Hey, what's up? What's going on? Welcome to English with Dane, a show designed to improve your English. As always, you can find me on Instagram and Twitter at English with Dane. Before we start, a quick announcement. I haven't put out an episode so far this week because I haven't had as much time recently. Sorry if you were waiting for those. But I think I'm going to go back to two episodes a week, and if I can squeeze in a third one, I will.
The reason is that I don't want to put out rushed episodes. I rather take the time and give you something more interesting or more helpful, and that requires more time to prepare. I'm still figuring out what the best schedule is, so thanks for sticking with it. Today's show is an accent challenge, accent challenge number two. The first one was really fun to do, and several listeners wrote to me saying they really enjoyed it, so I thought I would do another one.
By the way, none of the people that wrote to me got five out of five. Nobody had every answer right. The highest score was four out of five. I think the last accent, the South African accent, was the one people had the most trouble with. And nearly everyone got the American Texan accent and the London Cockney accent right. So good job with that. If you did a terrible job and got zero out of five or one out of five, then don't stress because now you get another chance.
Oh, but we're going to change it up a little bit. I'm not going to give you the answers right away like last time. I'll give you the answers on Monday's episode, episode 27. That way you have a better chance to get them right. Ask a friend if you're not sure. You'd be surprised how different people's opinions can be when it comes to accents. Everyone hears them a little bit differently, especially when it's only a 10-second clip.
Sometimes we need more context or a bigger sample size to figure out where different speakers are from. Okay, I'm rambling now, so let's start the show. You are listening to the 26th episode of English with Dane. Hit it. If you listened to the first one, you know how it works. If you didn't, then listen to the rules. I'm going to play some audio files.
Some will be from movies or TV shows, and some from local news stations, interviews, etc. Your objective, your goal is to name the speaker's accent. You can make the game as difficult as you want by trying to be as precise as possible. If you think he or she is speaking American English, write down USA. But if you think you can pinpoint a more precise location, let's say California, even better. Anything further than that, like a specific place inside California and you're a pro.
That's some next level stuff. I suggest you write down your answers on the notes app on your phone to keep track of them, or on a piece of paper if you have one around. I'll play each audio twice and then give you a few seconds to write down your answer. Okay, ready? Here we go. Accent challenge number two.
Here's the first one. To me is not so much a particular period. Because the same patterns emerge a lot of the times at different point in time is uh is more those moments, you know, when uh when mob mentality takes over. Because here it is one more time. To me is not so much a particular period because the same patterns emerge a lot of the times at different point in time is uh is more those moments, you know, when uh when mob mentality takes over.
Because Now take a second and write down your answer.
Now for the second one.
Well, when there is the sort of chaos which they obviously have, they may take desperate action and feel that an external enemy might unite uh some of the people there.
One more time.
Well, when there is the sort of chaos which they obviously have, they may take desperate action and feel that an external enemy might unite uh some of the people there.
Okay, here's number three.
That it's like when I had this garden party for my father's birthday, right? I said RSVP because it was a sit-down dinner. But people came that like did not RSVP. So I was like totally bugging.
And again.
That it's like when I had this garden party for my father's birthday, right? I said RSVP because it was a sit-down dinner. But people came that like did not RSVP. So I was like totally bugging.
Here's number four.
What bigger platform to to reach people and remind them about how wonderful the place is and encourage people to come and visit, but do it in a creative sort of a way and and remind people of I think the sense of humor, you know.
One more time.
What bigger platform to to reach people and remind them about how wonderful the place is and encourage people to come and visit, but do it in a creative sort of a way and and remind people of I think the sense of humor, you know.
Here's number five. He was stronger than me, he was like three, four years older than me, and he was tall and strong guys, a hockey player back in the day. And yeah, we I couldn't beat him. Once again. He was stronger than me, he was like three, four years older than me, and he was tall and strong guy, he's a hockey player back in the day. And yeah, we I couldn't beat him. Even with martial arts, he was always stronger than me. He hurt me a lot like back in the day.
