Hi! I want to share the fascination and fun of speech, language and accents, and I'm so grateful to anyone who feels able to support this work via my Patreon.
I studied at University College London and got my PhD at the University of California Los Angeles. I've taught at universities including UCL, Edinburgh and Cambridge, published research in many areas, and worked as a forensic analyst. I've given invited lectures and workshops around the world.
I wrote the influential 'English After RP' (Palgrave Macmillan), and my blog contains over a hundred audio-illustrated articles. I'm co-editor of the free searchable online pronouncing dictionary CUBE.
I've also worked in film and TV as a screenwriter and director. I wrote the screenplay and arranged the music (performed by Lang Lang) for the animated fantasy Magic Piano, which was shortlisted for an Academy Award nomination.
I would argue that an American driving on the left would be as dangerous as if I was to drive on the right. I suspect it’s best to adhere to the rules of the region you’re living in. Perhaps that’s the point you’re making.
The accent of my native Kansas City may have shifted a little bit since Truman's time, but I do remember finding something a bit off about Oldman's Truman when I saw him. I couldn't quite put my finger on it until now. At least the acting and costuming were on-point.
Honestly, for learners, the English "s" is the first hurdle. 04:00 the "deletion" comes as a consequence of not being confident on how plural works and if the "s" is indeed the plural or not. Once learners understand the language to a certain degree "s" sounds become a safe haven, the stress is always around "th", undoubtedly more notorious, hence the focus, also beginners try to produce more sound from it even though as you clearly show, it is not supposed to sound loud. there are far harder challenges than the ubiquitous "s". 13:02 english "s" is a pretty easy sound at least for me. 13:33 It may look like Spaniards should have an easier time with certain English sounds especially because they indeed share some similarities, that and the fact the grammar is more similar to English than the other latin derived languages, that said spanish can be quite simple and repetitive with it's sounds so rather than easily adapting the similar sounds the Spanish often just carry over a their thick accent at first. I think it is noteworthy that the Japanese language has many gairaigo from english and these words remain largely unchanged but slightly adapted and so it becomes somewhat difficult for learners of any language not to pronounce words that are written the same way in their native way.
As a non native English speaker, the vocal fry always irritated me. Like why do you have to go ➡️⬆️↗️↘️⬇️ at the end of each sentence! while native speakers had no idea what I was talking about
No offence but I am sitting here thinking how the hell can you expect us to believe you actually have the first idea what you're talking about when you compare sounds in DIFFERENT words.... The only time I felt that you weren't bullshitting was when yoj compared then saying the word Joy. Signing off, before I get too irritated....😑
I had a “music major” roommate - and my voice grated on her. I think it was my unconscious vocal fry! She would try to explain it, but I couldn’t hear it at the time. Thank you Dr!
That's a quite interesting phenomenon - I don't think it's very common in German at least I didn't notice it alot. In general I like the sound but sometimes I find it quite annoying - in fact I find it most annoying in young men because to me it sounds like they are trying too hard to have a low voice and sound more "manly", combined with a fake or at least exaggerated attitude that influencers usually have, it only ads to me disliking vocal fry in some instances. Though I have to admit, there might be a bit of jealousy as well because when I try to do it it's very quiet and not efficient at all. And I also agree that one possible reason why people dislike vocal fry in women so much more than in men might be, that men are expected to have a lower pitch and women are expected to have a higher pitch. It's another fascinating aspect of languages and the way we speak and communicate.
The very last example (of 'lingerie') that you have given in this video is spoken by a deaf person (who I believe is relying on an early auditory recollection from her childhood perhaps mixed with some residual hearing?)
Can't stand it. People used to speak properly. Why don't people use their real voice like they used to??? When USA started infiltrating other Western countries it all went downhill. Basically if I hear vocal fry I know this is a person who is fake, not authentic. This person doesn't know their mind, is not aware of themselves, they are just copying trendy Americans. Bring back British English! I hope years down the track these people listen to their voices and cringe as we are. - also hearing your voice is a most welcome and wonderful relief!
