Are we really so ununderstandable?

[seth.destructor]

I wonder sometimes, why English people seem to not understand Polish
accent. Really, does "cah-stink" or "bren-dy" sound so far from
casting and brandy?

[Gość: Steve]

Through 15 or so years I have got used to hearing Polish style English. My wife
also likes to make me guess what the (Polish) children she teaches mean when
they pronounce English badly. I therefore reckon I am pretty good at
understanding the accent. 'Bren-dy' would probably be easy for me in the context
of drinking, although I suspect you may actually sound like 'bruendah' with the
Polish 'r" and 'y'. However, 'cah-stink' would probably be impossible without
lots of help. My first guess would be 'Tsar stink' ie the very bad smell of a
Russian Emperor.

The answer to your question "why don't we understand' is that what you say is
not understandable. I have the same problem speaking Polish, but I don't blame
the Polish listener, I just know I speak badly.

[Gość: mi]

Really ?

[pani.serwusowa]

I do not think those two really sound so far from the original pronuciation.:)
However, you have to admit that Polish people in general have problem especially
with TH. Imagine someone pronoucing word TEETH. Quite often it sounds like TIT. ;D

[krooowka]

working in a school in south London I noticed more than half the
kids had problems with 'th' sound - only, they wouldn't say 'tit'
(and I really don't think Polish people do that either) - they would
say 'tiif'. And many British people make that mistake too - not just
kids, adults too (just watch one episode of 'Eastenders' for a
start :)

I think the long and short vowel sounds are the biggest problems
Polish people have when speaking English. And sometimes it really is
impossible or difficult to get the meaning of the sentence because
of that (e.g dofference between peek and pick or better still - weep
and whip :)

But I often wonder - is it more difficult to understand a Pole who
has problems with vowels but speaks fairly soft or to understand
somebody with a very hard, let's say Indian or Pakistani accent. I
always struggle listening to people whose pronunciation is full of
hard-sounding 'R' and their vowels sound almost ... hmm... to
describe it graphically - square. I always thought that if only
Poles are capable of NOT using the Polish 'R' sound, our speech
becomes rather soft and easy to understand - like Russians' or
Slovaks'...

[seth.destructor]

You're right! I myself am unable to distinguish between "Where do
you live?" and "When do you leave?". Also, cannot hear the
difference among bat, bad, bet, bed, bud, but, butt, bard, Bart.

[krooowka]

seth.destructor napisał:

> You're right! I myself am unable to distinguish between "Where do
> you live?" and "When do you leave?".

because it is bloody difficult for a Pole - it makes no
difference whatsoever whether you say 'dlaczego?' or 'dlaczeeego?' -
everyone always knows what you mean. It took me a couple of years of
being married to a Brit and living (not leaving ;) in the UK to
learn to say things quickly and correctly at the same time
(although we both now make jokes about the phrases 'take a seat
' and 'sit down' :)

You're right with the consonants too - no difference in Polish
whether you say 'chodź' or 'choć' - even though 'choć' has a
different meaning, nobody will think for one second what you mean in
the sentence 'Chodź/Choć tu szypko/szybko' :D

I think English speakers are sometimes a bit harsh on Poles - we do
make a lot of effort when speaking English, we learn so many words
and grammatical structures that some pronunciation problems should
rather be met with encouragement, not discouragement...

Or maybe - English teachers in Poland should focus more on
pronunciation and accent than on grammar? Problem is though - many
Polish teachers of English have really bad pronunciation habits...
And that's a no win situation - bad model will almost always produce
bad results...

I guess the clue is to listen and speak to native speakers as much
as possible.

have a good one!

[jeanie_mccake]

krooowka napisała:

>
> working in a school in south London I noticed more than half the
> kids had problems with 'th' sound - only, they wouldn't say 'tit'
> (and I really don't think Polish people do that either) - they
would
> say 'tiif'. And many British people make that mistake too - not
just
> kids, adults too (just watch one episode of 'Eastenders' for a
> start :)

I wouldn't call speaking with a local accent a 'mistake'. For
example, most black Londoners switch between cockney and Caribbean
pronunciation depending on the situation, sometimes saying 'teef'
and sometimes 'teet', and in very formal circumstances the standard
(posh) 'teeth'.

