Newsgroup: it.cultura.linguistica.inglese
Titolo: notes on my spoken English

Premessa: Gusti personali a parte, dato che non avevo in mente di andare 
in USA e l'UK � un po' pi� vicino all'Italia, quando ho cominciato a 
cercare di migliorare la pronuncia, ho sempre fatto riferimento 
all'inglese britannico. Ovviamente nessun inglese direbbe che io vengo 
dal suo Paese.
Elenco qui un po' di commenti sul mio "spoken English" dopo un mese che 
sono qua:
- La giornata � lunga e non riesco assolutamente a mantenere la stessa 
intonazione da mattina a sera. Quindi se non mi va o sono stanco, parlo 
con un accento direi "neutro" (non comunque italiano), mantenendo per� 
la pronuncia britannica delle singole parole.
- Dipende poi molto dal mio interlocutore: with all the spanish-speaking 
people I know, I don't care to sound so British. Basta che mi faccio 
capire e sono a posto. Sto pensando ora che forse con chi parla inglese 
meglio sono pi� inclinato a parlar meglio anch'io. Just guessing!
- E' comunque fatica, non avendo riferimenti attorno, cercare di parlare 
in BrEn. Ho come la sensazione che, se non mi metto a guardare un po' di 
roba in BrEn, il mio gi� fragile accento si trasformer� ben presto in 
qualcosa di pi� indefinito di quanto gi� non sia. :-/
- Finora in parecchi mi hanno detto "you sound British". Dipende molto, 
immagino, da quanto British English abbiano avuto occasione di 
ascoltare. Un americano ieri sera mi ha detto che sembrava che io fossi 
di Londra. Adesso, questo era davvero troppo. I wasn't even overdoing 
it! Gli ho quindi fatto sentire come nell'accento cockney non si 
pronuncino le "t" e ci siamo fatti quattro risate.
- Ho provato una volta con un'americana a ripetere quattro-cinque parole 
alla volta che mi diceva lei, cercando di riprodurre la sua pronuncia. 
Risultato: "you still sound European". Quindi, non so se abbia senso 
provare a parlare in American English. Boh, ripeter� l'esperimento con 
altri americani per vedere cosa mi dicono.
Se mi viene in mente altro, lo aggiunger� in seguito.
Ciao,
Enrico il Pentolaio.
-- 
La parola tradisce l'ossessione (Baudelaire)

Ciao!
Divertiti, o impara, o lavora, o operati o fa' qualunque cosa tu sia
andato l� a fare, ma lascia andare, almeno per un po', questa esagerata,
quasi ossessiva preoccupazione tua per l'accento!

 altri americani per vedere cosa mi dicono.
gfc

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
Be' ma lui � un musicista, si pu� perdonare...
E poi trovo  divertenti questi post. A parte il fatto che avrebbe dovuto
scrivere /incline/, non /inclinato/ :-)))
Ciao EiP, buon divertimento and all anche da parte mia.
-- 
Anna

 ....and why should you?
Because I'll be stuck here till May!
:-)
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Ok, ma mica sto rinchiuso in camera mia, davanti allo specchio, ad 
esercitarmi a parlare come Prince William!
:-D


 Ciao EiP, buon divertimento and all anche da parte mia.
Grassie!


Enrico il Pentolaio wrote:
[...]
Aggiungo:
- come sono belli gli sms! Al telefono faccio una gran fatica a capire 
chiunque. Dovr� abituarmi...


 That was disappointing!
Io non riuscirei a sembrare americano ad un americano.

 Io non riuscirei a sembrare americano ad un americano.
Not even if you just pronounce three or four words?


 Not even if you just pronounce three or four words?
Maybe if they were the right three or four words.
How long could you pass for Sicilian in Sicily or Neapolitan in
Naples? I'd think you'd be found
out after a pretty small number of words.

 scrivere /incline/, non /inclinato/ :-)))
It's not a big mistake:
http://demauroparavia.it/21379/inclinato
Kiuhnm

 - Finora in parecchi mi hanno detto "you sound British". 
Consider yourself lucky.
Most of the people I know cooment on my English with "you sound 
stupid".
:-]
(tra l'altro da quando seguo assiduamente Craig Ferguson (The Late Late 
Night Show) vi viene da pronunciare 'about' come 'abutt'...

 Night Show) vi viene da pronunciare 'about' come 'abutt'...
I'm a big fan of his, and as a "native English (American) speaker" I find his 
accent very charming.
-- 
Joe/Joey da New York
English as she is spoken (and sometimes written) in the US

 chiunque. Dovr� abituarmi...
Tranquillo, appena arrivato qui a Londra anch'io facevo una fatica 
mortale a capire la gente al telefono.

