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Foreign Languages: Daunting for you or Ease ?

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Re: Foreign Languages: Daunting for you or Ease ?

Postby Uschi » Mon Apr 09, 2018 11:38 pm

Sakkarin wrote:I used to get clouted round the head regularly in German lessons, as I could not help myself from laughing out loud every time a funny-sounding word was introduced. Even the most innocent of words had me in stitches - I remember "kugelschreiber" and "radiergummi" both getting me a slap, and I think I may even have got a detention the lesson they introduced "art" into our German vocabulary...

Our German teacher was Irish, and his German had a particular Irish twang to it which made the words sound even funnier.


I can imagine that you found German funny. :lol: And I am sorry that you got into so much trouble.

One of my English teachers was Irish, but he was a fine teacher and I learnt a lot from him.

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Re: Foreign Languages: Daunting for you or Ease ?

Postby Renée » Mon Apr 09, 2018 11:55 pm

Well you certainly didn't end up with an Irish accent, Uschi!

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Re: Foreign Languages: Daunting for you or Ease ?

Postby Stokey Sue » Tue Apr 10, 2018 12:07 am

I got some tapes of a BBC radio series intended to help you improve your German fluency

No Irish accents, but they were definitely speaking German with a BBC accent, which was pretty much the starting point I was trying to move away from :lol:

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Re: Foreign Languages: Daunting for you or Ease ?

Postby Uschi » Tue Apr 10, 2018 12:41 am

I spent a lot of time in England. I may have sounded a little Irish in 1977/78. :D

Sue, you probably have a slight Berlin accent by now. You could always try and watch German TV online.

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Re: Foreign Languages: Daunting for you or Ease ?

Postby Stokey Sue » Tue Apr 10, 2018 2:08 am

I usedto have a slight, but definite, Ruhr accent, several people noticed it, not sure why - a combination of the German trainee teacher at school, my natural way of speaking and probably something to do with speaking Dutch first

I don't think I sound really Berlinerisch, they always sound to me as if they are reciting nursery rhymes! :)

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Re: Foreign Languages: Daunting for you or Ease ?

Postby Uschi » Tue Apr 10, 2018 8:05 am

I think the Ruhr accent may come from both your English and your Dutch accents.
It's a Westphalian accent where the "r", when it's not the first letter of a word, is not pronounced, but the vowel is lengthened much like it is in English.
So English "garden" sounds very like the Westphalian "Garten", as far as the "a" and "r" are concerned.
I was born a few kilometers west of the dialect divide and I pronounce the "r" in garden like the Scots "ch" in Loch. :D

You can say generally, that native English speakers sound North German rather than anything else. And Westphalian is a North German accent.

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