That serves me right for eavesdropping:)

OP, the one upside to having an accent, I've found, is that you can make people talk really slow and moronically...

I go around train stations with my aussie accent just to see how stupid I can make people sound! (yes, we all know australians speak english, but would you believe, some people still clearly feel the need to reply to me veeerrrryyyy sllloooowwwwllllyyyy in case I don't understand!)

I have to admit, my favourite polish thing is that they say "yes thankyou" when you ask "would you like anything else with that?". After 101 times of asking "so what would you like?" I realised they think I'm saying "is that all?" not "would you like anything else?"! It did make me smile a few times though, especially as the rest of the process would be in perfect english!
 
Oh hun, ignore the ignorant batt :D. Remember, you aren't her and for that be eternally grateful :D :D :D

Made me laugh the other day - I'm working with a client who has offices all over the world, so accents are part of the daily make up :). Walked past a group last week - imagine if you will, a Dutch chap, an Italian chap, a German chap, and a chap from somewhere I couldn't place, all trying to explain something tehcy, in English, to a very good looking Spanish lady :D :D :D. As I can say nothing more than Hello in four languages (English, French, German, and American), I had no right to snort coffee all over my laptop, but it was funny :D :D :D. Today I was in a meeting where the language was predominately English, with German a close run second - I spent half the meeting looking to my German intern for translation, whilst she took great delight in not needing me at all for the English spoken parts (and she's half my age and she speaks at least three languages, knowing more than one word of each lol).
 
That's hilarious- Oh sorry, you're foreign- "I SAID- THAT'S HILAAAARIOUS, HAHAHA" Silly old bat, you should have asked what colour your hair was and that if she could tell you that you'd tell her if the horse was big enough. Or just get out your crystal ball- don't all Romanians have them? :D
 
Martlin,
she was talking about you in the shop, you are talking about her here (albeit virtually). What is the difference, if she shows up and suits the horse then sell it to her...why wouldn't you? And no, I wouldn't embarrass her by mentioning that you had overheard in the shop..why cause bad feeling in what could be a perfectly good transaction?
 
No watcher, she didn't show up and I didn't expect her to from what she said about me...
I haven't been offensive or assuming about her on here, she was fairly offensive talking about me - that's the difference.
 
Your written English is amazing Martlin, I'm sure you have no reason to be nervous speaking to strangers - I know how it feels though having lived in France for a year.

I'm a fluent Welsh speaker and when I was about 8 went to Bath with my parents for a day out. I had a big phobia of escalators at the time and was dithering at the top of an escalator in a shop (my mum had already got on as it was the only way she could get me on there) and all of a sudden this woman barged past me, followed by another who shoved me on, nearly knocking me over and the one in front stopped me falling. The one behind asked the one in front - in Welsh - why she had bothered to stop me as letting me fall would teach me a lesson for holding people up and messing around with escalators and she replied that she didn't want me to knock her over so stopped me falling... Imagine their surprise when I thanked them sweetly for saving me and explained that I was scared of escalators and that's why I was reluctant to get on at the top...all in perfect Welsh. I was between them on the escalator and they couldn't go anywhere to get away from me, it was a classic. It's a good job I was a bolshy kid.:cool:
 
I have the opposite problem to you, i am Scottish born and bred (well my parents are mainly English but i tend to keep that quiet ;) ) and i have no accent, im fed up of folk going on about how "posh" i am because i speak well. At uni (in Wales) they would not believe i was Scottish just because i dont sound like i have escaped from Taggart!!!
 
As an English person living in Scotland I can partially sympathise (not fully of course). People can be strange...

And hi from a part-bred Polish person - my grandfather was Polish.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top