Altered speech patterns for different characters?

[Rob_Royale]

That's an odd one. In the vast, vast majority of English teaching text books contractions are taught very early on. Even a student who knows barely more than "my name is x" will know "I'm" "don't" and "can't". I'm surrounded by non-native English speakers at work - from around 35 different countries - they all use contractions.

This is easy enough to explain. You see, your opinion is based on real experience. Mine is based on a Hollywood education. "Velcome to Russia, Meester Bond. Zough I sink, you vill not be enjoyink ze scenery."

 

[Britva415]

One US contraction that curdles my milk is 'gotten'

What’s that a contraction of?

Isn’t it just the pluperfect of “get?”

 

[Kumquatqueen]

I'm in London so have an advantage of hearing different accents and dialects all around me. At one point I wondered if using another Asian corner shop guy might be overkill, so popped into a corner shop I'd not been to before. Like 95% of corner shop guys, he was Asian, probably first-gen Pakistani, and I remembered his conversation with a regular and wrote it down verbatim.

I've also spent time eavesdropping on the yoof of today in the local leisure centre, to improve my knowledge of south London MLE/road man dialect.

For distinguishing voices, I find it helpful to figure out what words each of them *don't* say. For example, Adrian from Northern Ireland doesn't say 'yes', except very rarely as a contradiction - it's always 'aye' or 'I do'. Americans won't say dodgy, Brits won't say shady. More relevant for Lit are terms of endearment - I pick a couple for each character and an intensifier, and rapidly their speech is distinguishable from the others - one person says petal, love and well chuffed, another says pet, sweetheart and dead good or mint, a third might say sweetie, darling, ever so good or lovely...

Word choices work much better than messing with spelling IMO - apart from dropping g in -ing verbs, or wanna, coulda, it gets complicated and overkill really quickly. Or 'real quick'.

 

[stickygirl]

What’s that a contraction of?

Isn’t it just the pluperfect of “get?”

Apparently not - it's the past participle of 'get' in US North American. We still have an expression 'ill-gotten gains' but we regard it as one of our olde worlde expressions from yesteryear. So not a contraction, I'll grant you that - more a contraption

Haven't heard of pluperfect since I did Latin. I had to check... "I had already got them by then" is PP or as you might say "I'd already gotten them by then". It is helpful in placing a character geographically, though check back in twenty years and we'll oftentimes be saying gotten over here.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

Seems like it. A cursory search over Youtube yielded me this video of a guy trying to learn Polish:

and his chat is correcting his inflection suffixes constantly.


Amusingly, the fact you changed the tense here is quite on point. The way various languages use tenses is quite unique, even between dialects. Consider, for example, how American English has largely lost present perfect outside of specific verbs.

To wit, a few years ago I attended a German course (tutored in English) with a few Americans, and I remember how they would always try to use the simple past, which is uncommon in modern German, instead of compound past. The sole Brit didn't seem to have that problem

Tense use is a big difference between British and American English - and really hard for me to write properly. I rely on a Yank-picker to ensure my Americans don't say anything too implausible, and it's usually the verbs that are my giveaway.

For language learning, Brits will almost all have had to learn some French, so get introduced to the passé composé and assembling two-part past tense verbs. So when they then learn German, they learn present and then the Perfekt, and the auxiliary verb is generally 'to have', with verbs of movement being 'to be', just like in French. The praeterite/simple past is only used in narration in novels - you can get through GCSE without it in both languages.

So you learn je dire -> j'ai dit (I say, I said) and ich sage -> ich habe gesagt (or 'ich habe nichts gesagt' if you're a Rammstein fan), long before meeting 'je dis' or 'ich sagte'.

If you don't read books, you can avoid the simple past in German completely, and there aren't any other tenses - unlike French, which is easier for the first couple years without much inflexion and weird word order, but once you sign up to A-level, they hit you with a dozen new tenses, while German A-level is basically lots more vocab but very little new grammar.

 

[Britva415]

Tense use is a big difference between British and American English

Examples?

 

[StillStunned]

Examples?

From my observations, Americans are more likely to use the past tense where Brits use the past perfect. I think you yourself have often complained about "had" constructions that to me sound completely natural.

 

[stickygirl]

From my observations, Americans are more likely to use the past tense where Brits use the past perfect. I think you yourself have often complained about "had" constructions that to me sound completely natural.

Peter, whereas David had 'had', had had 'had had'. 'Had had' had had the examiner's approval.

 

[Britva415]

From my observations, Americans are more likely to use the past tense where Brits use the past perfect. I think you yourself have often complained about "had" constructions that to me sound completely natural.

My complaint about them isn't about sounding unnatural.

 

[TheExperimentalist]

I'm in London so have an advantage of hearing different accents and dialects all around me. At one point I wondered if using another Asian corner shop guy might be overkill, so popped into a corner shop I'd not been to before. Like 95% of corner shop guys, he was Asian, probably first-gen Pakistani, and I remembered his conversation with a regular and wrote it down verbatim.

I've also spent time eavesdropping on the yoof of today in the local leisure centre, to improve my knowledge of south London MLE/road man dialect.

For distinguishing voices, I find it helpful to figure out what words each of them *don't* say. For example, Adrian from Northern Ireland doesn't say 'yes', except very rarely as a contradiction - it's always 'aye' or 'I do'. Americans won't say dodgy, Brits won't say shady. More relevant for Lit are terms of endearment - I pick a couple for each character and an intensifier, and rapidly their speech is distinguishable from the others - one person says petal, love and well chuffed, another says pet, sweetheart and dead good or mint, a third might say sweetie, darling, ever so good or lovely...

