My accent is "almost impossible" to master :) How about yours?

[el henry]

A salami and provolone sub sandwich with tomatoes, finely sliced lettuce, and olive oil on crusty Italian bread is a regyuhlah grindahh.

Are there other grindahhhs?

We have all sorts of hoagies (have no idea how to spell it phonetically Mare of Eastown style, that's just how we say it Evidently it sounds like hew-a-gie to auschlanders?)

 

[dorispulaski]

Other grinders have different meats and cheeses. There are hot grinders, including meatball, eggplant Parm, chicken Parm, and egg and peppers. Chicken, tuna, and egg salad are common, but not regular.

Unless you specify otherwise, all cold grinders have lettuce cut like slaw, tomatoes, olive oil, salt and pepper. The default salami is cooked salami in a regular grinder. If it is not on a crusty Italian roll, we criticize the bread. It is a grinder because you have to exercise your jaw chewing it a bit.

There is no vinegar in the dressing, if you are a purist.

This area claims to be the source of the name sub for an Italian sandwich. We call them grinders, but sailors at the local sub base called them subs.

Submarine Sandwiches | What's in a Name?

Everyone loves a title, everyone wants to be special, even entire communities. Take Groton and New London, Connecticut, for example. The good folks of

newengland.com

 

[skylark]

If it is not on a crusty Italian roll, we criticize the bread. It is a grinder because you have to exercise your jaw chewing it a bit.

I frequent a pizza & grinder chain called Mancino's. They had a placemat that claims that the term "grinder" comes from ethnic Italians in NYC whose job was grinding iron (or some other metal). For ships maybe? idk. The Italian "grinders" brought the sandwiches from home for their lunch.

There is no vinegar in the dressing, if you are a purist.

I love trivia like this, and yes whenever possible, I am a purist!

This area claims to be the source of the name sub for an Italian sandwich. We call them grinders, but sailors at the local sub base called them subs.

Submarine Sandwiches | What's in a Name?

Everyone loves a title, everyone wants to be special, even entire communities. Take Groton and New London, Connecticut, for example. The good folks of

newengland.com

That's really interesting, I've wondered why they're called subs. And the buns do look like submarines!

 

[el henry]

Other grinders have different meats and cheeses. There are hot grinders, including meatball, eggplant Parm, chicken Parm, and egg and peppers. Chicken, tuna, and egg salad are common, but not regular.

Unless you specify otherwise, all cold grinders have lettuce cut like slaw, tomatoes, olive oil, salt and pepper. The default salami is cooked salami in a regular grinder. If it is not on a crusty Italian roll, we criticize the bread. It is a grinder because you have to exercise your jaw chewing it a bit.

There is no vinegar in the dressing, if you are a purist.

This area claims to be the source of the name sub for an Italian sandwich. We call them grinders, but sailors at the local sub base called them subs.

Submarine Sandwiches | What's in a Name?

Everyone loves a title, everyone wants to be special, even entire communities. Take Groton and New London, Connecticut, for example. The good folks of

newengland.com

I am sensing a new thread: Hoagies, grinders, heroes and subs (And completely and totally OT, Spousal Unit's first year in academia was a temporary appointment at, as he likess to call it, "Corn College". He claims to have seen submarine races.)

Continuing with the naval theme, one reported origin for the word "hoagie" is that ship workers at Hog Island, the largest ship building port in the world, developed hoagie sandwiches. (I see this article calls the hoagie a submarine sandwich. It is not. It is a hoagie)

Hoagie | Sandwich, Filling, & History | Britannica

Hoagie, submarine sandwich containing Italian meats, cheeses, and other fillings and condiments. The name likely comes from the Philadelphia area where, during World War I, Italian immigrants who worked at the Hog Island shipyard began making sandwiches. Learn more about the hoagie with this...

www.britannica.com

But a hoagie must have oil and vinegar. It's mandated by statute And rolls from a south Philly bakery. And capicola (pronounced gobagoal) as the ham.

