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andee
Tetraglot
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Japan
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 Message 17 of 142
19 January 2006 at 7:00am | IP Logged 
^^ Yes, there is a Portuguese accent with English - although interestingly, Continental Portuguese native-speakers seem to have less of an accent in English that other Romance language native-speakers.

(At least this is true for the research I've conducted)
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Hencke
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Spain
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 Message 18 of 142
19 January 2006 at 10:40am | IP Logged 
andee wrote:
Continental Portuguese native-speakers seem to have less of an accent in English that other Romance language native-speakers.

(/ironic mode=on, but please don't take it too seriously) What Portuguese speakers are not continental ? Madeira ?
(/ironic mode=off) :o)

That actually agrees very well with my personal experience. In general, you find a clearly better level of English in Portugal than in Spain.

I feel that television has a lot to do with it. Portugal, as far as I am aware, is the only romance-speaking country where all the foreign-language programmes are subtitled, rather than dubbed. In my mind this is one of the major contributing factors to the good level of English found in the Nordic countries as well.

Btw. Apart from countries, the same applies to some regions too. In Catalonia you get lots of foreign programmes dubbed into Catalan.
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patuco
Diglot
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Gibraltar
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 Message 19 of 142
19 January 2006 at 1:28pm | IP Logged 
Hencke wrote:
In general, you find a clearly better level of English in Portugal than in Spain.

That's true, but, having been to Continental* Portugal a few times and spoken with the locals, it might not be for the reason you mentioned.

* I think andee was probably referring to Brazilian Portuguese, even though that's also on a continent. He might not have been corrected had he used European instead of Continental.

Edited by patuco on 19 January 2006 at 1:33pm

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Hencke
Tetraglot
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Spain
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 Message 20 of 142
19 January 2006 at 4:00pm | IP Logged 
Well, I named one reason, that I am fairly certain contributes, since I have experienced the same thing myself.

There may well be other factors, and if so, it would be interesting to hear about them.

Please tell us what reasons you discovered and your conclusions from talking to the locals.


Edited by Hencke on 19 January 2006 at 4:01pm

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translator2
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United States
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 Message 21 of 142
19 January 2006 at 4:12pm | IP Logged 
From Wikipedia: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Condoleezza_Rice)

"...During an interview with Russian Echo Moscow Radio, her fluency in the Russian language was tested when she was asked about her intentions concerning running for President. [15] When asked by a schoolgirl, "One day you will run for president?" she replied, "President, da, da," before she quickly answered with "nyet, nyet, nyet." When a Russian girl asked how she could become like her, she replied in English, "I don't want to talk about myself..."



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Skandinav
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Denmark
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 Message 22 of 142
19 January 2006 at 5:12pm | IP Logged 
Administrator, I don't know which transcrption you read, but I remember that I checked out the transcript a day or so after the interview, and now I learn that Ekho edited it. Or at least I think they did since her reply is just "net." But I agree with you that Ekho is a respected radio station, thus it came as a surprise to me if they actually edited it. As for Pravda, you're completely right about the missing objectivity/relevans, but I wouldn't suspect that either them (or even Zavtra) would lie directly. I would, however, really like to listen to the audio-file, and to be honest, I think that one should contact the White House' Press Dep. rather than Ekho Moskvy. I contacted them a couple of times, requesting audio-files with Geidar (Haidar) Aliev, Ilham Aliev, Eduard Shevardnadze and Nino Burjanadze, but the result was negative. The reason why I have my doubt regarding her language skills is because I once read an academic article by her (from 1991 or 1992) on Russia's national interest, and she did not quote any Russian sources in her bibliography.
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KingM
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michaelwallaceauthor
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 Message 23 of 142
19 January 2006 at 8:07pm | IP Logged 
patuco wrote:

* I think andee was probably referring to Brazilian Portuguese, even though that's also on a continent. He might not have been corrected had he used European instead of Continental.


From Dictionary.com: 2. often Continental Of or relating to the mainland of Europe; European.

I believe the phrase originated in Britain and is also used in other English-speaking nations to refer to non-British Isles Europeans. It's a less common usage than the one picked up on by the Iberians above, but in no way incorrect.
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andee
Tetraglot
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Japan
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 Message 24 of 142
20 January 2006 at 2:52am | IP Logged 
^^ Yes, that was the Briton in me coming through I think, hah. We're always saying "Continental Europeans" for some reason - maybe we don't think of ourselves as European?

And like patuco kindly pointed out, I was using it as a comparison to Brazil.


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