Ola's diction is terrible.
You could forgive her if it seemed to be from her Polish roots but it's all spoken in mockney Cockney like James ...

I find it very endearing.

A polite question: Can you speak Polish as well as she can speak English? I know I can't and wouldn't dream of criticising anyone who was speaking English as their second language.

There are plenty on TV who have English as their first language who don't speak it as well as she does.

Or maybe she's lived here for long enough to have picked up the local accent on top of her Polish one...

Honestly, that sort of thing can start happening within a couple of months (or weeks even, if you're the kind of person who picks up an accent easily) - I came away from 6 months in France and another 5 in Austria with slight twangs in French and German that could tell people where I'd spent time. I don't find it at all surprising if she's picked up a bit of her husband's accent after 10 years with him. With the combination of English as a second language and the particular regional accent that Ola would have picked up from living with James, it's pretty likely that there would be occasional noticeable grammar errors (or at least deviations from what is considered grammatically correct in Standard English) in Ola's speech. I think her English is excellent, actually - she speaks very colloquially (she doesn't sound stiff or stilted when speaking English), probably as a result of living and working in England with an English husband for so long.

I do too Mossy

And abso- effing -loutly Janet.

Hundreds of people who are native speakers have what to my ears is shockingly poor grammar. It drove me mad when Alisha would say - "You was " instead of "you were". But it seems to be a variant of the language which is quite likely the latest in the many evolutions of English over the centuries. So much so that academics have given it a title. I forget off hand what - Urban International English or Young Urban English or something like that.
Last edited by An Thropologist : 27-11-2013 at 09:03

I dont know if you ever learned a second language ? I did and learned it in the country where they spoke and learned it from listening .I am told I have that city's accent and words and sayings .People find it amusing that I took it up and spoke exactly as they did !!
Here in Ireland I love how the Polish and Latvians etc now have the local accent where they live and improve their English and of course take on accents and "bad " grammer from the people around them .
Well done anyone who can converse freely in a few languages .

You'd see a lot of international footballers playing for Premier League teams - a bit of their country of origin accented words followed by some of the regional accent from where their club was based - the Fast Show sent it up with a charcter called Julio Geordio. I sounds a bit comical but it's perfectly understandable. I quite like the way Ola speaks actually - that's the thing about being in a cultural crossroads with the world's most widely spoken language will be spoken differently by different people.

I'm surprised that the producers aren't encouraging her to speak with a Jafaican accent in order to tap that demographic.

I'm from the Home Counties and have a 'proper' accent.

5 years ago I moved to Manchester with my son who was 7 at the time. My now 13 year old boy sounds Mancunian, incredibly so on the words he hears most often from his peers. At first I used to automatically 'correct' him, "your form claaars, sweetie, not your clas"

But then I realised I was being a terrible snob.
My son speaks perfectly appropriately for a boy of his age who lives in Lancashire. Ola also speaks appropriately for a Polish person, naturalised to Essex.

I did find it amusing but quickly saw how impressive it is. It shows what a great ear she has to pick up her husband's and his family's and friends' Estuarine accent and dodgy grammar. This was covered in another Ola thread

http://forums.digitalspy.co.uk/showp...4&postcount=52

http://forums.digitalspy.co.uk/showp...1&postcount=87

I am sure if she was married to someone from Weybridge rather than Gillingham she would sound very different.

Just last night I was sniggering at Nat King Cole's excruciating Spanish diction.

http://youtu.be/qOnvqfrjSzw

But I do love Iveta's "I vant high maintenance. It's my job." accent and Vincent's "Standing Ovulations" - both heavily hyped up of course. I can and do do the same in Spanish and sometimes switch to a "Nat King Cole" accent for a laugh.


Home Counties North or Home Counties South?

( Know-all mode on )

I am qualified and experienced in teaching English as a foreign language. Had Ola attended classes, she would have picked up the accent of the tutor, who would more often than not be local and, whilst made aware of it, would not have been trained to use received pronunciation ( i.e. the old school BBC accent) since it is not the accent students would encounter in most localities and settings.

In terms of local vagaries of grammar, certain local patterns they would hear would require explanation and often result in them being adopted by the student, largely to ease their everyday communication.

Also some pronunciation patterns differ in each language, so e.g. her difficulty with our" th" sound relates to the fact that it does not occur in the Polish language, it is the same for Polish people wherever they are.

In summary, chances are Ola would speak to some extent as she does whether she learnt formally or informally, the key difference being that she would probably have more awareness of other factors, and her reading and writing would also get more support as opposed to just her speaking and listening.

Bear in mind too that most non- native speakers don' t have their speech exposed on TV to a multitude of people each who have their own patterns of speech.

I think she has a charming accent. I speak a little (very little) French - very badly. She speaks English very well for her second language. I can understand her with no trouble, unlike the broad country accent my husband's grandmother had. He had to translate for me - honestly - until I got used to it, and that was English! I have quite a strong regional accent, and love all the various dialects we have in this country. Ola just adds another endearing facet.

BIB, me too! I also feel like screaming when people say "would of", "might of" etc. Listen up people, it is "would have" and "might have"!

Ola's grammar knocks a lot of native English speakers' into a cocked hat.

Hertfordshire, St Albans specifically.

Everyone up here thinks I'm posh


On a side note, Patrick's accent intrigues me, it's very RADA.

Good to hear that your son no longer speaks with an accent and has learnt to speak accent free like others in Lancashire!

Especially with today being Lancashire Day.

Well I never. Fancy Lancashire having its own day. Solves the dinner dilemma though - hotpot followed by a nice bit of crumbly cheese in homage to the county of my fathers.

Luv u hon xx

I thought it was called Plebish ...

The important thing with grammar, perhaps more so than diction, is to be able to switch to correct English from the vernacular for job interviews and presentations. There are plenty of Poles, Dutch, Danes, Spaniards etc. in the job queue. And they, unlike the Brits, have learnt English Grammar.

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/izzit...y-8948985.html

Ola's language skills are excellent, I work in an area where I meet a lot of non native English speakers and I am always staggered by how good their English is , I lived in Greece for a while in Naxos and learnt Greek mainly from using it rather than a formal education in it. To this day I often don't understand it written down.

I went to Kephalonia a while ago, and they laughed at my mangled English Greek mishmash. I find her English completely understandable and well done her for living and working in a country where the language is not her first language.

Next career for Ola translator at The Hague they are always looking for good translators and someone as charming as Ola would lighten the atmosphere re wonderfully well.

Indeed Henry. I would have thought the formal register was more appropriate for a native speaker to use when appearing on a TV show.

But perhaps the first comment is indicative of your own personal rite of passage or a sort of watershed in your life. You is now officially an old fogey innit? Welcome aboard bruv!

That was my thought, too. Ola is practically a scholar compared to some of them! Kudos to all the foreign dancers and their grasp on English.

I spent three year in Manchester and although I didn't pick up the accent, both my daughters have. We have since returned to Wales and they now have a mishmash of accents. I like it.

I didn't realise it was Lancashire day. Guess I might just make my OH a Tater Hash. Or go to the chippy

drives me mad when James says "Me and Ola" its "Ola and I!!!!!"

Why thank you.

Not really. I have always been pedantic. I would have thought that "old fogey" now applies more to what David Lammy called "damn foolish liberals saying it’s fine.”. Dumbing down (in a global marketplace) is not progressive. It is (perhaps unintentional) slavery.

Besides it isn't "innit". Over here darn sarf we say it with a glottal stop : "inin' " and "izzi' " .

Oh the choice of register depends on the audience and what you are "selling". I love how all the betting ads on television have Sarf London Arfur Daley wide boy accents.