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    #26
    English as you speak it

    Our top three guesses for your English dialect:

    1. English (England)
    2. Scottish (UK)
    3. Welsh (UK)

    Our top three guesses for your native (first) language:

    1. English
    2. Hungarian
    3. Finnish

    Comment


      #27
      English as you speak it

      Paranoid Velvet Android wrote: I just tried to stick with what I'd find it acceptable to hear coming out of my own mouth, if that helps. Many other options were recognisably 'normal' for other dialects — US ones, Kiwi, etc. — but I discounted anything if it wasn't something I'd use in my native one.
      Good point,. I'm doing the quiz again with that approach.

      By the way, what "correct" answers between "that", "whom", "which" and "where" is there in the sentence "The man ____________ arrived yesterday needs a wakeup call at nine." At a stretch it's "the man that...", but even that doesn't seem right.

      Comment


        #28
        English as you speak it

        A little different now, but I really don't get where the US Black Vernacular fits in.

        Our top three guesses for your English dialect:
        1. US Black Vernacular / Ebonics
        2. New Zealandish
        3. South African

        Our top three guesses for your native (first) language:
        1. English
        2. Dutch
        3. Swedish

        Comment


          #29
          English as you speak it

          By the way, what "correct" answers between "that", "whom", "which" and "where" is there in the sentence "The man ____________ arrived yesterday needs a wakeup call at nine." At a stretch it's "the man that...", but even that doesn't seem right.
          It's got to be 'that,' although maybe some would prefer 'who' for a person. *Checks Swan's 'Practical English Usage'*: ... 'That is common as a relative pronoun in identifying clauses. It can refer to things, and, in an informal style, to people.'

          Comment


            #30
            English as you speak it

            Interestingly, I got exactly the same as Three Times a Teddy after 12 years in Wales, 25 years in London and 11 years in Bath with English, Welsh, Scottish (I lived in Scotland for about 18 months as a toddler) and English, Finnish, Hungarian. This also is the same as TonTon and Mukalainnen but with 2 and 3 swapped in both categories.

            Of course, as has been pointed out, Finnish and Hungarian are the two Finno-Ugric languages in Europe rather than Indo-European (or Basque, Turkish and Maltese) which is odd.

            The wife's Dad was Hungarian but as she speaks exactly the same amount of Hungarian as me - köszönöm.

            Comment


              #31
              English as you speak it

              I'm curious to know what factors determine the English, Welsh or Scottishness of your dialect. I've never lived in Wales, nor do I have any Welsh family members, Yet I'm English-Welsh apparently.

              Comment


                #32
                English as you speak it

                first time i did it checking all the options that i would recognise as grammatical, but would not say myself (e.g. "i'll write my brother"), the second time checking only those things i might say myself. first time around the regions were

                1) north irish (UK)
                2) scottish (UK)
                3) irish (republic of)

                with the languages

                1) english
                2) dutch
                3) norwegian

                second time (checking only the things i'd say myself)

                1) irish (republic of)
                2) north irish (UK)
                3) scottish (UK)

                and

                1) english
                2) hungarian
                3) polish

                seems like it's pretty good at telling where you're from anyway, though the first language guesses are fairly random.

                Comment


                  #33
                  English as you speak it

                  Amor de Cosmos wrote: I'm curious to know what factors determine the English, Welsh or Scottishness of your dialect. I've never lived in Wales, nor do I have any Welsh family members, Yet I'm English-Welsh apparently.
                  Lived in Bristol or the West country at all?

                  Comment


                    #34
                    English as you speak it

                    1. US Black Vernacular / Ebonics
                    2. American (Standard)
                    3. Singaporean

                    hmmm...

                    Comment


                      #35
                      English as you speak it

                      Bored of Education wrote:
                      Originally posted by Amor de Cosmos
                      I'm curious to know what factors determine the English, Welsh or Scottishness of your dialect. I've never lived in Wales, nor do I have any Welsh family members, Yet I'm English-Welsh apparently.
                      Lived in Bristol or the West country at all?
                      Uh uh. Never lived farther West than Hertfordshire

                      Comment


                        #36
                        English as you speak it

                        garcia wrote: seems like it's pretty good at telling where you're from anyway
                        ...as long as you're from an English-speaking country.

