Words that get on your nerves

My French neighbour does rather put on airs, "all fur coat and no knickers" is the phrase that springs to mind . All was revealed, though, when we had a bit of a drama and her Alsatian attacked my friend on our return from a restaurant. While her husband calmly controlled the dog, staunched the blood and called the firemen who act as ambulances and paramedics in the French countryside, she stood in her kitchen wailing 'putain' non-stop. That is a very coarse swear word and not at all in keeping with her hitherto projected image

 

Another Mrs. Bouquet? Yes, those that put on airs or talk to me in a condescending manner irritate me. I have turned down jobs because I did not want to work with those kind of people.

 

Nothing like learning a language "parrot fashion", at least the locals will understand you.

 

My Grampa learnt Welsh by listening to my Grama's relations speaking it, consequently he spoke it like they did and they all understood each other.

However some English people in my art group are learning it by going to a class, where they're learning it 'like a book', and when others of us in the group talk in 'Carmarthenshire Welsh' they can't understand us, and they can't join in.
It makes me wonder why they want to learn it, because they'll not be able to use it, and what's the point of learning a language if you're never going to use it.

 

I don’t know Welsh at all, but I can imagine that a country with a lot of hills and valleys has a native language, Welsh, that varies tremendously from place to place. I was brought up in a Yorkshire village and when I went one day to the weekly market in another village about ten miles away the stallholder told me that I had a funny accent. So the poor English people in your art class are never going to win. Your Carmarthenshire Welsh is maybe the equivalent of my Barnsley Yorkshire - no English language student is going to take classes in Barnsley Yorkshire; they are going to be offered standard English (whatever that is) and should they take a trip to Barnsley people will look at them and tell them they have a funny accent. They may well be mutually incomprehensible.

I’ve had a stab at quite a few languages over the years. I like to see the similariities. Seomra in Irish when spoken sounds like Chambre in French and has the same meaning - a room. No point in knowing it, just interesting.

 

At least they're trying @Michael Hewett. Locals here lapse into Vendéen French I have to ask for translations, just as I did in Belgium when older people launched into Walloon. However, the fact that I make the effort serves me well and I have fa fewer problems with local ways and bureaucracy than Brits I know who make no effort or find it all too hard.

My spoken French is good for communicating but I hear myself making mistakes and I have a strong British accent that will never change. My written French is much more correct and sometimes better than French people I know but then I had a good grammar education in my teens.

 

That's exactly what my high school French teacher said to us, her class, just by way of encouragement She refused to teach us the familiar form of 'you' and all it's conjugations as well, saying we'd never need them. Just shows how very, very wrong she was! Boy would I love to meet her again now....
I can't shake off my English accent, either, @Obelix-Vendée. Do the French tell you that it's mignon, though, and not to change?

 

I wouldn't worry about having a foreign accent, judging by people interviewed in the street, randomly, by the BBC, most people in the UK have a foreign accent.

Occasionally they put an old fashioned English speaker in just for a bit of balance.

 

My cousins living just 7 miles away spoke in a different accent and had different words for things. I came to understand that was how they spoke and was able to accept it.

Yes and I think that's good, and the other Welsh speakers in the group help the 'learners' along, which they appreciate.
There are many Welsh people who despise it and look down their nose at you if you speak it, as if you're 2nd class people. I put it down to snobbery.

We don't speak Welsh in the art group when there are non-Welsh speakers in the conversation though, it would be rude, but if they're learning and ask us things we sort of 'help' them.

 

My husband used to teach English as a foreign language in Russia, some time ago. He found he sometimes felt he was walking on eggshells, trying not to undermine the Russian teachers when they mispronounced something in English. "Phone Etics" (phonetics) was one he encountered; he found it a bit disconcerting to be told (by a teacher who'd never visited the UK) that his pronunciation was wrong...

 

You shouldn't have to, it's part of who you are.

 

@Liriodendron For many years in Belgium I was involved in twinning and wrote a potted history of Belgium and Gembloux for the English visitors. One English friend who'd been there since the 70s after marrying a Belgian asked if her son could use it as a base for an English essay on his home town. It came back with red marks because "The English wouldn't say it like that".

 

I like to notice similarities too - like the Welsh egwlys and the French eglise.

My Sheffield Yorkshire (now mixed with a smattering of Doncaster Yorkshire) will be different from your Barnsley Yorkshire but we'd probably understand each other.

 

We had a lot of Eastern Europeans where I worked and one said to me "I can understand English, but I can't understand Yorkshire. That just summed it up to me.

 

For the non Yorkshire forumites, The Barnsley name for a Sheffielder is a “Dee dah”. Because long ago they didn’t say “thee” and “tha” but rather said “dee” and “dah”. I have no idea what the Sheffield name for a resident of Barnsley might be.