Hmph! I should have posted this earlier. D:
Their blog mentions that they are working on improving the quiz to provide more information on the relationships between dialects. I'll have to take it again tomorrow to see if anything has changed. Hopefully they implement better pictures, the drawings were terrible! lol
Because I'm a stupid git I didn't write down their guesses. But the dialects were
1. Welsh
2. Australian
3. English
To my amusement in didn't list English as a native language for me at all. Swedish and Norwegian were listed and I forgot the other one. Apparently I'm not American at all.
I can NOT resist this kind of online test. Also when I read the example "Up the audience's expectations, the critics built." - my brain immediately said "that's Yoda-speak!"
I put stars on the correct ones:
Dialect:
1. American (Standard) ***
2. Canadian
3. Singaporean
Native language:
1. Norwegian
2. English ***
3. Swedish
I have NO idea what I've done to get the Norwegian or Swedish hits on the second one - I've lived in the US all my life, though in 6 different states. If I read a lot of Swedish or Norwegian authors it might make more sense - but nope. And the only other country I've lived in besides the US was the UK, but that only for 6 mos, and over 30 yrs ago. Weird!
Norwegian seems to be popular with the algorithm. I got:
Our top three guesses for your English dialect:
1. American (Standard)
2. Australian
3. New Zealandish
Our top three guesses for your native (first) language:
1. Norwegian
2. English
3. German
They nailed the dialect as I'm a Yank but have been living in AU for 7 years now. But half my family are direct immigrants from Italy and the other half are Welsh/English going back to US Revolution, with nary a viking in site.
Our top three guesses for your English dialect:
1. Welsh (UK)
2. South African
3. Australian
Our top three guesses for your native (first) language:
1. English
2. Norwegian
3. Swedish
...which is impressively inaccurate. I am very, very American, although I've lived all over the US, so I mix a bunch of American dialects. I did not guess that they'd go with Welsh.
Geez. I guess I should be grateful that they got my native language correctly.
I just told my DH about this quiz and he went and took it. They guessed his English dialect as:
1. New Zealand
2. South Africa
3. US Black vernacular/Ebonics
He's Australian, so they're not completely off the mark (although there's this AU/NZ rivalry thing going on). But the South African / US Black Vernacular is probably the oddest combination of choices... talk about covering your bases...
Lol...I'm trying to picture that accent mix.
I wonder what the grammatical distinctions between Australian, South African, and NZ actually are. They seem to get paired up at random here.
It would be nice if we got confidence scores. Maybe #3 for your DH was just a wild no-confidence guess on the algorithm's part...
Talking with him about it, I think he skewed the results, because he kept second guessing some of the questions - he kept thinking "That sounds acceptable" instead of "how would I say it?" or "I know that sentence isn't grammatically correct."
I also discovered that the quiz will have mixed results if you aren't selecting all the correct answers. I watched while my cousin took this quiz and I noticed she was skipping "acceptable" sentences. The few I can remember were "I'll write my brother.", "I worked for five years." and "She resigned Thursday." or something close to those.
After she completed the quiz I asked her why she felt those were wrong and she said that she just didn't like them. We figured out that she doesn't like it when a sentence is out of context. Her #1 guesses were Singaporean dialect and Vietnamese native language. She was born/raised in the United States, has great grades in school and is only fluent in English (she understands Russian from our family and is learning Spanish in high school). She retook the quiz and her second set of results were still similar but a little more accurate: 1. American 2. Canadian 3. Singaporean - 1. English 2. Norwegian 3. Vietnamese
My husband took the quiz as well. His results were accurate, he grew up in the Midwest (US) near Chicago. His results were 1. American 2. Canadian 3. US Black Vernacular - 1. English 2. German 3. Polish? French? I can't remember the third! :P
Their blog mentions that they are working on improving the quiz to provide more information on the relationships between dialects. I'll have to take it again tomorrow to see if anything has changed. Hopefully they implement better pictures, the drawings were terrible! lol
1. Scottish (UK)
2. English (England)
3. Welsh (UK)
I went to Scotland once. I didn't like it. I think the combination of Irishisms and insistence on proper English has skewed it.
