Thread: Please help to 'hear out' from this sound samples

Thanks, everyone. I have a bit more general question now. Is this 'chewing on the words' is universal in Great Britain or this is just a personal trait of only selected Brits? They do awful things with my perception of English grammar, by the way.

Originally Posted by Ramil

Thanks, everyone. I have a bit more general question now. Is this 'chewing on the words' is universal in Great Britain or this is just a personal trait of only selected Brits? They do awful things with my perception of English grammar, by the way.

I'm not sure what exactly you mean by chewing but I guess the answer would be yes. Or that it may sound that way if you're not used to BE. Though if you are going solely by these samples then there are lots of aggravating (or mitigating depending on how you want to look at it) factors here:

- highly specialised vocabulary. They are using arcane shooting/hunting terms like fitasc and possibly many others we are not even able to pick out. It's like when you try and read 19th century Russian fiction: it's not too bad when they're all talking genteelly in the salon but then you turn the page to a hunting scene and you are f-d.
- They are engaged in 'strenuous' sporting activity and are concentrating on their shots not on what they are saying - they are just trying to communicate essential information as efficiently as possible. In spontaneous spoken language sentences are being constantly abandoned or transformed halfway through even at the best of times.
-They are talking through a forest of their own arms and gun; for all we know the gun stocks may even be pressing slightly into their necks.
- if you ask me then the recording is a bit ropey


Try listening to BE speakers talking about more familiar subjects. If you can already understand AE without problems then you should be able to get it down pretty quickly. It's not all that dissimilar. Of course the stress patterns do differ slightly and there is a greater variety of accents - much greater than you might think from these clips too. I would guess North Eastern, Scottish or possibly Belfast would be among the hardest. Although you never know for sure. For example Scottish English has the cleanest vowels of any variety of English, more like German or possibly even Russian vowels than English diphthongs - this is why Scottish people are supposed to have good accents in foreign languages.