 :-)
 So far it soulds from your messages like you are not too happy where
you are.  I have not heard one positive comment, or maybe I missed
them.   Why didn't you try a university in the UK?
gfc

 altri americani per vedere cosa mi dicono.
Meno male che devi preoccuparti solamente dell'intonazione. Sono in 
Italia da due settimane e faccio ridere spesso i miei amici italiani. 
Dopo alcuni bicchieri di vino diventa peggio. Oggi, ho detto la parola 
'pistola' con l'accento sul primo sillabo e tutti a tavola hanno riso 
cosi' tanto pensavo d'aver detto per caso una parolaccia. L'ultima sera 
avevo sbagliato la pronuncia della parola 'assicurazione' cosi' spesso 
(parlando di Obama) che dovevo scriverla e lasciare la carte vicino per 
guardarla ogni tanto prima di parlare. Magari che il mio difetto era 
soltanto un accento un po' fuori della norma.


... il mio difetto fosse... (un'altro difetto)

 ... il mio difetto fosse... (un'altro difetto)
"Un altro", senza apostrofo.
:-)
-- 
Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious.
    -- Oscar Wilde

 "Un altro", senza apostrofo.
Quello se c'� non si sente.
:-)
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 them.   
Easy, gwenda, easy. Intendevo soltanto chiedere quale fosse l'esperienza 
"linguistica" di altri che hanno vissuto o vivono attualmente 
all'estero. Evidentemente non ci sono riuscito... va be'.
Finora mi sono lamentato di tutti quelli che usano tre "like" per frase 
e di un autista che mi ha fatto un gestaccio mentre giravo tranquillo in 
bici, cosa che a Forl� non mi era mai successo. Provo quindi a 
bilanciare con qualcosa di positivo: mi piace tutto il verde che c'� nel 
campus, � utile per rallentare quando i freni della bici non funzionano; 
mi piacciono le lezioni da 1 ora e un quarto, cio� la met� o neanche 
della durata delle lezioni da me in Italia: si riesce a stare pi� 
attenti e si impara di pi�.


 soltanto un accento un po' fuori della norma.
Eh ma l'italiano � difficile! Dover pensare a coniugare bene i verbi, 
far concordare aggettivi, sostantivi e articoli... troppo, troppo! W 
l'inglese!
:-)


 wrote in
message news:h9br4p$qkg$1...@aioe.org...
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For many people, bicycles are considered as pests which take up space on the
road reserved for automobiles, and many people are unaware that bicycles
have the same rights on the road as automobiles.
Something else to consider is that people associated with the university are
more likely to be bicyclists than "townies", and "townies" harbor a certain
resentment toward university students.
Have you seen the film "Breaking Away", in which a "townie" who lives near a
university in Indiana is obsessed by cycliing, and is preoccupied by the
impending arrival of the Italian cycling team? He tries to impress a female
student at the university by pretending to be an Italian cyclist, lousy
accent and all.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078902/plotsummary
On the other side of the coin, there is often a condescending attitude on
the part of the university community toward the local population. This
attitude is shown in the film mentioned above.
When I was a student at the University of Maryland in College Park, MD, I
was often forced off the road intentionally by deranged motorists when
riding my bicycle to and from campus.
Joe from Massachusetts

 - Finora in parecchi mi hanno detto "you sound British". 
[...]
I guess that's fashionable and attractive in the USA ;-)
-- 
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http://www.newsland.it/news
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ab...@newsland.it

 Dopo alcuni bicchieri di vino diventa peggio.
Putroppo la regola dell'alcool vale per l'italiano verso l'inglese, non 
viceversa:
1 Pint - No change to your English
2 Pints - Your English goes up a level
3 Pints - Your English goes up a level (But the grammar disappears)
4 Pints - You become very fluent, but start mixing English with your own 
language
5 Pints - You discover you can sing in English, and are brilliant at karaoke
6 Pints - You suddenly know lots of taboo words in English
7 Pints - You can't speak English at all (and also forget your own language)
Over 7 - You start speaking American English

 Over 7 - You start speaking American English
HEY!      I resemble that remark!    :D
[It's a joke; "resemble" should be "resent" but I've mixed up the words and 
made a fairly common pun.]
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 and from campus.
Here most of bicyclists who die by traffic accidents are old
people, not necessarily drunk (often it's the car driver who is
drunk).
-- 
"E' impossibile godere a fondo l'ozio se non si ha una quantitï¿œ
di lavoro da fare."
-- Jerome K. Jerome (1859-1927), "Pensieri oziosi di un ozioso".

