CHAT: R: Re: R: Re: CHAT: Blandness (was: Uusisuom's influences)

Roger Mills wrote:

> Luca Mangiat wrote:
> >> Watched a British TV detective drama the other night-- subtitles would
> >> certainly have helped.
> >
> >OTOH I hear every day the BBC world service and I don't have any
> >understanding problem, while, when I watch an American movie, I can catch
> >only the 30%... That's a bit sad!>
>
> Is it the pronunciation, or the slightly skewed vocabulary, or the
> slang/idioms, or some of each?
All of them? ; )

In our English Literature course we have watched the film 'Frankenstein' to
introduce the Gothic novel and the Romantic novelists (ie, Mary Shelley).
Gosh, they spoke terribly fast! The only sentences I've 100% understood were
those pronounced by 'the creature'... just because he spoke so slowly... (he
had terrible scars on the mouth, too :-).

On the other hand, I've just seen Jesus Christ Superstar, and I must confess
that they spoke (sang) a very simple and understandable English - I
understood almost everything.

Luca

>  I hear items from the BBC over our public
> radio network-- most of it's RP, though for some reason the man who talks
> about sport usually has a regional accent of some sort-- never
impenetrable,
> however.  The accent in the TV show ("Dalziell and Pascoe") was, I
suspect,
> Scots and would have been difficult even if they hadn't mumbled a lot.
The
> chief detective was, I think, the same rather chunky actor who played the
> gay male nurse in "Jewel in the Crown", a memorable role and series.
>

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