If you learnt English as a foreign language then you were probably taught "standard English" which is based upon south east English or "general American" However as you can see from the map there are lots of different dialects within the UK. If we look at English globally there's said to be over 160 versions.
The map shown actually upset quite a few people because it over simplified things and left out a lot of dialects, one can only imagine each American state is broken down into numerous dialects.
Some people can be snobbish about dialects but I don't think there's a wrong or right dialect, perhaps with exception of AAVE. However dialects can make learning any language difficult since few people in the real world actually speak "classroom English"
Thoughts
When you learnt English how much did you struggle with dialects?
When I was teaching ESL, I taught the local accent. Because they were living here and that's what they heard. If the student was advanced enough, I would explain the difference between the local dialect and more common dialects. For beginners, that's too confusing, so I just stuck with what they'd hear day-to-day.
If I was teaching in another country instead of locally to ex-pats, I'd teach more common English. Which means I'd teach a "neutral" American English, which is probably the most common English. It's mostly what you hear on American TV and movies. It's a minority accent, but it's the plurality accent that is heard in close to half of the US west of the Mississippi. That includes California/Hollywood.
I remember a new student who asked what "two ovens" meant. Her boss at work kept telling her to make "two ovens". She was saying "two of them". I got a kick out of that one.
This is a great question! I hope it gets recognized by G@G as such. I never really thought of the regional variations of English as dialects. In hindsight, that seems fairly ignorant. You’re going to send me down a rabbit hole from which i’m probably going to learn a fair lot. I consider myself a word nerd too. So this could be a wild adventure! I do struggle with accents. The gypsy accent Brad Pitt uses in “Snatch” (2000) was difficult to follow. Even the subtitles gave up on him at least once. Ell oh ell! A deep Scottish accent gets me, but i honestly don’t even know if that’s what you’re talking about. I think it’s English origin, but it’s a Scottish accent speaking British or American English that sometimes confuses me. I sometimes struggle to understand people for whom English is a late second language.
Taught British English in schools, first started getting problems with the different dialects/type of English as I got older due to exposure of media. Older grades, it didn't matter what you used, as long as you were consistent.
What my dialect was learning it was probably influenced by my first English teacher who I do not remember, and now my dialect changes depending on the dialect of the person I'm speaking with.
I googled that and you are right. The past tense of "learn" is "learned" in American English and "learnt" in British English. Both forms are correct and convey the same meaning of having acquired knowledge or skill in the past
The only time I had real trouble was with someone from Scotland. I had to ask him to repeat certain sentences.
Apart from that, I was raised in a country that had a lot of influence from abroad. The only tv channel you could watch at the time was the BBC, so 'standard English', or should I say 'standardised English'. The same was taught at school, but they did point out differences between UK and US English as far as word choice and spelling is concerned. No problem at all with watching movies from the UK, Ireland, the USA.
Indian people are funny because they are taught English with continental vowel sounds and it sounds odd.
I like telling this story. A female friend was a Kiwi and genetically disposed to say fush and chups but had spent several years in Scotland/England. She complained the shop girls in Australia were very rude and refused to serve her. At that point I was trying to get into her pants so I offered to accompany her on her shopping initiative.
I immediately saw the problem at the first shop.
"I wuunna a paarry wuuuggee". Shop girl looked blank and responded "We don't have anything like that here".
"She means she wants a party wig". Shop girl "Oh. We've got some lovely ones" and brings out a dozen for her to choose from.
It is not just people who are learning English as a second language that have problems with English. :)
When learning a language, one has to start somewhere, and I guess an official version will do. Time passing by other pronounciations of the same words become accessible, till starting to understand slightly different dialects.
What native people generally speak is in fact the real language of a particular region, nevertheless sometimes difficult to understand for people from another region. That's why when I learn a language, I like to know some variants, and some expressions only used in some dialects. This makes languages much richer actually.
To answer your question, as everyone learning English, set aside vocabulary, I stumbled upon bad pronounciations of the official version, and on dialectical expressions. How much did I struggle? No real idea, but sometimes I still struggle, the fun being to search the real meaning of particular sayings ;0)
As a Dundonian I totally get this so it's never been a challenge for me to grasp accents though italic can be a difficult one to interpret (jk).
From my experience there is a strong link between the depth of accent and the ability to interpret what people are saying because the further your English is from the "norm" the wider the interpretive skills one has to develop as media is always in BBC or corporate English so one can find our own dialect to be foreign to the majority of those closer to the norm.
Being a native English speaker, grown up hearing the annoying Texan twang I can tell you just watchin BBC Look East was a challenge for awhile as there were several different lilts and rhythms. I then tried to graduate to things like comedians... folks that weren't so careful with their enunciation and elocution... DAMN... felt like the Scots were particularly thick and difficult to break down.
@purplepoppy The only problem I have had is someone from Wales. I had to record what they said, and have my friend from the U. K. tell me what they said. 😁😁😁🤣🤣
I learned English as a foreign language, our English teacher's preference was British English, so if anyone accidentally said something in American English version or accent, she would give them bad grade.
Dialects are not a problem for me, I also know Canadian, Australian and some other dialects.
I like Celtic accent of English, but I would prefer to learn actual Celtic languages.
I think English people are well placed to understand pretty much understand everyone, because we're exposed to everything.
If we can somehow make sense of the cacophony of Welsh, Glaswegian and Scouse, well, we can understand everything.
And yes, dialects and accents are always interesting. It is literally true that if you go 5 miles in England you can encounter quite a different accent. Even in my own family we all speak slightly differently.
Dialects? You should have heard my Tuscaloosa, Ala.-born maternal grandmother, whom I loved to pieces, but whose heavy Southern accent should have come with subtitles. Even my New Canaan (about 30 kilometres or 20 miles from Windsor), Ont.,-born grandfather could barely understand her. Fortunately, they dwelt in Detroit, Mich., home to lots of other former Southerners, so they would tell my sisters and me what Grandma was saying.
Hardly a al!! My girlfriend's from Kent and she and another British friend of mine said that if they didn't know any better, they'd swear I was born & raised in England!!
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Many British people speak so differently and so oddly, it’s very difficult to understand them. I’ve been to London England sometimes it’s hilarious talking to them.
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