As a vegetarian, I do miss cheesesteaks and hoagies (there are cheese hoagies. Bleh)

 

[dorispulaski]

The submarines go up and down the Thames River near Connecticut College (and the USCGA across the street from it) all the time, but I have never seen 2 in the same stretch of river. OTOH, I have seen square riggers and schooner races at Sailfest.

Back in the day, watching submarine races was https://www.slang.org/submarine-races-meaning-definition/

Vinegar & oil is almost always offered as an option, as is mayo, but they are not "regular."

 

[Alegria]

I think I have a classic pronunciation of my native language. maybe because I studied it.
But even so sometimes I can't understand people from borderline regions. Their accent is something impossible to me.

By the way, many people think, that Ukrainian language is almost Russian language. But pronunciation is totally different and very difficult for Russian-speaking people.

 

[el henry]

I think I have a classic pronunciation of my native language. maybe because I studied it.
But even so sometimes I can't understand people from borderline regions. Their accent is something impossible to me.

By the way, many people think, that Ukrainian language is almost Russian language. But pronunciation is totally different and very difficult for Russian-speaking people.

Alegria, may I ask are you a native speaker of Ukranian? Can you give some examples of how it differs from Russian? And did you have an accent in your language before you studied it?

I am also very interested because, due to the wonders of the modern age and Skype, my spousal unit's piano teacher is Ukrainian. She lives in Kyiv. He likes her more than most any of the piano teachers he has had here in the states.

 

[Alegria]

Alegria, may I ask are you a native speaker of Ukranian? Can you give some examples of how it differs from Russian? And did you have an accent in your language before you studied it?

I am also very interested because, due to the wonders of the modern age and Skype, my spousal unit's piano teacher is Ukrainian. She lives in Kyiv. He likes her more than most any of the piano teachers he has had here in the states.

Yes, I'm native speaker of Ukrainian, but I learned both Russian and Ukrainian from birth.
About pronunciation. A little example - name Oleg (as Oleg Vasiliev). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oleg Ukrainian pronunciation is more melodic and simple.
About accent. I think I never have it. I lived in a russian -speaking city, so I wasn't influenced. But I have specific accent when I'm speaking in russian, thanks to my native city ))
.

 

[CoyoteChris]

Interesting topic. Kate Winslet is amazing because she can act very well doing American accents. There are many different accents in the US.

Your Guide to the Different American Accents in the U.S.

Do you want an American accent? This is a vague statement because there are so many different American accents. Here's your American accent guide.

www.pronunciationpro.com

But people tend to move around and pick up parts of other accents. My North Ill. is different from Central/Southern Illinois.
My friend Kurt was born and raised to 5 years old in Germany. Couldnt speak a word of English. After the war, his mother brought him to the US. He has a Northern Illinois accent cause that is where he has lived for oh so many years. Forgot all his German. Then, a few years ago, a couple of Germans came to our black powder rifle match in Montana and Kurt was helping them out and they would speak German between themselves and it slowly came back to Kurt a bit.

 

[WednesdayMarch]

Dydd dha! I'm really late to this particular party, but in my part of the world - Cornwall, UK - we have our own language as well as accents and dialects. I never cease to be amazed at how many people have no idea that there is a Cornish language, let alone the fact that Cornwall is a Duchy rather than a county and used to be a nation. (Many Cornish still consider it a nation and can get very upset about our treatment by the UK government.)

If anyone is interested, you can hear the language being sung here:-

Gwrello Glaw (Let It Rain)

And I recently heard a cracking example of dialect, which is almost indescipherable to non-locals but can't find it now. Suffice to say that it's a far cry from "BBC Westcountry", which is what you hear on pretty much any drama set here. Even on the much-praised recent adaptation of Poldark (pronounced Pol-DARK rather than POLE-dark) had only one character with a decent Cornish accent, and it wasn't a leading actor either.

That being said, the Cornish obviously watched every episode religiously, mostly to spot their compatriots in extra roles and to see places we know being spliced together in improbable routes.

