David & Mates - Training Days

I’ve been a medical transcriptionist since 2008 and I am lucky enough that I wasn’t just boxed doing American-English files or listening to voice files that are being dictated by American doctors. I’ve encountered American-Spanish doctors, Russian doctors, Chinese-American, Indian doctors, Muslim doctors, and of course, British doctors as well; the latter, the accent I mean, is kinda easy yet challenging to decipher. My ears are loving the accent, it’s my guilty pleasure to mimic the way Britain is doing it but apparently watching British films is like - my brain cells are argy bargy-ing just to catch up with the story. I think the key is getting used to their accent, and apparently the British don’t have this one standard accent - there are a lot – like David, that bloke, our Brit instructor, what have just said, the most difficult kind of British accent is just lurking in the area of Scotland, the northern part of UK. And I’ve just forgotten to say that I’ve done or encountered Scottish dictators! Cor blimey!

Having this difficult UK voice files together with our transcription company’s enthusiasm to push its limit to really penetrate more into UK or lay into Scotland, our big cheese, our boss, have put its manpower – or should I say, its bestest, finest, and cream of the crop medical transcriptionists into training hehehe. Headed by David – he made a customised programme/modules for us to make us fully equipped and really to have a keen ear if the Englishmen are starting to articulate.

So for the last 6 Saturdays, David just presented to our eager auditory canal the various kinds of British-English accents; we’ve ausculted the voice of Prince William, Emma Watson, Daniel Radcliff, Hugh Laurie, Rowan Atkinson, John Lenon, my favorite Simon Cowell, John Cleese, Sean Connery, Maggie Smith, Ewan McGregor, and mixed bags. We’ve also listened to one interesting song from Oasis and some news from BBC .

We’ve also get a load of one of UK’s old famou s comedy TV series The Fawlty Towers, some clips from Love Actually, Austin Powers, Borat, and the Flatmates.

David also taught us the UK geography – its counties; some Brit idiom/slangs which I’ve managed to fit in this post :-D

Our team has tried to teach David a Filipino slang and that is “ECHOS!” (ano nga meaning nito? I’m just pulling you legs or I’m just joking!”

The 6 Saturdays were like banquet of information, we have absorbed enough – but I want more! Our boss should have bought us a return trip ticket to Scotland, to London, or to David’s county, Gloucestershire as part of the training! Hahaha! Those Saturdays have just become part of my habitual Saturday life – and the last training day was a heavyhearted parting, bittersweet actually.

Just to cap this thing off, “Salamat David” from me, my mates, and from our top banana, we had acquired so much from you – we’ve actually interacted to a cool British! - a two-way thing you know. Your lessons are well appreciated indeed, it’s not an ECHOS! Thanks also to AE and to our Boss.

One sure thing, we’ll never stop listening to Brit; we’re still gonna familiarise ourselves to its challenging and interesting accent by listening or watching various British media stuff – familiarization is the key, right?

So, see you around and enjoy staying in Manila!

PS: David please make a comment (how self-serving I can get) hahaha. My mates in office have access in this blog of mine; they read my articles regularly so I can make “yabang” to them that David was “here” in my blog. Thank you!