You keep missing the point, though. Language is a tool with a purpose, and as such, it can be judged and valued based on how well it fulfills said purpose. I would argue that this purpose is to express oneself as clearly as possible, and be understood as well as possible. Basically, to carry meaning. At least, that's _usually_ the case. Some language mistakes, and I do say _some_ , actually blur, dilute if not remove the meaning from a sentence. It makes sense, then, to consider them as objectively incorrect or best avoided. A sentence containing such mistakes simply doesn't do its job well. Confusion between homophones often falls in that category. I find that your argument about "it's" & "its" being indistinguishable in speech and therefore not needing to be distinct in writing doesn't hold much water. Speech is inherently less ambiguous than writing, isn't it? Surely, vocal inflexions usually provide the needed information in this kind of context. In a written, silent context where meaning can be derived solely from the words themselves, the orthographic distinction is all the more useful. And even if that discrepancy wasn't there, and the spoken form was equally as ambiguous as the written form, why pass the opportunity to avoid ambiguity in _one_ of the two forms? Unless we're talking about poetry, humour, etc in which language doesn't need to be logical, doesn't it make sense to avoid confusion whenever possible? Isn't it _better_ ?
My paternal family have been residing at the same plot of land in West Riding, Yorkshire for over 800 years. My Grandad I could scarcely understand while my Dad was a Cockney and Mum from Carshalton. I, however, was born in San Francisco which makes me the only foreign born Blagden in over 800 years. We all sound different but we get by
If the point of language is communication, if someone says something to you and you understand what they mean, the linguistics were fine. If the point of language is to distinguish in groups and out groups it's a different story. If you aren't using thee, thou, and ye, you must intuitively know that language is constantly evolving and fighting it is futile. Though that never stops the mean spirited.
Comparing how it is used currently in English to other languages in terms of English speakers feel abou it is disingenuous, as they obviously use it for completely different reasons. The reason people don't like it in English is that it's effectively tier 2 valley girl.
In rhotic varieties the weak form of your is [jɚ] and I've noticed that me and other people backform a strong form for sure usually pronounced as [ʃɚ] as [ʃɔ̝ɹ̠] since it resembles a weak form.
Anyone who uses the term “wokeism”, or whichever other nonsense term they’ve been taught to spew out the current week by their propaganda, immediately disqualifies themselves from serious conversation
Anyone who uses the term “wokeism”, or whichever other nonsense term they’ve been taught to spew out the current week by their propaganda, immediately disqualifies themselves from serious conversation
"would of" only troubles me when it's written down. When spoken it sounds close enough to what was meant and I have a filter for that. But if you _write_ it down then I can get confused, because I don't have the sounds of the words to guide me across the minimum distance to what they probably meant. Less so with "would of" because it's well documented and I know its meaning as an idiom rather than as a homophone. But if you make me read AI-generated subtitles then I'll be utterly flummoxed by them. I see a word and it conveys a meaning and I have an enormous difficulty bridging the gap to what sounds alike and makes more sense. Which is weird, because not everybody has this problem. A lot of people can read bad subtitles and don't have any trouble correcting the nonsense homophones. Is it autism?
you know what, it's not entirely impossible. I'm autistic myself and I have a very hard time understanding written text with a lot of spelling mistakes/very bad grammar, or when someone talks in badly formulated sentences, though I'm sure it's at least slightly problematic for anyone. When you talk about AI subtitles, you mean reading AI subtitles to a video in a language that you don't understand at all, right? I don't think I've ever tried doing that, but I can usually guess the original words in bad subtitles when the audio is in a language I do speak (english or french)
It started with "Valley Girls," what, last century? It was supposed to be cool. The uplift at the end of sentences was another hallmark, making every statement sound like a question. I agree, very obnoxious.