And, of course, we had to have our own take on it. The "Proper Poldark" series was even more eagerly anticipated than each actual Poldark episode...

Proper Poldark

 

[moonvine]

I was born in the Tidewater Virginia area so have a Tidewater accent mixed with Alabama where I attended undergrad and grad schools. Technically I speak Spanish (I have a BA in Spanish and English) but my spoken Spanish is very bad - my HS Spanish teacher called it “Spanglish.”

 

[el henry]

Dydd dha! I'm really late to this particular party, but in my part of the world - Cornwall, UK - we have our own language as well as accents and dialects. I never cease to be amazed at how many people have no idea that there is a Cornish language, let alone the fact that Cornwall is a Duchy rather than a county and used to be a nation. (Many Cornish still consider it a nation and can get very upset about our treatment by the UK government.)

If anyone is interested, you can hear the language being sung here:-

Gwrello Glaw (Let It Rain)

And I recently heard a cracking example of dialect, which is almost indescipherable to non-locals but can't find it now. Suffice to say that it's a far cry from "BBC Westcountry", which is what you hear on pretty much any drama set here. Even on the much-praised recent adaptation of Poldark (pronounced Pol-DARK rather than POLE-dark) had only one character with a decent Cornish accent, and it wasn't a leading actor either.

That being said, the Cornish obviously watched every episode religiously, mostly to spot their compatriots in extra roles and to see places we know being spliced together in improbable routes.

And, of course, we had to have our own take on it. The "Proper Poldark" series was even more eagerly anticipated than each actual Poldark episode...

Proper Poldark

thank you for reviving the party Wednesday March. I look forward to watching Proper Poldark.

I do know about Cornwall, but only because I am one quarter Cornish. My maternal grandfather‘s line all emigrated from Luggin (I had no idea it was spelled Illogan until later in life), they emigrated here to work the iron mines and then went “home” for brides. I have never set foot in Cornwall, but based on family history have had to tell people it’s not all cottages and Ross galloping on his horse by the seaside; my understanding is that the mines of course and Illogan itself were grimy places.

So maybe some day I will learn a few words. Or not.

 

[WednesdayMarch]

thank you for reviving the party Wednesday March. I look forward to watching Proper Poldark.

I do know about Cornwall, but only because I am one quarter Cornish. My maternal grandfather‘s line all emigrated from Luggin (I had no idea it was spelled Illogan until later in life), they emigrated here to work the iron mines and then went “home” for brides. I have never set foot in Cornwall, but based on family history have had to tell people it’s not all cottages and Ross galloping on his horse by the seaside; my understanding is that the mines of course and Illogan itself were grimy places.

So maybe some day I will learn a few words. Or not.

You're welcome! Cornwall is pretty much two different places; the picture book fishing villages of the coast, where the money is but the communities are dying because they've been priced out by incomers and second-home owners and the jobs are all part-time and seasonal, and the grinding rural poverty of the inland areas where there's little work other than poorly paid agriculture. There's little industry down here as the mining has gone (other than a bit of China clay in one area) and small farms. We're too far away and transporting goods out of the county is time consuming and expensive. Tourism is a fickle mistress and has taken more than it's ever given. And then there's the fact that we have a mostly elderly population as the young people tend to move away to find work because they can't afford to buy or rent property here and people from up country retire here. This means that far more money is needed for the basic services like health and social care than has ever been paid into down here.

The Cornish diaspora has spread far and wide. There's an old saying that you can dig a pit anywhere in the world and find a Cornishman at the bottom of it, so famed were our miners. As a musician (that's me playing harp in the Gwrello Glaw video) I've found that Cornish music is madly popular all over the world, far more so than in the UK. Canada treated us especially well.

The Cornish language is a slightly strange one. It has more in common with Welsh than any other language, as they are from the same Brythonic root, plus there are no words for "yes" and "no", which makes it a bit torturous in places. The best word in the world, however, is "Splann" which means good, great, fantastic, brilliant, wonderful, etc, but can be used in many situations.