And I added one more this time. So here's number six.
Getting better is just about learning from little tiny mistakes. It's all like little mistakes that you think you did wrong and you work on them and you try and grow from them, and you know. People I know there's a famous saying, like a lot of people say win or learn, but to me it's just you win or you lose, and I lost and I just tried.
And again.
Getting better is just about learning from little tiny mistakes. It's all like little mistakes that you think you did wrong and you work on them and you try and grow from them, and you know. People, I know there's a famous saying, like a lot of people say win all in, but to me it's just you win or you lose, and I lost and I just tried.
There it is. Accent challenge number two, featuring six different accents from around the world. There are a few in there that are tricky. I think the easiest is maybe number three, right? The girl that was talking. If you're a movie nerd, you may be able to identify or guess where that part is from. I'll give you a hint, it's from a movie that came out in 1995. And the hardest one, I think, is maybe number five.
Speaking of tricky accents, I was recently having a Skype class with a student of mine who just moved to Scotland. He's going to attend a music school to study guitar, and to do that, he needed to pass the IELTS exam. I'm sure you're familiar with it. IELTS stands for International English Language Testing System. Anyway, we started talking about the Scottish accent, and as some of you know, I was recently in Scotland for a wedding, so we shared our thoughts on it.
He told me he was nervous about moving to Scotland because he was afraid he wouldn't understand anyone. So I shared a quick story about my recent trip. So we were in Scotland in St. Andrews, and we were at the hotel getting ready for the wedding. And as we were finishing up, my friend Isa announced that the taxi was here. So we all walked out together.
On our way to the door, my friend Andy wanted to know if we could make a quick stop or detour to pick something up from the store before going to the wedding. So as we were getting into the taxi, Isa informed the taxi driver that we wanted to go to the store first. And the taxi driver answered. I had no idea what he said. I remember feeling how my brain was trying to make out or decipher individual words, trying to help me understand what this man was saying, but it didn't work at all.
So when I heard him stop talking, I turned around and I looked at everyone else to see if someone understood what he said. And they all had the same face, which I'm sure was the same as my face. I realized that none of us understood him. Out of five native English speakers, none had understood a single word. So we had to politely say that we didn't understand anything he said, which was awkward, but he laughed and repeated it way slower. It was easier the second time.
If you're curious, he was just telling us that it was out of our way, but that he had no problem with it, or something to that effect. I guess the point of the story is that it happens to everyone. Everyone has a difficult time hearing new accents or accents they aren't used to.
Obviously, the better your English is, the faster you'll adapt, but I think it also has to do with how good your ear is, how well you interpret and remember intonations, consonant sounds, etc. Luckily, my friend has a great ear and great attention to detail, and he spent his whole life listening to music and playing, watching TV shows from around the world, etc. So I don't think he'll have a difficult time, but it is a process and it takes time.
The only remedy is exposure and really trying to listen, right? Train your ears to find those small differences. How are they pronouncing their T's and R's? Are they using short vowel sounds and syllables, or are they elongating their vowels and syllables? I think this challenge can really help with that. I think after we do a few more, you'll surprise yourself and you'll start to see some similarities between different accents.
Some of my students have said to me, no, I'm just really bad with accents. And I don't think that's the case. Because if it's in their own language, in their native language, they spot the differences right away. And they can even do imitations. I think it's just the anxiety of not understanding that makes us feel like we're bad with accents. So give it a shot. Make it your mission to get six out of six right for this accent challenge and let me know what you think.
Write to me at Englishwithdain on Twitter or Instagram if you have any feedback and if you have any submissions too. If there's an audio file you want me to include in our next challenge, you know where to find me. Okay, that's the show for today. Stay tuned for episode 27, which will come out on Monday. I'm going to give the answers for this accent challenge and we'll discuss a few other things.
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