Anyone else do Longman Audio-Visual French back in the 1970s/1980s? I am currently doing 'Teach yourself Glasgwegian' with my copy of 'The Complete Patter' and rediscovering phrases my mother used to use, before almost half a century in England replaced many of them with southern equivalents. At the same time, there are many phrases listed that my Dad, born and brought up in the west midlands used, and not a few that were common parlance in Northampton (where I spent most of my childhood) and the north west of England (most of my adulthood so far). Given that my mother's parents hailed from east London and and Plymouth, and theirs from as far afield as France, Holland and Spain, it is perhaps no wonder that the idiom I use is rather polyglot. Maybe I need to write the Wandering Aramean's Phrase Book?
In the meantime, I am back to my daily round of learning to pronounce 'loch' correctly!
Comments
Just remember which language you're meant to be speaking and, as in life, all will be well. The names for a bread roll and the alleyway behind a house are usually good ways of grounding yourself in the linguistic geography of a new place.
But also remember that someone who is permanently cold is 'nesh', that inordinately curious people should be told to 'keep their sneck out of it', but that it's legitimate to show interest by 'taking a gleg' at something.
Oh, and be sure at all times and in all places to greet everyone "Ay up, ma duck!"
I knew people who studied with Longmans, and the only 4 french words they could say were "Ecoutez et Repetez, Beep!"
ecoutez et repetez resounded through my teenage years... and my touchstones of regional variations (an east coast father and west coast mother) is a)what you call the divide in your hair, and b) the tiny piece of wood that gets under your skin (a parting/shed and a splinter/skelf/spale respectively!)