 

[CaroLiza_fan]

It is indeed I think you can find it on Netflix or Youtube Movies now.

Just thought I should let you know that "Hunt For The Wilderpeople" was shown on Film4 last Wednesday night, so I taped it and watched it on Friday night when the Eng-Sco football was on.

I absolutely loved it!!! Such a funny film, and so heart-warming. OK, so there were a couple of times I had to look away (I'll never make a Bear Grylls), but they didn't spoil it at all.

Would definitely reccommend it.

So, thank you for providing that link to the trailer and, hence, letting me know about it.

Dydd dha! I'm really late to this particular party, but in my part of the world - Cornwall, UK - we have our own language as well as accents and dialects. I never cease to be amazed at how many people have no idea that there is a Cornish language, let alone the fact that Cornwall is a Duchy rather than a county and used to be a nation. (Many Cornish still consider it a nation and can get very upset about our treatment by the UK government.)

If anyone is interested, you can hear the language being sung here:-

Gwrello Glaw (Let It Rain)

Beautiful. Just beautiful.

Although I knew about Cornish, I hadn't heard it before. But that was a beautiful way to introduce it to me.

I was going to post a link to a song in our local dialect / language (as with everything here, even the status of Ulster-Scots is a bone of contention), but I can't find any that are anywhere near the quality of what you posted.

So, I'll just move on.

The Cornish diaspora has spread far and wide. There's an old saying that you can dig a pit anywhere in the world and find a Cornishman at the bottom of it, so famed were our miners.

Not so much the mining part, but it's the same with us. We're everywhere!

As a musician (that's me playing harp in the Gwrello Glaw video)

Whoa! You were playing on that song?! Wow! You and your friends are incredibly talented.

(I should add, I didn't pick up on that bit until I was doing my final check before posting this reply. So, I was not being complimentary just because you were playing on the song. I genuinely did love it).

I've found that Cornish music is madly popular all over the world, far more so than in the UK. Canada treated us especially well.

That's the sad thing, when your local traditions and culture are not appreciated on your own patch. When the younger generations see them as archaic and embarrassing. But, it is encouraging when other people appreciate it. Because their enthusiasm might encourage the doubters to take another look.

The Cornish language is a slightly strange one. It has more in common with Welsh than any other language, as they are from the same Brythonic root, plus there are no words for "yes" and "no", which makes it a bit torturous in places. The best word in the world, however, is "Splann" which means good, great, fantastic, brilliant, wonderful, etc, but can be used in many situations.

Funnily enough, yesterday I watched "How Green Was My Valley" (1941), about a family in a Welsh mining village. And boys but it was surreal seeing people that I knew were Irish but hearing them talk with what sounded to me like convincing Welsh accents!

We all know that the Welsh accent lends itself well to singing. And with that in mind, here is the tail end of the first scene of the film, where the miners are singing the (original) Welsh version of the hymn "Guide Me, O Thou Great Redeemer":

"Cwm Rhondda" (Rhondda Valley)

I suspect that a Welsh Male Voice Choir was hired en masse as extras...

And I recently heard a cracking example of dialect, which is almost indescipherable to non-locals but can't find it now. Suffice to say that it's a far cry from "BBC Westcountry", which is what you hear on pretty much any drama set here. Even on the much-praised recent adaptation of Poldark (pronounced Pol-DARK rather than POLE-dark) had only one character with a decent Cornish accent, and it wasn't a leading actor either.

That being said, the Cornish obviously watched every episode religiously, mostly to spot their compatriots in extra roles and to see places we know being spliced together in improbable routes.

I actually did exactly the same thing very recently! There is a local documentary series that BBC NI shows sporadically, and although I wouldn't normally be interested in the topic that was being covered in the episode shown last week, I taped it because it was filmed in my hometown, and I was curious to see if anybody I knew was in it. And there was!

And, of course, we had to have our own take on it. The "Proper Poldark" series was even more eagerly anticipated than each actual Poldark episode...

