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Think you don’t know dialects?

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Map of North American English dialects.

If I mention “dialects” to you in respect to Irish Gaelic, it might make you fret!

First off, as we say in one of our members’ lessons dedicated to Irish Gaelic dialects, you most surely should not fret about it as a beginner.

In any case, you do know dialects. Look at North America, and the number of variations across that great region, even if you understand all variations.

Rick Aschmann has a hobby. That hobby is collecting information on North American English dialects. Look at the snippet of his map to the right of dialectal variations.

He has amassed a huge resource, and it’s worth checking out his detailed map and region descriptions.

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  • Lynn says:
    April 6, 2020 at 8:07 pm

    Some of the people I have encountered online have made a huge issue of dialect, how it needs to be preserved and that one must learn dialect early on or else they are not pronouncing it correctly. It’s irritating and deflating to the morale to be told such things as a beginner in the USA. I mean, if I left the States and moved to Ireland after fully learning the language would I encounter such people in public? Would they actually say “Your dialect doesn’t match any here and I can’t understand a word you’re saying to me”? Is it not enough that I learned the language? My “Irish” accent is never going to be perfect no matter how much I fake it.

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