Friday, 10 February 2012

Varieties of English: accents and dialects

British English, or UK English or English English is the broad term used to distinguish the forms of the English language used in the United Kingdom from forms used elsewhere. There is confusion whether the term refers to English as spoken in the British Isles or to English as spoken in Great Britain, though in the case of Ireland, there are further distinctions peculiar to Hiberno-English.

There are slight regional variations in formal written English in the United Kingdom (for example, although the words wee and little are interchangeable in some contexts, one is more likely to see wee written by someone from northern Britain (and especially Scotland) or from Northern Ireland than by someone from Southern England or Wales). Nevertheless, there is a meaningful degree of uniformity in written English within the United Kingdom, and this could be described as "British English". The forms of spoken English, however, vary considerably more than in most other areas of the world where English is spoken,and a uniform concept of "British English" is therefore more difficult to apply to the spoken language. (extract from Wikipedia)

** Learn and listen to different accents and dialects of the UK (click here)
** Practise listening to different people in conversation (click here




LISTENING PRACTICE:

Now it is your turn to do a little bit of work by doing this exercise designed especially for you from a radio recording:

* Battling for a baby (recorded from radio   Scotland)  



     ...and finally, unwind for a while by watching this interview to Hugh Laurie: The British accent vs. the American
    .

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