Proper Poldark

That was brilliant!!! And, based on the people I know from that part of the world, it sounds pretty spot on!

(That said, I do have some doubts as to whether some of the phrases are not a bit modern for the time period... )

It's always good when people can laugh at themselves.

CaroLiza_fan

 

[WednesdayMarch]

Just thought I should let you know that "Hunt For The Wilderpeople" was shown on Film4 last Wednesday night, so I taped it and watched it on Friday night when the Eng-Sco football was on.

I absolutely loved it!!! Such a funny film, and so heart-warming. OK, so there were a couple of times I had to look away (I'll never make a Bear Grylls), but they didn't spoil it at all.

Would definitely reccommend it.

So, thank you for providing that link to the trailer and, hence, letting me know about it.



Beautiful. Just beautiful.

Although I knew about Cornish, I hadn't heard it before. But that was a beautiful way to introduce it to me.

I was going to post a link to a song in our local dialect / language (as with everything here, even the status of Ulster-Scots is a bone of contention), but I can't find any that are anywhere near the quality of what you posted.

So, I'll just move on.



Not so much the mining part, but it's the same with us. We're everywhere!



Whoa! You were playing on that song?! Wow! You and your friends are incredibly talented.

(I should add, I didn't pick up on that bit until I was doing my final check before posting this reply. So, I was not being complimentary just because you were playing on the song. I genuinely did love it).



That's the sad thing, when your local traditions and culture are not appreciated on your own patch. When the younger generations see them as archaic and embarrassing. But, it is encouraging when other people appreciate it. Because their enthusiasm might encourage the doubters to take another look.



Funnily enough, yesterday I watched "How Green Was My Valley" (1941), about a family in a Welsh mining village. And boys but it was surreal seeing people that I knew were Irish but hearing them talk with what sounded to me like convincing Welsh accents!

We all know that the Welsh accent lends itself well to singing. And with that in mind, here is the tail end of the first scene of the film, where the miners are singing the (original) Welsh version of the hymn "Guide Me, O Thou Great Redeemer":

"Cwm Rhondda" (Rhondda Valley)

I suspect that a Welsh Male Voice Choir was hired en masse as extras...



I actually did exactly the same thing very recently! There is a local documentary series that BBC NI shows sporadically, and although I wouldn't normally be interested in the topic that was being covered in the episode shown last week, I taped it because it was filmed in my hometown, and I was curious to see if anybody I knew was in it. And there was!



That was brilliant!!! And, based on the people I know from that part of the world, it sounds pretty spot on!

(That said, I do have some doubts as to whether some of the phrases are not a bit modern for the time period... )

It's always good when people can laugh at themselves.

CaroLiza_fan

Glad you liked the song, CaroLiza_fan. The very first time we actually played together was 10 minutes before our actual first gig, just a little snipped on that same boat for ITV. We love that boat. Gwrello Glaw was a fair way into our career but it was a lovely shoot for that video. Despite the fact that I took my little harp out of its case and discovered a broken string. You can't see it on the video (I don't think) and we were obviously overdubbed as happens on videos anyway but it didn't help things! Gwrello Glaw means "Let It Rain" but it's not a raindance, rather a love song that says, "Let it rain, let it pour, as long as we have each other it's all fine".

As for Proper Poldark and a few teensy anachronisms... I think that's part of the fun of it. Episode 2 (not the extra one) was bang on the money with them all arguing about a stadium that they'd never even heard of. And as you get further into it, Cakey Tea is introduced, which has gone straight into the vernacular, to join Jam First as one of the tenets of modern Cornish life.

 

[florin]

The variety of accents has always surprised me when watching American films. To be honest, I thought it was some kind of exaggeration or something like that. (Like when Cece told Jess that Nick's tone of voice changes when he addresses her, and a confused Jessie replies that Nick is from Chicago and it's just an accent). Of course, I can distinguish between the usual American, southern accent and British accent when it's clearly expressed (when Matthew McConaughey or Hugh Grant speaks), but to distinguish the dialects of different cities, is'it possible?

