Donald can¹t resist this one.... It¹s due to the multi-cultural diversity of the ancestry of the UK. In the early years, way before America was invented :-), we were invaded and settled by many different cultures ending with the French in 1066. Since then the language in the various regions, as it does in any country, despite the size, has developed and regional identities are very prevalent. By the way I come from the NE of England and if I get called a Geordie, I get upset and Newcastle is only 15 miles from where I originate. Note the spellings, hence wanting an English, English teacher, :-) American English has developed in the same way as any language, unfortunately, to us English it¹s not a direction in which we want to follow e.g. Michael Phelps is the winningest Olympian ever. A comparative verb? Oh well...... And don¹t forget idiom, the most difficult part of any language to conquer.
My twopenneth worth. Many thanks George From: Donald Craig <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Reply-To: The Moscow Expat List <[email protected]> Date: Thu, 4 Sep 2008 10:53:13 +0400 To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, 'The Moscow Expat List' <[email protected]> Subject: RE: Expat List Russians' preoccupation with British English Sorry but I have to make a comment on your last remark. I work for a British company and for my two kopek¹s worth I am thoroughly amazed at the different accents from Proper old school British English to a New Castle Jordie accent. Sometimes we need a translation from English to English just to understand what our Jordie is even talking about. America has an excuse for the different accents for exactly the reasons you stated below, but what is Brit¹s excuse? There is a different accent in every other area. -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Anthony Corbett Sent: Wednesday, September 03, 2008 3:33 PM To: Kirill Galetski; The Moscow Expat List Subject: Re: Expat List Russians' preoccupation with British English Would you go to Quebec to learn French, or Brazil to learn Portuguese? I doubt it. Why would you want to learn American English with all its corruptions and barely understandable slang, originating from immigration several hundred years ago, when you can learn British English, the latest form of a language that is constantly refining? In addition, the UK is considerably closer, unless you live in the Far East. Why would you teach both forms of a language? That is like teaching several dialects of a language at the same time. My two pence worth! Anthony 2008/9/2 Kirill Galetski <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Hi, Russians' preoccupation with British English and necessarily having a British is irksome at best, idiotic at worst. As a former English teacher, I take offence [sic] to it. The world standard for business is American English, with all of the trappings thereof. It's not an accident that major non-Anglo corporations such as German concern Bosch have American English as their standard for all English-language communications. To quote Bill Bryson from his book MADE IN AMERICA, An Informal History of the English Language in the United States, "To this day it remains a commonplace in England that American English is a corrupted form of British speech, that the inhabitants of the New World display a kind of helpless, chronic 'want of refinement' every time they open their mouths and attempt to issue sounds. In fact, in several significant ways it is British speech that has become corrupted, or, to put it in less reactionary terms, has quietly evolved." Nevertheless, I believe that when English is taught, both the American and British varieties should be taught in nearly equal measure. This implies having a teacher that is competent to do both, but it certainly does not limit the teacher to being only of the British nationality. Just my two kopeks' worth. Kirill. -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [email protected] Date: Tue, 2 Sep 2008 12:03:37 +0400 (MSD) Subject: Expat Digest, Vol 47, Issue 3 > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Message: 1 > Date: Mon, 1 Sep 2008 21:37:25 +0400 > From: "Dasha Repina" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Subject: Re: Expat List English tutor > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED], "The Moscow Expat List" <[email protected]> > Message-ID: > <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" > > Hi John, > > thanks a lot for your attention, but the requirement of my boss is quite > exact. He wants British teacher. > > All of the best, Daria. _______________________________________________ Expat mailing list [email protected] http://www.lists.ru/mailman/listinfo/expat http://www.expat.ru/forum/ -- Anthony Corbett Head of International M&A Vimpelcom 4 Krasnoproletarskaya St. Moscow 127006 Russian Federation T: +7909 991 7783 M: +7962 942 1682 E: [EMAIL PROTECTED] S: anthonycorbett _______________________________________________ Expat mailing list [email protected] http://www.lists.ru/mailman/listinfo/expat http://www.expat.ru/forum/
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