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^ ^
Hey, you've got a good point! He could be a welshman who speaks English with only a slight welsh accent.
I'll tell you something really funny. When I first came back to Thailand I couldn't find a job, so I had to teach English to earn my living. I found that most Thai students prefer American accents; they praised some Thai teachers for speaking like a native speaker even though those Thai teachers could only imitate American drawl without really being able to speak like an American (I knew it but the students didn't know it). I had to spend a lot of time watching American movies and tried to put on American accent. It helped me find a lot of teaching jobs.
Later, I took CPE (Certificate of Proficiency in English) exam at the British Council in Bangkok (they are no longer a center for this exam). The final part was conversation. I tried to speak with a British accent to please the examiner, who was an Englishman. At the end of the exam, I asked him what he thought my accent sounded like, whether or not he thought I had a heavy Thai accent. His replied "You speak like a welshman!"
I started to think how I made many mistakes in learning spoken English. You see, I was married to a cockney and all of my in-laws and friends spoke with a cockney accent. Yet, I was stupid enough to try to speak with an RP accent when I had no good models, which I ended up not being able to speak English with a very posh accent the way I expected. And when I had to please Thai students I had to try to learn American English to reduce my Thai accent. Well, I thought I had a heavy Thai accent because many Thai people tell me, but many English guys who have lived in Thailand for many years, including that examiner thought I spoke more like a Welshman...!!???
Just recently, I met some English guys in a pub near Nichada Housing Estate where a lot of wealthy foreigners live. To my surprise, some of these English guys still keep their local accents after getting rich; they don't try to learn how to talk posh like those nouveaux riches in the old days. So, I tried to remind me how my in-laws spoke to me years ago and let myself go naturally when I talked to those English guys in that pub. Later, I began to pick up a cockney accent and I went further by talking to my girlfriend in cockney every time I saw her that I gave her a bit of a headache. And a few months after that (when my girlfriend started to complain about my cockney accent) I tried to reduce the cockney accent bit by bit each day and ended up speaking standard English more naturally...!!??? ^ So, what my ex-wife, who was a cockney, told me was quite true. She said if you want to learn how to talk posh you have to try to learn cockney first--because you don't have to pronounce all the sounds clearly. After speaking cockney properly you will learn the RP accent easier. At that time I didn't believe her, but now I think she was absolutely right!
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fortuneteller
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2 มี.ค. 55 23:42:30
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