You Say Potato Quotes

“Some English learners worry about this. ‘I’d love to lose my foreign accent and sound just like a native speaker,’ they say. To which I answer, ‘Why? Why do you want to lose your identity?’ And I advise them to be proud of their accent, in just the same way as I would tell people in Britain’s regions to be proud of the way they speak, and not feel so insecure that they look for alternatives. As long as learners can communicate clearly and effectively, native speakers need ask for no more.”
― Ben Crystal, You Say Potato: The Story of English Accents

“you can live somewhere for years, and your neighbours will only ever hear you as a newcomer, but go home and your friends say, Oh you’ ve got such an accent . . . But”
― Ben Crystal, You Say Potato: The Story of English Accents

“The accent of the Peaky Blinders characters may have been more realistic, but as a result it didn’t sound much like the Brummie stereotype at all,”
― David Crystal, Ben Crystal, You Say Potato: The Story of English Accents

“A number of the main identifying features of a regional accent tend to disappear when singing – the intonation (obviously, as a melody replaces it), the speech rhythm, and vowel length (for many syllables are elongated). Vowel quality is also often affected, especially in classical singing, where vowels are articulated with greater openness”
― David Crystal, Ben Crystal, You Say Potato: The Story of English Accents