5 Ways to Listen Actively when Learning Accents (and why you need to)
Follow the path – become a better listener! So you probably realise the Australians don’t call out “G’day Bruce!” at every given opportunity. And you know the Irish don’t sing, “Top o’ the mornin’ to...
View ArticleActive Listening, Part 2: Oot and Aboot
Accent Learning: It’s a wilderness out there… This is Part 2 of 3 in Active Listening for Accents (see Part 1 here). Last time I promised more of a specific example of active listening when learning an...
View ArticleActive Listening, Part 3: Hair and There
This is Part 3 of 3 in my series on Active Listening for Accents. In part one we talked about why it is so crucial, and part two delved deep into a very specific vowel combination in the Canadian...
View ArticleIs Cockney Dead?
Is Cockney Dead? I spotted this scrawling a while ago on a wall in the East End of London. Now, I have no idea who wrote this – and like many good pieces of graffiti it doesn’t offer any explanation...
View ArticleHow Cockney Are You?
How well do you know your Cockney Rhyming Slang? As a preview to my Finding Voices podcast, which will explore this fine East End tongue in detail, I've put together a little quiz. See if you can beat...
View ArticleThe Day I Met Cockney Royalty
I probably should have tucked my shirt in … From Left to Right: Teresa Watts – Pearly Queen of Clapton, Terry Sadler – Pearly King of Tower Hamlets, Vicky Groves – Pearly Queen of Bow, Lorraine Sadler...
View ArticleFrance Has Changed 2,000 spellings … Will English-Speaking Countries Do The...
You may have seen this in the news recently: A reform 2 decades in the making, it’s caused outrage among language ‘purists’, and circles partly around the removal of the circumflex accent, that...
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