> I think the long and short vowel sounds are the biggest problems
> Polish people have when speaking English. And sometimes it really
is
> impossible or difficult to get the meaning of the sentence because
> of that (e.g dofference between peek and pick or better still -
weep
> and whip :)

I speak with a Scottish accent so I don't differentiate vowel
length, but the vowels in 'pick' and 'peek' are still completely
different. One is the Polish 'y' and one the Polish 'i', and most
folk who teach Poles English can't understand why this causes
confusion.

> But I often wonder - is it more difficult to understand a Pole who
> has problems with vowels but speaks fairly soft or to understand
> somebody with a very hard, let's say Indian or Pakistani accent.

British people are more used to Indian and Pakistani accents than
Polish ones, so have no great problems with them. An educated Indian
accent is actually easier to understand than many British regional
accents.

[krooowka]

jeanie_mccake napisała:

> I wouldn't call speaking with a local accent a 'mistake'. For
> example, most black Londoners switch between cockney and Caribbean
> pronunciation

I'm not talking about Caribbean accent, where 'de' and 'dis' are not
only a norm, but almost something to be proud of (especially when
written down as in 'De Souse House'). I'm talking about sloppy
speech - if it's not a mistake, why do teachers correct it? I was
thinking about those kids (and adults) who can't be bothered to make
an effort - how many times did I hear 'Oh, Ms, I just can't say it,
I could never say it' - with regards to 'think'? I don't
think kids in the Richmond area have their own special accent whith
distinct pronunciation of the 'th' sound - for me it's pure
laziness :)


> One is the Polish 'y' and one the Polish 'i'

well, not quite so - this is the closest you can compare it too but
the sound in 'live' is somewhere between Polish 'i' and 'y' -
closer to the 'y' sound but not exactly that. That's why it's so
difficult for Poles to pronounce. And it works both ways too -
'jesteśmy', 'idziemy' as pronounced by an English
speaker rarely sounds like the same sounds pronounced by a Pole. You
end up with sounds somewhere half way between 'y' and 'e' or
sometimes 'y' and 'a' - the reason being - there is no exact
equivalent for the 'y' sound in the English language.

[Gość: Steve]

Richmond? What a lovely accent they have there. I could sit in Paradise drinking a glass of wine and talk to people who spoke quite naturally in a way I'd never heard in real life before. They have what we used to call an upper middle-class accent, which is even different from the (old) BBC English taught in Polish Universities and miles away from aristocratic 'plum'. Its very rare. Richmond is one of the richest London Boroughs and the accent shows it.

[krooowka]

exactly :) the inability to pronounce 'th' (which has been my point
all the way) - has nothing to do with accent. It's laziness. You
can't say people from Richmond simply don't pronounce 'th' - they
do. It's the lazy kids who can't be bothered to.

Anyway, enough about that. My heart aches when I think about
Richmond being so distant now! ;)

[pani.serwusowa]

You are right, Kroowka. TIT rather than TEETH is more Irish, isn't it? ;) And
this bloody 13 or 30 - tirtin, tirty. God, I hate Irish accent! ;p

[Gość: Steve]

You are right. Apologies to Seth, but I read his 'cah-stink' with Polish pronunciation.

One of my wife's favourite examples of Polish difficulty in (impossibility of) hearing English vowel differences is to get people to say 'Kant', 'can't' and 'cu*t' to me and getting me to guess what they mean. Personally, I couldn't tell the difference between 'fink' and 'think' when I was small.

It has already been said that it is much easier when people get use to an accent. However, the basic psychology of language introduces its own barriers. Many people absorb the meaning of statements, not a sequence of words, deriving their information by hearing key words. Hearing unfamiliar words gives them no information, especially if they are not listening very attentively. However, in some cases, they will pick up completely wrong words. I wonder if one of the problems with 'casting' is that they pick up 'stink': why is he talking about bad smells? Try "cah-stin" and see if it makes a difference.

I used to think that Polish was spoken very fast until I learnt enough for my brain to bring it down to normal speed. Funnily enough, the fastest English speaker I ever knew was Polish. (Michał K., Director in Poland's Ministry of Labour, as it was called at the time.)

[jarkoni]

I couldn't tell the difference between 'fink' and 'think' when I was small.

And "sink", I think. It's quite common..