Kitchen Garden Forum

This all seems like a case of black pots and kettles calling each other names.
' ... different language to ...? 'From' surely or as we might say in American English, more precisely, 'than'!

I do feel sorry for Chantal having to pick up grammar as she goes along - an almost impossible task.

John

I think the language during the snowboarding is more about the sport's terminology than about Americanisms!

What's a Salchow? Lutz? we are more comfortable with these terms only because they have been around for a while in skating. Give snowboarding some time and you'll start to recognise the terminology.

bladgers Johnboy, i thought you had sorted your bladger problem out way back in the old forum?..paul. are they still keeping you awake?

You're probably right there Lakeview. I do understand more of the ice dance terms. I'll probably pick it up as I go along, so to speak.

I have friends who are Canadian and we sometimes need to ask each other for translations. It's all good for a laugh though. Especially with some of the more "personal" items that hae different names. Put it this way, he never went back to the same pharmacy again!!!!!

Hi Lizzie,

Forgot your rubbers, did you?

valmarg

Dare I get involved in this thread

Most of us Europeans now travel quite frequently abroad and are exposed to foreign languages to a great degree. Especially to Oz where we bladged the World cup off them.

Without denegrading the Americans, so few of them either need to or want to travel outside of the states that they dont get to grasp the richness of the worlds diversity and their media is so home biased you can almost forgive them for not knowing any better. Whilst in the Carribean a few years ago, we struck up some good holiday friendships with Americans and it was almost comical their naievety. I must say though they were great fun, very generous and good company.

As for learning a second language, we are trying to learn French, I can now ask for most things quite well, but then the person asks thinks I am fluent and leaves me dead in the water and feeling a prat. Which of course I am

Valmarg

My friend once asked for rubber gloves at a store in New York and the female shop assistant wasnt sure whether to ask him for a date or call the police

Piglet, the secret is to talk VERY slowly in a foreign language, even if you know the phrase as well as your own name. They then talk back to you slowly and treat you as a foreigner/retard but at least they don't hurl back the language at you like machine gun fire. Remember however that talking slowly and SHOUTING doesn't help at all!

Easy tiger and you'll be fine...

Been here 7+ years and my husband and I still have trouble communicating re language. There are times I have no idea what he's saying and vice versa.

His trouble is that he's learning American words for things now and can't always remember what he's 'supposed' to say. Once told his mum that I was out in the yard!

My problem is that I now have a British accent, according to my American family It still sounds very American to Britons, of course. Not southern, not Brooklyn but more like Canadian, I'm told.

The language thing has been a real challenge at times. My ears really miss the letter 'r', especially the way More Four is pronounced (makes me cringe!). But I sing in a local choir, and I have to fit in so I am getting very good at dropping Rs, too!

Blimey missus, I've been living in England for 42 of my 45 years and I don't drop my Rs! Must be a dialect thing around your way. I'm still giggling over my first Italian teacher who told us all to "roll our arse" and some people thought she meant it!

Valmarg really!!!!

He was a married man. Anyway, his wife was telling me about it cos she got several weeks worth of ammunition from his mishap. She was Irish so knew what he was going to ask for.

That's why she sent him in the first place!!

Your right about the R letter Lakeview, our Vicar is from the states and when he asked if he could look in our "murrrrr" we just looked at him gone out, his good wife translated it into "mirror" for us.

Also supposedly posh people put R into glass and grass turning them into glarss and grarss. A very well educated aquaintence of the old moneyed variety once reminded her daughter (who was a snob) that "since when has glass had an R in it sweetie"

PMSL!
Johnboy, your retort might have been more effective if you hadn't had about 100 spelling mistakes. Heat of the moment I imagine!
Lizzie, turn off the telly and get them out digging your beds!
You can all vote and/or slag off Americans (poor Lakeview) how you like, but it won't change the fact that it isn't another language until you can't understand it, and Lizzie's kids at least obviously can.
Now I'm off to vote 100 times and rig it.

Piglet, people down south pronounce glass with an 'r', not just posh people.
Lots of English isn't pronounced the way it's spelt. Do you pronounce the 't' in listen?
How do you say 'vase' by the way? With or without the 'r'.?

Jenny, you missed the gentle inflection of the piece linking it with Lakeviews problem with R`s. It was a really really posh lady that said it, just imagine how many r`s she put into the word, nothing against how most of us commoners, Northern or Southern would say it.

And by the the way, I always ask for a vAse, vARse or vOse.