On Tue, Aug 10, 2010 at 08:36:39PM +0100, Tim Retout wrote:
On 10 August 2010 19:26, Luca Capello <luca@pca.it> wrote:Basically, given that I am not an English native speaker, I tend to make errors, thus sometime the person in front of me does not understand. I found out that she/he replies to me with different expressions, used AFAIK without any preference WRT her/his origin.Until now, I have found three of them: "say what?", "what's that?" and "say it again", the first two being a word game Biella, Zack and me started the last days after I explained the above to both of them."Say what?" definitely sounds US English. I wouldn't use the other two either.Your basic four UK responses are as follows, in descending order of politeness:"Pardon?", "Sorry?", "Come again?", "What?". For bonus points, elaborate: "I beg your pardon, what did you say?" "I'm terribly sorry, come again?" If all else fails, add more self-deprecation and explanation:"I'm afraid I didn't quite hear, would you mind awfully repeating that please?"This actually happened to me in New York with someone asking for money. It seemed somewhat unfair not to give it to them at that point, after making them repeat themselves so many times.
In Denmark we say "Hvad?" or "Hvadbehager?" (like english "What?" or "What, please?").
We tend to swallow endings of most words, however (described by other scandinavians as their language with a hot potato in the mouth). Thus what we spit out really is "Hva'?" (like english "huh?") or "Hva' ba'?".
A friend of mine teaching danish to refugees told me some years ago that a student came to him wondering why when trying out his newly taught danish expressions in a bus or on the street, people would respond "Whopper!".
- Jonas Amazed (but not proud) of my own mother tongue -- * Jonas Smedegaard - idealist & Internet-arkitekt * Tlf.: +45 40843136 Website: http://dr.jones.dk/ [x] quote me freely [ ] ask before reusing [ ] keep private
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