On 19/01/2011 7:45 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:

>> No wonder we need sub-titles for American TV. ;-)
>
> Hehehehe, you know, I was quite amazed when, at a holiday party last
> year, the hosts showed us a couple episodes of "Only Fools and
> Horses" (Mark's from Ireland and has a heavy Irish accent most of the
> time) and they gave us the caveat that the accents might be difficult to
> understand, but we didn't need subtitles and understood most of the
> cultural jokes as well as not having a problem with the accents. :-)
>

 From what I can remember, the speech in "Only Fools and Horses" is 
pretty Standard English, English. A bit of a South London accent, I admit.
It’s not the American accent that is troublesome, it is the divergence 
from English grammar that makes American TV shows difficult to 
understand. Give it another 20 years and we will be speaking like you do 
now. ;-)


> I think they were slightly surprised that we didn't have any problems at
> all understanding what was being said.  :-)
>

I'm not. But a t'ick Oirish voice can be hard on the ear. Listen to any 
Dubliners album. :-)

-- 
Regards
     Stephen

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