Sport Lisboa e Benfica

[H]

Another thing I learned, after being here for 6 months: The lower you get, geographically speaking, the closest you get to the English we learn at school. I have a friend from Brighton and her accent (or lack of) is the same as the one employed by English teachers in Portugal.

[Festivus]

I don't worry at all, I just find it amusing sometimes that people can speak the language perfectly, in terms of sentence construction and all, but then have that thick native accent. Take Sofia Vergara for example: I really can't tell if it's just her that doesn't want to learn of if she simply can't do it.

I try to make some sense out of it but I can't. To me, once one has managed to tame the language, it should be easy to get the accent right as well, because you've reached a point when you don't have to bother about which words you need to put next, because it's already an automatic process and therefore the only thing that might put more work to your brain could be "how" you say it.

I'm not a perfect English speaker, far from it, as I still put a lot of my brain work focused on phrase construction, but I can speak with English, American, Australian accent, a bit of Scottish, Irish and have been learning passively Northern Irish accent as well. Even within England, I've been learning a lot from different accents such as London, Manchester, Liverpool, Norwich or York accent, and to me it feels very natural to employ the accent to a word as soon as I learn it, but maybe people have different sensibilities, in terms of language learning. The fact that I've started learning it since I was 5 years old could be an explanation as well, but for example with Russian, some people that I talked with in English (but with which I tried some Russian words every once in a while), told me I had pretty good accent as well and I never had classes, all I learned was from watching the movies or from the classic books that had original words and then translaation at the bottom of the page.

I actually really likes languages, I would probably study and work on that if I didn't like Film even more.

I've always assumed Sofia Vergara's accent in Modern Family to be quite exaggerated for comical purposes. Guess I was wrong, then.

I can't mimic accents unless it's Scrooge McDuck's highly exaggerated and stereotypical Scottish accent in Ducktales. Northern England and Scotland have almost unintelligible accents anyway. Not even people from southern England or the USA can understand them that well. Scouser and thick Scottish accents are the worst.

Another thing I learned, after being here for 6 months: The lower you get, geographically speaking, the closest you get to the English we learn at school. I have a friend from Brighton and her accent (or lack of) is the same as the one employed by English teachers in Portugal.

Each language has its own standard "proper" form. In German it's even more complicated since the German we learn at school is the standard one spoken around Hannover, which is very different from German dialects in Switzerland, Austria, Stuttgart and Bavaria.

[H]

Northern Irish accent is so funny man. You say it kind of like, "Nôden Eirelan", if you read that as Portuguese. I got a girl in my class that is from there and it is quite amusing to hear her speak, she says she hate it but I love it!

I don't even know anymore what's the proper English form, but that accent from Brighton was the English I heard all of my English teachers throughout the years speak. I can't really describe it, but it's like perfect English, fully understandable. And I do have a lot of trouble sometimes understanding people in here, especially on the phone.

[Festivus]

Northern Irish accent is so funny man. You say it kind of like, "Nôden Eirelan", if you read that as Portuguese. I got a girl in my class that is from there and it is quite amusing to hear her speak, she says she hate it but I love it!

I don't even know anymore what's the proper English form, but that accent from Brighton was the English I heard all of my English teachers throughout the years speak. I can't really describe it, but it's like perfect English, fully understandable. And I do have a lot of trouble sometimes understanding people in here, especially on the phone.

I guess the standard form of British English is around that area or maybe Oxford. Do you watch British TV often? Because unless it's a show set in a specific region, people will try their best to speak standard British form on the media, tv shows, etc. I'm referring to news anchors, tv pundits and actors, obviously. Not regular folk they interview on the street.

[Covenant]

We sold our jewl...  Goodbye Bernardo

[H]

Unfortunately no. I had given up watching TV back in Portugal, now I watch it even less here on the UK, but I get what you mean. I hear it regularly from another girl of my class, that is from there.

[HJDK]

We sold our jewl...  Goodbye Bernardo

Today it's a sad day. Fuck this.

[Festivus]

Unfortunately not only we sell our best players too fast but we also waste our good future prospects.

[HJDK]

Btw, I met one American(he was from Texas) once at the airport and we had a little chat. Then he started to guess where I was from, only saying USA states. He was rather surprised when I said that I was portuguese. He told me he couldn't figure it out by himself, he felt that was "very neutral" and wasn't able to place it.

My two cents.

[HJDK]

And I relate to what Festivus said. I like accents. Sometimes I do the Russian English, it's so fucking badass.

[Festivus]

And I relate to what Festivus said. I like accents. Sometimes I do the Russian English, it's so fucking badass.

Most can't guess where I'm from just from listening to my voice or even looking at me. People always start naming big Western European countries(UK, France, Germany, etc.) and after telling them "no" for the 3rd or 4th time, they just give up and ask me where I'm from. Most of the time people just go straight to the point and ask me that anyway. As for the language, hearing me speaking portuguese does not seem to clue most people in. But I do get the "you sound Slavic" comment fairly often. And speaking of that, in Tunisia, some dude at the hotel kept asking me and my family where we were form. And he first thought we were Bulgarian and then Yugoslavian.

I actually didn't mention anything about liking accents, but yes, I do like some better than others. That being said, I can't think of a particular accent I prefer over the rest.

[HJDK]

And I wouldn't worry much about accents. Foreigners are supposed to have them. Some have thicker ones. But as long as you know the rules of the language and can express yourself fine to the point of people understanding you, it doesn't really matter to me if your accent is noticeable or not.

Well, I agree with this.

[H]

That's because you're a goddamn Yankee, HJDK. Yee-haw, God bless 'Murica!

People not having a clue where I'm from, happened loads of times as well. Mostly they ask how many years I've been living in here and then I say "4 or 5 months" and they can't believe it.

English with Russian accent is pretty badass indeed. The thing is that Russian as a language in terms of structure, appears to be rather 'rude', but it's the way you say the words that make it an "immediate order", or a "kind request", etc. Therefore when they don't know English that well, it makes them sound very impolite and rough because they use Russain phrase structure in English!

[Faliro]

Yea, in Greece they dub nothing. Everything is subtitled. Also  during most of the 80-90s Greeks watched more MTV than any other EU nation. They are obsessed with pop culture and trash TV. Greeks in general have sensational English although they do often form sentences as if they were in Greek.

For example.

''For why you not take the Ford Focus today? It is cloudy outside vre malaka''

Everything is 'for why...'  This is how hilarious the Greek accent is:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOShWeH_xQg

As for the most unattractive accents in English... Bulgarian.. Turkish.. Northern Irish..

Russian does indeed sound bad-ass, Polish sounds poor, German intense and French sexy. Italian english just sounds damaged..  However 2nd generation Italian American/wise guy New Jersey.. sounds pretty cool.

[Faliro]

We sold our jewl...  Goodbye Bernardo

15 million Euros!! 

Must be special.