Enrico il Pentolaio, 02:46, mercoled� 23 settembre 2009:

Come sei messo quanto ad assicurazione sanitaria?
-- 
"Le monde appartient � ceux, dont les ouvriers se l�vent t�t."
                -- Anonyme 


I've never tried it, but I fear after 7 pints I'd start making lewd 
overtures to middle-aged Italian women using a mix of siciliano and 
napoletano parolacce.

 l'inglese!
Appunto! Devo ricordarmi a parlare lentamente anche se gli italiani non 
parlano lentamente mai.

 Come sei messo quanto ad assicurazione sanitaria?
E' quella dell'universit�.
http://www.si.uiuc.edu/Plans/StudentHealthInsurancePlan/tabid/126/Default.aspx


 *sono* il traffico". 
There's a civil disobedience group of cyclists in Manhattan (and other 
cities) called "Critical Mass," who meet on the last Friday of the month and 
ride through the city -- different neighborhoods each time -- overtaking the 
roads. They don't stop at traffic lights, they whoop and holler as they pass; 
they make their presence well known; they assert their rights as cyclists. In 
most places of the US, bicyclists are considered nuisances. This is their way 
of making some waves.


 waves.
Are there bicyclists in the greater Los Angeles?
 
-- 
The Worst American Poet
  Julia Moore, "the Sweet Singer of Michigan" (1847-1920) was so
bad that Mark Twain said her first book gave him joy for 20
years.
  Her verse was mainly concerned with violent death -- the great
fire of Chicago and the yellow fever epidemic proved natural
subjects for her pen.
  Whether death was by drowning, by fits or by runaway sleigh,
the formula was the same:
    Have you heard of the dreadful fate
    Of Mr. P.P. Bliss and wife?
    Of their death I will relate,
    And also others lost their life
    (in the) Ashbula Bridge disaster,
    Where so many people died.
  Even if you started out reasonably healthy in one of Julia's
poems, the chances are that after a few stanzas you would be at
the bottom of a river or struck by lightning. A critic of the
day said she was "worse than a Gatling gun" and in one slim
volume counted 21 killed and 9 wounded.
  Incredibly, some newspapers were critical of her work, even
suggesting that the sweet singer was "semi-literate". Her reply
was forthright: "The Editors that has spoken in this scandalous
manner have went beyond reason."  She added that "literary work
is very difficult to do".
    -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures"

 
Yessir. 
http://www.cicle.org/cm/criticalmass.html
To name a few.
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 number of nights ago. OK, alcune sere fa.
L'altra sera.

 I guess that's fashionable and attractive in the USA ;-)
Exactly! But then again, two nights ago I met some fat black guy in a 
pub who told me:"what, wait, you sound British. Man, drop that!"
:-/
Ciao,
Enrico il Pentolaio.

 ha scritto 
nel messaggio news:h9mtl9$74a$1...@aioe.org...
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ROFL!
Mi ha fatto ridere questo thread tutto, ma la scena col Nero grosso che ti 
cazzia � sata la ciliegina sulla torta :)
Un paio di considerazioni:
Non pensare che la gente al mondo se ne importi tanto della lingua e della 
pronuncia come pu� succedere in un gruppo di linguistica come questo.
Inoltre gli Americani sono particolarmente ignoranti di linguistica (mica 
studiano tutte quelle regole alle elementari come gli Italiani! Semmai si 
inizia a capirne qualcosa all'uni). Tutto questo per dire: non ha senso 
chiedere un loro giudizio, dipende troppo dalla loro esperienza di vita, che 
di solito � molto limitata (gli Americani, oltretutto, viaggiano poco fuori 
dal Paese), dalle loro conoscenze (come sopra) e dalla loro superficialit� 
(per via del fatto che la linguistica, come dicevo, non � di solito una 
priorit�).
Quindi, a seconda di queste variabili avrai una riposta diversa.
Detto questo, io ti ho sentito via Skype e ovviamente pronunci le parole 
come uno che ha imparato il inglese britannico, questo NON significa che 
suoni come un Inglese, ma che a) non potrai suonare americano (come 
potresti? hai imparato apposta il Brit Eng!) b) non potrai mai suonare madre 
lingua (se non, forse, dopo qualche anno che vivi in un posto) e quindi ti 
si piazza genericamente in Europa. Dico...che altro ti aspettavi? Secondo me 
non suonare Italiano dev'essere il maggiore dei tuoi obiettivi e a mio 
parere era gi� cos� prima di partire, per quel poco che ho sentito.
Altra cosa pi� scema, ma che forse spiega la scenetta del Nero: per molti 
Americani il Brit Engl � una parlata antipatica (e suona anche un po' gay, 
ma non vorrei far irritare qualcuno), un po' come il Milanese per il Romano 
o il Francese per l'Italiano (soprattutto dopo che hanno perso una partita 
di calcio contro la Francia). In alcuni film la persona antipatica ha un 
vago o schietto accento britannico, da non confondere con la pronuncia di 
chi se la tira (tipo Newyorkesi) che usano qualche parola pronunciata alla 
Brit e, solitamente, un accento meno sguaiato di altre parti del Paese.
Scrivici altri appunti!
ciao, Janis 

