Newsgroup: it.cultura.linguistica.inglese
Titolo: How good is your ear?

Yesterday I reviewed (
www.claudiacantaluppi.net/enblog
) a website that
was mentioned here a few times (BBC - Voices) and I have become
addicted to the How Good Is Your Ear? section... 
http://www.bbc.co.uk/voices/languagelab/
You first have to register by just saying where you're from - the
results being collected for a survey (which finished in 2005 though) -
then you will listen to ten voices of which you must say the origin.
It can be either an accent or a language. The accents are all British.
Uhm, I keep on scoring between 5/10 and 7/10 and am better at
recognising other languages ... (Turkish, Cantonese and Irish Gaelic
being my strong points, apart from the languages I know such as
Spanish or French). For British accents I can usually identify the
area (north of England, Scotland) but the right answer is often my
second choice! :-(
How good are you?
Ciao
Claudia

 How good are you?
I've just taken the survey three times and my final score ranges from 4/10 
to 6/10. Here's the details:
norwich YES (sounded like a Southern accent and Norwich was the only 
Southern town in the list)
lancashire NO (bah)
north wales NO (who cares about Bangor anyway?)
london NO (crap! I didn't pay enough attention)
glasgow YES (clearly a Scottish accent, I was undecided between Glasgow and 
Edimburgh, but I've been in the latter and never heard anybody speaking in 
that way, so the choice was pretty simple)
cantonese YES (no need to comment, I guess)
spanish YES (big whoop!)
Edimburgh NO (this is where my previous theory fails. But I could have 
recognized it if I'd listened carefully to the pronunciation of "six")
Liverpool YES (quite evident)
Arabic NO (well, our troll could have been of help here, too bad he's in my 
black list)
Belfast YES (if I hear an "r" out of place in something similar to an 
English accent, then I'm most probably dealing with an Irish speaker)
liverpool YES (ck ->ch, same recording as before)
Scottish Gaelic NO (yeah, I regret turning off the radio when, back in 2005, 
I was in Scotland and tried to listen to a gaelic-only station)
Edinburgh NO (damn!)
Turkish YES (just lucky)
Irish (I could identify a few English words in the speech)
Cantonese YES (boohoo, that was difficult)
Bangor NO
Welsh NO
Edinburgh NO (what the...!)
Norwich YES (see the first list)
Somali NO (ok, then I never sussed out what all those African illegal 
traders actually speak)
Bristol NO (it says people from Bristol add "l"'s to some words, but truth 
be told I can't find any such thing in the recording: 
http://www.bbc.co.uk/voices/realmedia/accentsurvey/95.ram
)
Arabic NO
Punjabi NO (I guess I'm just not interested)
French YES
London YES (I'm quite experienced now!)
Scottish Gaelic YES (wow)
Cardiff NO (I chose Swansea, which is just a few tens of miles west of 
Cardiff. It's like being able to distinguish a riminese from a ravennate 
without having lived anywhere in Romagna. Now, is that even feasible?)
Tschau,
Enrico il Pentolaio.
-- 
"I'm not a gay pirate, I have sex with my parrot all the time! OK, that came 
out wrong." 

 How good are you?
1/10  :-)
-- 
pinko(at)
people.it

 Southern town in the list)
Ops. Let's just say Norwich was the southermost town.


 taken as a disclaimer.

 though. Go figure.
Giusto per curiosità, ad un orecchio americano gli accenti riportati nel 
sondaggio sono tutti comprensibili?


 
Yes, I had no problem understanding what they were saying; I just had 
essentially no idea what part of the UK they were from.


 essentially no idea what part of the UK they were from.
Ah ok. Delle volte su imdb ci sono messaggi del tipo:"I've once watched The 
Office (UK), but I couldn't understand what the hell they were saying" o 
simili. Ma forse è soltanto indice del livello degli utenti che si aggirano 
in quei meandri.


 How good are you?
7/10
I missed the Bangor one (wha'evah), Irish (I put Gaelic or summat like 
that) and... mmm... can't rembember the last one.
I recognised most of the British accents, tho I have to admit that I 
kind of guessed some. :)

delu ha scritto:

Oh, Swansea. I didn't recognise the Swansea accent.

 
It does happen in some films that initially I have trouble understanding some 
of the (British) accents, but usually my ear gets accustomed after a while 
and I'm okay. One exception was "Gosford Park", which I had to watch twice, 
the second time with subtitles! I think the variety of accents in that film 
made it harder for my ear to acclimate.
I sometimes have the same problem with Irish plays; the first ten to fifteen 
minutes I'm a little lost, but then something falls into place and I'm ok.


 How good are you?
4/10
nessun problema col turco e lo spagnolo :)
-- 
Ciao,
Anna

delu ha scritto:

L'ho rifatto un po' di volte, e galleggio tra i 5 e 8/10. Pur vivendo 
nel Regno Unito, alcuni accenti non li ho veramente mai sentiti, mentre 
altri si distinguono per minuzie di pronunce che noi stranieri dubito 
che possiamo notare.
Un po' come Joey, anche per me alcuni accenti hanno richiesto un po' di 
abitudine per assimilare le diverse pronunce. Una volta fattoci 
l'orecchio, tutto risulta molto più facile.
Altri accenti invece sono molto più semplici da individuare, e avere 
amici di determinate zone aiuta molto (ho ricosciuto con facilità gli 
accenti scozzesi grazie agli sforzi che mi ha richiesto capire un mio 
carissimo amico di Glasgow ^^;).