KENNETH PORIO | the blog

This is Part One of a series of  posts on how Filipinos do not prefer British-style news presentation. The BBC News brand so recognized all over the world. Since CNN International was busted out from our TV subscription, I didn't have any time to watch live international news on TV. I've long since resorted to podcasting through my music player or watching video clips from my laptop. After a few months after I was unable to watch CNN, I then resorted to the next accessible international news channel we have in our area, BBC World News . Since those days, I've had to endure hearing newsreaders present the news in an accent many Filipinos aren't conformed with, that is, the standard British accent, specifically Received Pronunciation variant. George Alagiah presents BBC News at Six Amercianized as we are, not many Filipinos are well-versed to the English language that is spoken throughout the European continent, and in many parts of the world where...

I should have stopped the Azkals Accents series a few posts back . But, there are still a lot of people I want to commend with with their accents, or their manner of speech. As I said here, being a cultural melting pot, Filipinos have to embrace everyone's accent, and not ridicule it. I want to commend first the "Iceman," Ray Anthony Jónsson , a Filipino-Icelandic. For the latest Philippine news stories and videos, visit GMANews.TV In this above video during their 2nd leg match vs. Indonesia in the AFF Suzuki Cup semis last year, I watched the interviews of Oxford-speaking Rob Gier, Dutch anglophone Jason de Jong and Estuary-speaking Neil Etheridge. But what caught my attention is Ray Jónsson, who spoke in Cebuano . He may be born from an Icelandic father (a rare feat in fact; you won't find a lot of Fil-Icelandics out there), but he got the privilege to learn Cebuano when he lived in Liloan, Cebu until age 8 because of his Cebuana mother. Around in the m...

This is the 3rd installment of posts regarding the accents of the Philippine Azkals. Click for the 1st post and the 2nd post . On my previous post, I talked about the Estuary English of Neil Etheridge , Phil Younghusband and James Younghusband , the Californian accent of  Anton del Rosario , the Dutch manner of speaking by  Jason de Jong , and Persian cliques of Misagh Bahadoran. By now, let's cure more of your curiosity. Many wonder how the recent goal-maker for the team, Fil-German midfielder Stephan Schröck , and the German coach Hans Michael Weiß (pronounced as /'vaisz/, also spelled Weiss)  speak English. Well, I wondered, too, how they speak when I first heard of them. Luckily, I found a video from a TV Patrol report. (Last interview clip shows James Younghusband, the Middlesex boy.) Anyhow, Stephan, while having a deep but sharp, gritty voice, has a thick German accent. His glottals and dipthongs are typical of a south German (He hails from Für...

This is Part 2 of a series of posts about the Philippine Azkals' accents. Click here to go to my 1st post. Hello there, Azkaleros! Well, my previous post talked about the accents of some prominent members of the Philippine Azkals, the men's national football team. Last time we talked about Aly Borromeo 's accent that's like a mix of Californian, Hispanic and Bisaya . We appreciated the ruff-and-tuff Southeastern American accent of Jason Sabio . We are tickled by the quirky Sussex accent of Simon Greatwich . And we do love the almost-Oxford-standard accent of Rob Gier . Now let's get into another set of players. First up, the prime goalkeeper Neil Etheridge, the 21 year-old lad from London. Now, let's go back to that video starring him in 2008 (We'll observe, too, the other person interviewed here.) As I've been observing his interviews every now and then, I am able to think that Neil's delivery of the language is close to what they call...

Hey, fangirls. We just like to scrutinize every foreign-based Philippine Azkal 's English accent. We just have to like it. It just means that Filipinos have diversity of linguistic ethnicities . We're a melting pot  of sorts. Pinoys abroad are melting pots, figuratively. In this above video, four Azkals members, Aly Borromeo, Jason Sabio, Simon Greatwich, and Rob Gier greet during their photoshoot for Metro Society  magazine. Aly and Jason are based in America; Simon and Rob are based in Britain. Well, they have different accents at the continental level, but how do their accents distinct from each other? So how do we start from here? Aly, the captain, is born in San Francisco, California. So I expected when I heard of him for the first time that he would speak Californian twang. But, no. He actually spent most of his teenage years in the Philippines since he played for the U-19 teams of UFL for the 2000 AFC Challenge cup. In an interview with Jessica Soho...