                        Comment


                          #37
                          English as you speak it

                          English
                          Welsh
                          Scottish

                          English
                          Norwegian
                          Hungarian

                          The first I can completely get, the second is just weird. Hungarian has such a completely different structure to English so how is that coming up for almost all of us?

                          Comment


                            #38
                            English as you speak it

                            Antepli Ejderha wrote: English
                            Welsh
                            Scottish

                            English
                            Norwegian
                            Hungarian

                            The first I can completely get, the second is just weird. Hungarian has such a completely different structure to English so how is that coming up for almost all of us?
                            Surely the test is not the linguistic relation between the English language and whatever the other language (Hungarian, etc.) is, but how native speakers of that other language use English. For example, Finns use English in a certain way (e.g. routinely referring to occasions and events as "happenings", it being a direct translation of the word used in Finnish), so if I heard a person using such a phrase I would guess that person could be a Finn, or at least had lived for a lengthy period in Finland.

                            What's baffling me to the point of wondering whether that above is a load of bullshit is that I didn't notice any particular questions that would allow me to make such a deduction. I'm really curious how the algorithm works.

                            Comment


                              #39
                              English as you speak it

                              Scientists have discovered that many of the 'rules' taught in school are wrong anyway.
                              What do they mean, 'scientists have discovered'? Do they mean linguists have decided?

                              Anyway, they got me. Fascinating to discover that there's only one dialect in England, too.

                              Our top three guesses for your English dialect:

                              1. English (England)
                              2. South African
                              3. Singaporean

                              Our top three guesses for your native (first) language:

                              1. English
                              2. Finnish
                              3. Romanian
                              G-Man wrote:
                              Originally posted by Paranoid Velvet Android
                              I just tried to stick with what I'd find it acceptable to hear coming out of my own mouth, if that helps. Many other options were recognisably 'normal' for other dialects — US ones, Kiwi, etc. — but I discounted anything if it wasn't something I'd use in my native one.
                              Good point,. I'm doing the quiz again with that approach.

                              By the way, what "correct" answers between "that", "whom", "which" and "where" is there in the sentence "The man ____________ arrived yesterday needs a wakeup call at nine." At a stretch it's "the man that...", but even that doesn't seem right.
                              You can click Next without selecting any options. I did so for that one and a few others.

                              Amor de Cosmos wrote:
                              Originally posted by Bored of Education
                              Originally posted by Amor de Cosmos
                              I'm curious to know what factors determine the English, Welsh or Scottishness of your dialect. I've never lived in Wales, nor do I have any Welsh family members, Yet I'm English-Welsh apparently.
                              Lived in Bristol or the West country at all?
                              Uh uh. Never lived farther West than Hertfordshire
                              Canada is quite a long way further west than Hertfordshire, surely...

                              Comment


                                #40
                                English as you speak it

                                That was hell of a hard aye.

                                For examples;

                                Which of these sentences is grammatical?

                                Comment


                                  #41
                                  English as you speak it

                                  TonTon wrote:
                                  Fill in the blank. Check all correct answers.
                                  I play ___________ the soccer team.
                                  at
                                  in
                                  on
                                  inside
                                  None of the above.
                                  Hah, my thoughts entirely. In the bit at the end where they asked if you have any other observations, I wrote that I'd say I play FOR the soccer team. Well, football team, but.

                                  Lodzubelieveit wrote:
                                  By the way, what "correct" answers between "that", "whom", "which" and "where" is there in the sentence "The man ____________ arrived yesterday needs a wakeup call at nine." At a stretch it's "the man that...", but even that doesn't seem right.
                                  It's got to be 'that,' although maybe some would prefer 'who' for a person. *Checks Swan's 'Practical English Usage'*: ... 'That is common as a relative pronoun in identifying clauses. It can refer to things, and, in an informal style, to people.'
                                  Well, thanks Lodzubelieveit, I wouldn't have accepted any of those answers as the proper one before reading that — I think I went with that but was thinking "it should be who".

