Poland 1

Listen to Poland 1, a 43-year-old man from Warsaw, Poland. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject.

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BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: 43

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 1956

PLACE OF BIRTH: Warsaw, Poland

GENDER: male

ETHNICITY: Polish/Caucasian

OCCUPATION: engineer

EDUCATION: university

AREA(S) OF RESIDENCE OUTSIDE REPRESENTATIVE REGION FOR LONGER THAN SIX MONTHS:

The subject was raised in Warsaw but was an engineer living in Cairo, Egypt, for some years when recorded in 1999.

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH: N/A

The text used in our recordings of scripted speech can be found by clicking here.

RECORDED BY: Krista Scott

DATE OF RECORDING (DD/MM/YYYY): 1999

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF SCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): N/A

ORTHOGRAPHIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH:

I was born in Warsaw, Poland, and I spent all my childhood there; I went to school there, I studied there at the university, where I studied architecture, and now I’m 43; uh, I have been a conservation architect working in Egypt for quite a few years. The weather in Poland — it’s precisely why I live in Egypt.  It’s pretty awful for most of the year, and it’s quite unpredictable; you can have a very fine year with a hot, nice sunny summer, and a cra- snowy winter, and the next year we can have rain for all the summer and cold awful … uh, cold, awful rain for all the summer and then cold, awful rain through all the winter, uh, so it’s quite unpredictable; it can be very beautiful of course. And when it’s really awful and cold and snowy and freez- freezing and … all, then, it’s time for the truly Polish food and Polish drinks, and this is where you should, and could, appreciate Polish food like bigos and vodka.

TRANSCRIBED BY: Faith Harvey and Matthieu Cornillon

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 02/07/2008

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): N/A

SCHOLARLY COMMENTARY:

Subject speaks English very fluently and well, but in a textbook Polish accent. You will hear dark “L,” though his command of English “r” is impeccable. He’s an excellent model for an educated Pole acquiring English in Europe.

COMMENTARY BY: Krista Scott

DATE OF COMMENTARY (DD/MM/YYYY): 1999

The archive provides:

• Recordings of accent/dialect speakers from the region you select.
• Text of the speakers’ biographical details.
• Scholarly commentary and analysis in some cases.
• In most cases, an orthographic transcription of the speakers’ unscripted speech.  In a small number of cases, you will also find a narrow phonetic transcription of the sample (see Phonetic Transcriptions for a complete list).  The recordings average four minutes in length and feature both the reading of one of two standard passages, and some unscripted speech. The two passages are Comma Gets a Cure (currently our standard passage) and The Rainbow Passage (used in our earliest recordings).

 

For instructional materials or coaching in the accents and dialects represented here, please go to Other Dialect Services.