Aye! Everyone speaks every language with an accent!
Too many years ago, in a previous life, I had a test and tutorial from someone from the BBC as my job involved me appearing on the television (nowhere near as impressive as it sounds! Or, indeed, doesn’t).
Her feedback to me was “you have a very good speaking voice, but talk a little too quickly for your accent”.
?
It was before Huw Edwards went Britain wide (I think!), but still! I don’t even have a strong Welsh accent! And I certainly don’t gabble away like a pixie on speed similar to Aran or Iestyn at double speed.
I hope it’s not Slovak, what would be more likely (as we discussed once already) hence to popularity of Slovak language. Slovene is not far so popular what even quite some pages show. You can get translations in Slovak (Slovenčina), but not Slovene (Slovenščina).
So which language is getting your interest then @garethrking? (just out of curiousity and my interest)
She didn’t actually specify one. I think she thought it obviously implied I should simply slow down my speaking. Had I had the presence of mind,* I could have whipped on a red fright wig, a comedy Tam o’Shanter and affected an outrageous and terrible Scottish accent, then asked her if it was the right accent for the speed.
In the end I simply ignored her. I don’t think anyone was seriously hurt.
YAY! We could chat. I’m much more confident in Italian even now remembering almost nothing anymore. But I’m quite sure the knowledge would come back quickly.
I didn’t Bach! I said, “Pardon, je ne comprende pas!” and he asked where I came from. “Payes de Galles!” “Oh. Madame, I am so sorry, I thought you were a fellow Belgian!”
Yes, I am very,very, eager to learn German. I meet quite a few Swiss, Austrians and Scandinavians as well as Germans, particularly on the ‘‘wine trail’’ in Piemonte, and they tend to use German as the common language during festivities - and I would love to be able join in.
I boy. Just a bit more and I’ll have whole SSi crowd to practice with in different languages. I can speak German quite well but not as nearly as good as English. (or shall we say write instead of speak as I rearly speak any language instead of my own - Slovene).
Now , curiousity … did anyone by some tiny chance ever tried (I mean really tried) to learn some Slovene?
Another volunteer for French here - I’m not as fluent as I used to be in terms of getting the words out (because Welsh has taken over my speech centres, it seems) but my accent is pretty good.
(I was mistaken for a native Welsh speaker by another native Welsh speaker at the weekend - very proud about that. It was in Gogs, though, so perhaps he just thought my odd accent was a southern thing…)
Aran, why not have a sort of “referendum” or “poll” amongst SSiWers? First question: which other language (one only) would you be interested in learning? Second question: If SSi offered this language, would you be likely to sign up for it?
This could give an indication of demand, and provide some pointers for the future of SSi!
Thanks, Gavin - we’re definitely thinking in that kind of direction - but we probably need to add an element of buying in advance to make sure we don’t end up promising stuff that we just can’t produce as fast as we’d like…
