at me whenever I look -- and I pass it right by for the fancy herbal stuff!
We still call it the American Revolution most of the time. Why do you think it has to be called the "war for independence"?
Well, it's completely fine by me for you to call it the "American Revolution", especially as you fought it and won it :)
Just don't be confused when bods from other parts of the world say "American War of Independence", because that's what we all learn in our textbooks. ALL of us: Europeans, Britons, Canadians, Asians, etc etc.
I heard a bloke on telly call it the revolution, then he appologised and corrected him self, with the war of independance, I was a bit confused.
I thought that maybe Americans prefered to think of British rule as imposed on them rather than them being previously British? Revolution = British rising against their system of government, War of Independance = Induvidual nation throwing off the shackles of British oppression.
So I thought it was the correct way to say it out of sympathy for the American view on it, but obviously Americans couldn't give a monkeys, which is good to hear.
***ALL of us: Europeans, Britons, Canadians, Asians, etc etc.***
Erm....er.....technically Britons ARE Europeans......geographically, although to listen to SOME people here we're not. I go off the wall a wee bit when I hear Tories especially (that's the Conservatives in political terms..Tory is the original word for a Conservative....a pretty rare animal here in Scotland but strong in Southern England particularly) refer to Britain and Europe as if there is no physical connection at all...well, literally there isn't as there is a wee bit of choppy watter between us. They say things like "I'm off to Europe now" when all they're doing is hopping onto a ferry for the 22 miles jaunt across those choppy waters from Dover to Calais, both of which are in sight of each other most of the time.
Island mentality again.....especially in the English for some reason.
Tea......does anybody really like those weird herbals? Camomile tea tastes like baby pee that I've ever tasted baby pee.I'm just trying to be graphic here. Tea should be so strong that when you stir it with a spoon the spoon either stands up in it on its own...or simply dissolves in the steaming brew. Furthermore...tea should always come in a man sized mug, preferably one with a rude slogan on it....and NEVER in dainty wee china tea cups with floral patterns...they belong with all those genteel old ladies in exclusive tea rooms in Morningside.