In Russia, it is also possible to determine from which region a person is from by a person's speech. But in most cases, only if a person uses some words that are spoken only in his locality. As a well-known example, in St. Petersburg they say "поребрик" ("curb") instead of the common norm (бордюр) "border". But most likely If you have a quick chat with Polina Tsurskaya from Omsk, Siberia, with Yulia Lipnitskaya from Yekaterinburg (a megapolis near the Ural Mountains), with Zagitova from the Volga region, with Alyona Kostornaya from Moscow or with Stanislava Konstantinova from St. Petersburg you will not be able to understand where they comes from, despite the fact that these cities are separated by thousands of miles.

Therefore, my question in this thread is simple - is it true? Can you really distinguish who is from which cities in USA by speech? The difference is in the accent, pronunciation of words, or are there also some words that are spoken only in one area?

 

[dorispulaski]

Both. There are distinctive accents and regional vocabularies.


Some words are a dead giveaway, very often words for foods.

Names for a sub sandwich:
Grinder: CT, RI (a regular is a cooked salami, provolone, lettuce, tomato, oil grinder in New London County.
Hoagie: NJ, parts of PA
Po' Boy - New Orleans
Hero - NY City, parts of NJ
Italian-Maine

A milkshake can also be a malt, malted, frappe, or cabinet.

A soft drink can be a soda, pop, soda pop, tonic, coke, or Nehi

There are regional drinks like an egg cream (which has neither eggs nor cream)

In New Haven, pizza can be apizza, pronounced without the final a

Pittsburgh has a particularly distinctive accent and vocabulary.
How to understand Pittsburgh lingo

Western Pennsylvania English - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

A discussion of American regional speech

American English regional vocabulary - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

 

[el henry]

The variety of accents has always surprised me when watching American films. To be honest, I thought it was some kind of exaggeration or something like that. (Like when Cece told Jess that Nick's tone of voice changes when he addresses her, and a confused Jessie replies that Nick is from Chicago and it's just an accent). Of course, I can distinguish between the usual American, southern accent and British accent when it's clearly expressed (when Matthew McConaughey or Hugh Grant speaks), but to distinguish the dialects of different cities, is'it possible?

In Russia, it is also possible to determine from which region a person is from by a person's speech. But in most cases, only if a person uses some words that are spoken only in his locality. As a well-known example, in St. Petersburg they say "поребрик" ("curb") instead of the common norm (бордюр) "border". But most likely If you have a quick chat with Polina Tsurskaya from Omsk, Siberia, with Yulia Lipnitskaya from Yekaterinburg (a megapolis near the Ural Mountains), with Zagitova from the Volga region, with Alyona Kostornaya from Moscow or with Stanislava Konstantinova from St. Petersburg you will not be able to understand where they comes from, despite the fact that these cities are separated by thousands of miles.

Therefore, my question in this thread is simple - is it true? Can you really distinguish who is from which cities in USA by speech? The difference is in the accent, pronunciation of words, or are there also some words that are spoken only in one area?

Thank you Florin, I love hearing about how languages are expressed in other countries. That is fascinating to me that Russia, being such a large and diverse country, would not have variations in how the language is spoken. And I am very impressed that you can tell the difference in English speech. My "best" foreign language (to me) is French, and I can tell the easily distinctive accents, such as Québécois, but nothing further. For example, I know that there is not one Québécois accent, but sadly I could not tell the difference between them.

(I will say as an anglophone, I love Stéphane Lambiel because his French is so easy to understand. Have you ever listened to an interview with English speaking skaters? Are any easier to understand for you?)