 Scrivici altri appunti!
Well, upon request...
- Because a Japanese friend of mine was trying to tell this American 
girl I met today that, according to him, American English doesn't sound 
all that different across the US,  she said that there are actually 
different dialects in America. Maybe we just don't mean the same thing 
by "dialect". I don't hear any dialects here. Any. Perhaps in some 
ghettos, but that's not what she was talking about.
After introducing myself, she paused for a while and said:"wait, are you 
from italy or from england?". I did try to care about intonation, so 
hey, mission accomplished! Too bad that when we continued talking, she 
noticed so many inconsistencies in my accent!!! :-DDD So my next move is 
to meet somebody new and tell him I'm from england, just to see how long 
it takes him to realise that I'm not.
:-D
- At a pub tonight, I met an Aussie girl. I was tired, so didn't care 
much about sounding anything close to British, but just to see what her 
reaction would be, I tried something now and then. Nothing. Nada. Can't 
trick these guys! :-D
Also, her accent was the weirdest one ever! Ok, not so peculiar, but to 
me it sounded like she was speaking half-american and half-british. Some 
sentences sounded American to me, some other sort of British. Is that 
what they're supposed to sound like? The other day I was listening to a 
conversation between an Aussie and a few British people in the dining 
hall, but he sounded different. Perhaps they just come from different 
places. Oh, she also said that it's not much about what state you are 
from, but whether you come from the countryside or the city. That makes 
sense.
Enough for now!
Ciao,
Enrico il Pentolaio.

 what they're supposed to sound like?
No: exactly like you, she was just trying to sound British! ;D
-- 
Anna

 wrote in
message news:ha4bed$tb$1...@aioe.org...

Not everyone in the US speaks English well all the time, and some people
just don't have the ability to minimize their regional accents when speaking
English to a foreigner, while at the same time being conscious that the
listener is a foreigner, which would mean that speaking with grammatical
correctness is a necessity to avoid confusion. When your normal conversation
is laced with "like", "you know", "whatever", "I mean", and other "fillers",
it is sometimes difficult to switch to a more formal and more intelligible
language. When a person becomes conscious of the fact that you are trying to
improve your English, they also become aware that you are also going to
judge their speech, which can be a problem for some people.
When I was in Italy and was making good progress toward fluency in the
language, I often spoke in English to my Italian friends, not because they
spoke excellent English, but in order to help them improve their English. I
would point out to my Italian friends which of our mutual American friends
could be relied upon as models of pronunciation and grammar to imitate when
speaking English. I have to say that I recommended very few people, because
most of my friends either did not have a good grasp of the English language,
or did not have the patience to deal with someone attempting to learn
correct English. Chances are that if you used the phrases "present
progressive", "past perfect", "tag question", or any other grammatical
jargon, you would be met with a blank stare, because most people, unless
they are studying a foreign language, will be unfamiliar with the nuances of
English grammar, as were most of my American friends in Vicenza.
My Italian friends often said that when I spoke English with my American
friends when we would meet casually on the street, it was much different
than when I spoke with them. This is true, because casual conversation was
always full of slang and the stock phrases used by military personnel. My
Italian friends also said that when I spoke Italian with them, it was always
precise and correct (I studiously avoided dialect), but when I would meet an
American friend on the street, I would lapse into the casual informal style
of English which is common among friends.
Short conversations are not very good for improving your listening ability,
or for practicing your spoken English. Short conversations tend to be more
salutations than exchanges of information. You should seek out people who,
in your judgement, have reasonable accents and who understand the necessity
of speaking with grammatical correctness. That is what I did when practicing
my Italian in the early stages. Probably the best bet would be to find
people who are studying a foreign language (not necessarily Italian), or
people who are studying the same subjects you are studying. During the
"passeggiata" along the Corso Palladio in Vicenza, I learned a lot of
Italian from students of the Istituto Rossi in Vicenza, students who were
studying electronics, which was the field I was working in at the time. All
of them were also studying English. Our mutual interest in electronics was
the basis of our friendship, but our conversations eventually touched upon
many other subjects, and the fact that most of them were also studying
English was another common interest.
For me, the secret formula was passeggiata, Punt e Mes, parlare, prestare
ascolto.  :>)
Joe from Massachusetts

 For me, the secret formula was passeggiata, Punt e Mes,
Bevuto "liscio", naturalmente.   ;>)
Joe from Massachusetts