                                  I can only assume that Hungarian speakers of English as a second language are all incredibly careful followers of British English speech patterns, since so many of us native speakers could apparently pass for Hungarians.

                                  Comment


                                    #42
                                    English as you speak it

                                    My girlfriend's just done it. Her results:

                                    Dialects:
                                    1. English (England)
                                    2. Irish (Republic of)
                                    3. Scottish

                                    Native (first) language:
                                    1. English
                                    2. Polish
                                    3. Vietnamese

                                    My girlfriend is an Argentine whose native language is Spanish.

                                    Comment


                                      #43
                                      English as you speak it

                                      She's obviously been hanging out with you for a long time.

                                      Comment


                                        #44
                                        English as you speak it

                                        She didn't learn English from me (and for the most part resists my attempts to get her to pronounce 'tomato' properly or stop talking about wearing a pair of sneakers).

                                        Comment


                                          #45
                                          English as you speak it

                                          I think there's fundamental problem with this project. Many of us don't write English as we speak it. My written English was established in elementary school 60 years ago and, essentially, has probably hardly changed since. My spoken English OTOH, varies somewhat depending on where I am and who I'm with. Consequently I'd never write a sentence such as "We're having Grandma for dinner," and I'd also be unlikely to say it while in the UK, but in Canada I very well might.

                                          So if the goal of the project is find out how people speak English, the process should surely be an oral, rather than a written one.

                                          Comment


                                            #46
                                            English as you speak it

                                            Fill in the blank. Check all correct answers.

                                            I play ___________ the soccer team.

                                            at

                                            in

                                            on

                                            inside
                                            My reaction would be to say play for as well, but my suspicion was in or on from North America...??

                                            Crude googling the phrases "I play * the soccer team." suggests on is the answer.

                                            Comment


                                              #47
                                              English as you speak it

                                              Lodzubelieveit wrote:
                                              By the way, what "correct" answers between "that", "whom", "which" and "where" is there in the sentence "The man ____________ arrived yesterday needs a wakeup call at nine." At a stretch it's "the man that...", but even that doesn't seem right.
                                              It's got to be 'that,' although maybe some would prefer 'who' for a person. *Checks Swan's 'Practical English Usage'*: ... 'That is common as a relative pronoun in identifying clauses. It can refer to things, and, in an informal style, to people.'
                                              Good to see you Lodz. I got hammered with Michael Swan earlier this year. That 4am caipirinha sounded like a good idea at the time, but it really wasn't. However it did allow me to praise him for having written the greatest line in any grammar book ever "Bugger me, there's Mrs Smith. I thought she was on holiday"

                                              Comment


                                                #48
                                                English as you speak it

                                                Our top three guesses for your English dialect:
                                                1. Scottish (UK)
                                                2. English (England)
                                                3. Irish (Republic of)

                                                Our top three guesses for your native (first) language:
                                                1. English
                                                2. Hungarian
                                                3. Finnish

                                                Comment


                                                  #49
                                                  English as you speak it

                                                  Our top three guesses for your English dialect:

                                                  1. North Irish (UK)
                                                  2. Irish (Republic of)
                                                  3. Scottish (UK)
                                                  Our top three guesses for your native (first) language:

                                                  1. English
                                                  2. Norwegian
                                                  3. Swedish - See more at:

                                                  I've never been more depressed, a fuckin computer algorithm thinks I'm Irish. I'm going to stop listening to my Irish wife.

                                                  Comment


                                                    #50
                                                    English as you speak it

                                                    Same as AMMS, to give my original answers, not sure what was particularly Nordie about them, and even "I'm just after" seems the only Hiberno-English sentence.

                                                    Comment

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