do people from England understand US English well? (hotel, living in)

[Mac15]

I never seen any chip shops in america. I suppose the name makes sense for basket..

Are there any in Orlando? Where are you there?

[JennyMominRI]

Originally Posted by Mac15

I never seen any chip shops in america. I suppose the name makes sense for basket..

Are there any in Orlando? Where are you there?

I live in Orlando itself, but on the East Side away from all of the tourest locations. I wish we had real fish and chips shops here but we don't. You can ,on occasion ,find good fish and chips on some restaurant menus though. You can find decent ones in a lot of places in New England

[irlinit]

I would imagine you get them from burger takeaways.. they don't do it like us really

[P47P47]

Originally Posted by mxcolin

In general however American English is easy because it's so SLLLLLLLLLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW W :-)

And the opposite is true for Brit-speak, which often comes out at such a rapid-fire pace that it makes New Yorkers seem like Texans.

[JennyMominRI]

Originally Posted by irlinit

I would imagine you get them from burger takeaways.. they don't do it like us really

I have been to one or two places that my British friends find acceptable... The rest, no go.. Usually they are at decent sit down places.

Also, Indian food. I always take my UK friends to try Indian places that get their approval

[Transmition]

Chicken in a basket was a very common food to have in UK pubs in the 80s and 90s. Not sure why having it in a basket was a big thing, it was just chicken and chips (fries).

[cat1116]

Originally Posted by Jezer

I knew of some Brits in Texas who asked for water and were brought vodka.

I find it difficult to pick up on what is being said on some US TV programmes, but the same can be said of some of the mumblings on our programmes as well these days.

My main issue in Texas was understanding what some Hispanics were saying to me despite the fact that they were speaking English.

GeeZ, that could easily happen to someone from NY visiting TX
Would love to hear the story behind the water to vodka transformation tho
[hmm, wa-ter, vod-ka; wat-er, vo-dka ] Maybe I'm pronouncing something wrong?
May have heard that explaination at one time, but now it eludes me. Anyone from Texas care to refresh my memory banks on that?


I remember traveling up from the DC area to MA and along the way we stopped and asked for regular coffee (which to us - Mr C and moi) meant - no cream/no sugar but what did we get? Where ever it was (can't remember now) their idea of regular was the add-ins, apparently. Just like going into some restaurants that serve their syrup heated up while others, it's just room temp and if you wanted it heated, you would then have to ask for it or vice versa. Same way with the diced potatoes. Some places it was deep fried and others, lightly sauteed.


So, sometimes people in the US have problems understanding one another and you don't always have to live on the opposite sides of the coasts, it could just as easily happen from one state to the other on just one end of the coast or as some people might add, within your own state even.

[Mac15]

Originally Posted by JennyMominRI

I live in Orlando itself, but on the East Side away from all of the tourest locations. I wish we had real fish and chips shops here but we don't. You can ,on occasion ,find good fish and chips on some restaurant menus though. You can find decent ones in a lot of places in New England

I stayed at the Reunion resort which was just to the south of Orlando.

I didn't see any chip shops and I really missed it.

[CCc girl]

'coffee regular' here in the northeast is with cream and sugar. Coffee black is black. Light and sweet is more cream and two sugars.

[Jean-Francois]

Originally Posted by Ameriscot

Why should anybody moderate their accent? Do you ever change yours?

I don't change it, but I make a conscious effort to enunciate words correctly, to obviate being asked to repeat myself.
In addition, for the same reason, I'll use terms that the listener may be more familiar with, e.g. if I wanted some chocolate I'd ask if there was a candy store around here, NOT a sweet shop.
My wife asked me to get some cling film in a supermarket in Savannah Ga., I knew enough to ask for Saran Wrap instead.
I never use the word Tube for the Underground in London, so I just use subway naturally in New York, just as I'll say Le Metro in Paris.
I don't think I'd ever call a tap a faucet, unless I had a gun to my head, and I've had difficulty with water, wadder, wooder too.
One that no matter how hard I tried always seemed a toughie, was vodka.
I'd say it as voddka, and sometimes get a furrowed brow from the barman, so I'd try vahdka, if things still seemed difficult, I switched to Absolut, or Stoly, now I use them all the time, in the U.S. of course.