Word choices work much better than messing with spelling IMO - apart from dropping g in -ing verbs, or wanna, coulda, it gets complicated and overkill really quickly. Or 'real quick'.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

Examples?

Apart from US using gotten where UK uses got...

US uses simple present much more - I have a computer, UK would be I've got a computer. Similarly, He must have done is chiefly Brit, He must have is mainly American.
Use of will/would also differs.

Lots of verbs differ as to whether they have to have an object, or if they need 'to' after them, or what modal verb is used - Wiki has a long list, eg US I'll go take a bath vs UK I'm going to have a bath.

And lots of UK past participles end in -t where US always uses -ed - learnt, spoilt, spelt, smelt, but it's the above issues that are harder to remember and write.

 

[stickygirl]

Apart from US using gotten where UK uses got...

US uses simple present much more - I have a computer, UK would be I've got a computer. Similarly, He must have done is chiefly Brit, He must have is mainly American.
Use of will/would also differs.

Lots of verbs differ as to whether they have to have an object, or if they need 'to' after them, or what modal verb is used - Wiki has a long list, eg US I'll go take a bath vs UK I'm going to have a bath.

And lots of UK past participles end in -t where US always uses -ed - learnt, spoilt, spelt, smelt, but it's the above issues that are harder to remember and write.

Can I get a coffee?

 

[Kumquatqueen]

Can I get a coffee?

You probably can, but you may not...

(Tip for visiting Americans - 'may/could I have a coffee, please?' is the British configuration. 'Can I get' comes across as a bit rude; leaving off the 'please' is very rude!)

 

[TheExperimentalist]

The point about different places is interesting, but I wasn't even necessarily focusing on that in my OP (though it does add yet another layer of complexity to the challenge). I tend not to write characters from backgrounds too far outside of my own experience or places I've been, for fear of not writing them realistically, and tend not to like to name locations either, for the same reason (I even have another thread from a couple weeks back about how to avoid having to name places).

But even with people from the same place and background (which, let's face it, is going to happen a lot in my stories, since I write a lot of T/I), they'll still speak somewhat differently due to interests, experiences, personality, etc.

I was talking more of how to get into a mindset that uses different terminology/phrasing/whatever than my typical. For instance, I have one particular friend who will use 'amazing' as an exclamation or expression of positive response a lot. While I do occasionally use the word as an adjective, It doesn't usually come naturally to me as a standalone. Or for another example, one might pose a theory spoken about a hypothetical third person, or you can use a second person pronoun as the theoretical subject instead. Obviously, mixing them in a single sentence the way I just did is jarring, but I feel like some people tend to default to one, some to the other.

Just different pieces of vocabulary or idioms or ways of formulating thoughts that tend to be go-tos for some people over others. I have difficulty making things go-tos for my characters without them either being my own, or making it feel too gimmicky... But perhaps one method would be to write a story however I write it, then, separately, identify some subtle speaking differences such as the ones I just mentioned, and go back through the story applying them to different characters in places where they ALREADY fit, so that it doesn't feel like it's being forced in? I dunno.

 

[stickygirl]

The point about different places is interesting, but I wasn't even necessarily focusing on that in my OP (though it does add yet another layer of complexity to the challenge). I tend not to write characters from backgrounds too far outside of my own experience or places I've been, for fear of not writing them realistically, and tend not to like to name locations either, for the same reason (I even have another thread from a couple weeks back about how to avoid having to name places).

But even with people from the same place and background (which, let's face it, is going to happen a lot in my stories, since I write a lot of T/I), they'll still speak somewhat differently due to interests, experiences, personality, etc.

I was talking more of how to get into a mindset that uses different terminology/phrasing/whatever than my typical. For instance, I have one particular friend who will use 'amazing' as an exclamation or expression of positive response a lot. While I do occasionally use the word as an adjective, It doesn't usually come naturally to me as a standalone. Or for another example, one might pose a theory spoken about a hypothetical third person, or you can use a second person pronoun as the theoretical subject instead. Obviously, mixing them in a single sentence the way I just did is jarring, but I feel like some people tend to default to one, some to the other.

Just different pieces of vocabulary or idioms or ways of formulating thoughts that tend to be go-tos for some people over others. I have difficulty making things go-tos for my characters without them either being my own, or making it feel too gimmicky... But perhaps one method would be to write a story however I write it, then, separately, identify some subtle speaking differences such as the ones I just mentioned, and go back through the story applying them to different characters in places where they ALREADY fit, so that it doesn't feel like it's being forced in? I dunno.

I think we need to avoid being contrived about creating a speech pattern for the sake of it. As you highlight, a character might use the word 'amazing' too much... so drop it into their speech. I watch a YT couple and he's Swiss, speaks good English, but often replies "Absolutely" or "Totally" which is not an uncommon expression, except when it isn't varied enough to be considered normal. Replying "totally" isn't always going to be a natural fit, linguistically - it jars with us ( as English speakers ).

 

[TheExperimentalist]

I think we need to avoid being contrived about creating a speech pattern for the sake of it. As you highlight, a character might use the word 'amazing' too much... so drop it into their speech. I watch a YT couple and he's Swiss, speaks good English, but often replies "Absolutely" or "Totally" which is not an uncommon expression, except when it isn't varied enough to be considered normal. Replying "totally" isn't always going to be a natural fit, linguistically - it jars with us ( as English speakers ).

Totally.