But as Doris pointed out, many American cities do have a different accent. (and city is misleading, because it is often the entire region. So when we say "Boston" accent, it is that area, not just the city)

However, in my experience Americans can not always tell exactly what accent it is. If I speak in my native Philadelphia accent, which the HBO show Mare of Easttown uses, people will know it's an accent, but they will not know it's Philadelphia. Sometimes there are very specific words pronounced differently and are giveaways. For example, nobody else in the US says "water" like Philadelphians, and although I have lost much of my accent, I still say "wooter". I can't abandon it entirely

 

[florin]

Thank you Florin, I love hearing about how languages are expressed in other countries. That is fascinating to me that Russia, being such a large and diverse country, would not have variations in how the language is spoken

This is probably due to the fact that we have a very centralized country. In general, the modern norm of the Russian language is what was once a Moscow dialect. (Well, for example, the foundation of the modern Italian language norm is the Florentine dialect, since Florence was a cultural hegemon, the birthplace of the Renaissance) Of course, there are dialects, but as a rule they sound in rural areas or small towns ("okanye" in the north, "shokanye" and a soft "g" in the southern regions), a city dweller, a resident of a megalopolis is, as it were, in a common cultural space with the center in Moscow. This is of course a simplified picture, but on the whole it is correct.

In USA, on the contrary , you have a seriously decentralized country. Usually, for a Russian person, it is a whole discovery that USA it's a kind of a large federation This is due to the fact that the word "state" (from USA) is not translated into Russian, only it is pronounced distorted in the manner of pronunciation of the 19th century - "штат" (shtut). And we usually perceive from childhood that this strange word is something like "regions", "territories", for us it's United Shtut of America And only if you are interested in the political structure of the United States , its history, you will find out that it exactly mean "states", United States of America. That different states have their own laws, their own education systems, and so on. I even remember when I had this epiphany - in college we discussed the elections in America that took place at that time, and I remember saying "why do they cling to this strange and archaic electoral system? after all, this is a violation of the rights of those citizens who are in the minority in their shtut, because their voices are actually disappearing." To which my friend explained to me that I was transferring the political realities familiar to me to someone else's society - "Remember, they do not have the United Shtuts of America, but the United States of America, and what is happening should be interpreted as follows: each state first conducts its own internal elections. During these elections, citizens of state choose a single decision, after which they issue a verdict of their state at a federal meeting in accordance with the weight that this state has in the federation (the number of electors)." I remember how it struck me - a completely different structure of society and the presence of its own internal logic in what seemed to me strange and crazy

And I am very impressed that you can tell the difference in English speech.

This is because I have watched many American TV series and films in the original without dubbing. True, my English is not very good, I understand a lot, but I still watch with Russian subtitles. (most Russians prefer to watch movies in dubbing, but I avoid this, I, damn it, want to hear Christian Bale, and not some second-rate actor who dubs him). It is because of this that I can distinguish between the main accents -southern, British, black. But I absolutely, just aaaaabsolutely will not be able to distinguish at least any accents in French or, for example, German Just because I don't have such a long-term practice of watching their films.

(I will say as an anglophone, I love Stéphane Lambiel because his French is so easy to understand. Have you ever listened to an interview with English speaking skaters? Are any easier to understand for you?)

Much easier. Much easier! I almost always understand what Lambiel is saying if I can hear what he is saying. We foreigners understand each other well when we speak English to each other. But when an American or an Englishman speaks, in half of the case, you just wipe the sweat with an earflap "my God, speak more slowly and clearl! god damn, Anglo-Saxons, why do you swallow sounds like that?!" sorry

 

[CaroLiza_fan]

Much easier. Much easier! I almost always understand what Lambiel is saying if I can hear what he is saying. We foreigners understand each other well when we speak English to each other. But when an American or an Englishman speaks, in half of the case, you just wipe the sweat with an earflap "my God, speak more slowly and clearl! god damn, Anglo-Saxons, why do you swallow sounds like that?!" sorry

You're not the only one. I always struggle to understand people when they speak too fast... even if they are speaking my own language! (I'm a native English speaker). If somebody was speaking a different language, even if I understood that language, I would be completely beaten if they spoke fast.

Here is a very famous clip of somebody from a town in the extreme west of the county I am from:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ij_5UGpjUsU

Don't worry, we don't all talk that fast!

CaroLiza_fan