My top guesses for native language:
1. English
2. Swedish
3. Hungarian
Which is possibly the influence of my Ikea desk coming through.
1. English (England)
2. Welsh (UK)
3. Australian
Our top three guesses for your native (first) language:
1. English
2. Hungarian
3. Norwegian
I've never been to Australia, Hungary or Norway and don't speak the languages for the latter two, but do have Australian friends.
1. Welsh
2. Australian
3. English
To my amusement in didn't list English as a native language for me at all. Swedish and Norwegian were listed and I forgot the other one. Apparently I'm not American at all.
1. South African
2. Scottish (UK)
3. English (England)
I have never been to South Africa or Scotland, so I guess English must be right. At least I have spent some time in England.
Our top three guesses for your native (first) language:
1. Hungarian
2. Finnish
3. German
Again it is the third guess that is correct. I wonder if those three languages have anything in common?
I put stars on the correct ones:
Dialect:
1. American (Standard) ***
2. Canadian
3. Singaporean
Native language:
1. Norwegian
2. English ***
3. Swedish
I have NO idea what I've done to get the Norwegian or Swedish hits on the second one - I've lived in the US all my life, though in 6 different states. If I read a lot of Swedish or Norwegian authors it might make more sense - but nope. And the only other country I've lived in besides the US was the UK, but that only for 6 mos, and over 30 yrs ago. Weird!
Our top three guesses for your English dialect:
1. American (Standard)
2. Australian
3. New Zealandish
Our top three guesses for your native (first) language:
1. Norwegian
2. English
3. German
They nailed the dialect as I'm a Yank but have been living in AU for 7 years now. But half my family are direct immigrants from Italy and the other half are Welsh/English going back to US Revolution, with nary a viking in site.
Our top three guesses for your English dialect:
1. Welsh (UK)
2. South African
3. Australian
Our top three guesses for your native (first) language:
1. English
2. Norwegian
3. Swedish
...which is impressively inaccurate. I am very, very American, although I've lived all over the US, so I mix a bunch of American dialects. I did not guess that they'd go with Welsh.
Geez. I guess I should be grateful that they got my native language correctly.
1. New Zealand
2. South Africa
3. US Black vernacular/Ebonics
He's Australian, so they're not completely off the mark (although there's this AU/NZ rivalry thing going on). But the South African / US Black Vernacular is probably the oddest combination of choices... talk about covering your bases...
I wonder what the grammatical distinctions between Australian, South African, and NZ actually are. They seem to get paired up at random here.
It would be nice if we got confidence scores. Maybe #3 for your DH was just a wild no-confidence guess on the algorithm's part...
Our top three guesses for your English dialect:
1. South African
2. American (Standard)
3. Canadian
Our top three guesses for your native (first) language:
1. English
2. Norwegian
3. Swedish
I've got no idea where the South African guess came from, at least not as the first choice. Interesting quiz...I can't wait to have my husband try it!
I also discovered that the quiz will have mixed results if you aren't selecting all the correct answers. I watched while my cousin took this quiz and I noticed she was skipping "acceptable" sentences. The few I can remember were "I'll write my brother.", "I worked for five years." and "She resigned Thursday." or something close to those.
After she completed the quiz I asked her why she felt those were wrong and she said that she just didn't like them. We figured out that she doesn't like it when a sentence is out of context. Her #1 guesses were Singaporean dialect and Vietnamese native language. She was born/raised in the United States, has great grades in school and is only fluent in English (she understands Russian from our family and is learning Spanish in high school). She retook the quiz and her second set of results were still similar but a little more accurate: 1. American 2. Canadian 3. Singaporean - 1. English 2. Norwegian 3. Vietnamese
My husband took the quiz as well. His results were accurate, he grew up in the Midwest (US) near Chicago. His results were 1. American 2. Canadian 3. US Black Vernacular - 1. English 2. German 3. Polish? French? I can't remember the third! :P