Let's have a look; is there any Black Country folks in here tonight?

Own up! Who paid for you to get in?

Dan: Hello and welcome to On the Town. I'm Dan Walker Smith.

Feifei: 大家好，我是冯菲菲。

Dan: You've just heard Aynuk and Ayli, a comedy duo from the Midlands. Because this week we're heading to the UK's second-largest city, Birmingham, in the Midlands, to hear about the Birmingham Comedy Festival, which opens this week.

Feifei: 每年一度的伯明翰喜剧艺术节是一个为期10天的喜剧盛事，来自世界各地的喜剧表演艺术家都会聚集在英国的第二大城市伯明翰为成千上万的观众献上他们的精彩艺术表演。

Dan: People from Birmingham are known as 'Brummies'. Do you want to hear some examples of the Brummie accent Feifei?

Feifei: Sure.

Dan: OK, well here's one of the performers at the Birmingham Comedy Festival, the stand-up comedian, Craig Deeley, talking to the BBC presenter Shane O'Connor. Listen out for the word gig, which means a show or performance. What does he tell us about his comedy routine?

Insert

Is Birmingham a funny city?

You know, when you do local gigs and you talk about where you're from, people love it. When you do gigs in Birmingham, they like to know where you're from, so they can sort of weigh you up, but they really respond to what you're saying, 'cos they know the areas you're talking about.

Dan: So people in Birmingham can weigh him up, because they know the areas he's talking about in his routine, and they really respond to his gigs.

Feifei: 观众们知道了他的家乡后，会以其背景来衡量 weigh up 他讲的笑话，同时也会对他选择某个地方的笑料 local references 心领神会。

Dan: Where's the funniest place in China Feifei?

Feifei: Well people from the north-east of China are meant to be the funniest. 我们通常认为来自中国东北的朋友们非常幽默，幽默感 sense of humour.

Dan: And what do you think makes them so funny Feifei?

Feifei: Well, they have a very distinctive accent 他们的口音极具特色 and they're known for their straight-talking 就是实话实说，不绕弯子 which nowadays can be very funny.

Dan: Well they sound quite like Brummies then. The Birmingham accent is very distinctive. It's very unfair but a lot of people make fun of the accent, because they think it makes people sound a bit stupid and uncool, so Brummies, and people from the nearby Black Country, are often the butt of jokes.

Feifei: 来自伯明翰和英格兰中部 Black Country 地方的人总是被大家当成笑柄 the butt of jokes, 因为大家觉得他们的口音让他们听起来显得有些傻，一点儿都不酷 uncool.

Dan: We're going to listen to a clip of the BBC presenter Tony Butler, talking about how he was trained to change his Birmingham, or Midlands, accent when he started working in radio.

Feifei: 直到最近，英国很多来自英格兰中部的播音员 broadcasters from the Midlands 如果想在广播电视上波音，都需要经过非常严格的训练来改变他们的口音。不过现在，你已经可以在英国的电视广播上听到来自全英国四面八方的口音。

Dan: Tony says the key to identifying the Midlands accent – the big giveaway - is in the vowels.

Feifei: Tony 说泄漏了 giveaway 英格兰中部的口音 the Midlands accent 的是元音的发音 the vowels. 下面咱们来听一段对比非常重的伯明翰元音和轻元音的录音。

Insert

Well of course the big giveaway, the Midland accent, is your vowels; you've got to soften your vowels. So I had three stints with this lady, who was a very nice lady, who said, "Well you can mimic, and you can do this; all you have to do is change these vowels." So I used to type the scripts and I used to change my As to Es: hed, elbion; not Albion, not had."

Feifei: Ahh yes, I definitely heard the Midlands accent there. 在伯明翰口音中，人们对元音的发音非常重。

Dan: Carl Chinn, a professor of community history at Birmingham University, is a big defender of the Midlands accent, which he says is unfairly represented in the media. Let's hear what he says about having a Brummie accent.

Insert

For me being a Brummie's all about my identity; it's about who I am as a person; where I grew up, where I was born, where my mum and dad come from, and the people to whom I belong. I would never dream to say my accent is better than anybody else's but it's certainly no worse.

Dan: He says being a Brummie is 'all about his identity'. Who he is as a person, and the people he identifies with.

Feifei: 教授说他的口音是他身份 identity 的一部分。Let's have another listen:

Insert

For me being a Brummie's all about my identity; it's about who I am as a person; where I grew up, where I was born, where my mum and dad come from, and the people to whom I belong.

Dan: Carl Chinn says that a lot of foreigners like the Brummie accent; they find it warm and endearing.

Feifei: Warm 温暖的 and endearing 可爱的，让人喜欢的。

Insert

Outsiders, who don't come from England, when they hear the Brummie accent, many of them say it sounds warm and endearing.

Feifei: Chinn 教授还说外国人没有像英国人那样对伯明翰口音有着偏见，很多外国人还很喜欢这个口音。

Dan: Exactly. It's definitely quite a funny accent for some English people, and Brummies are often the butt of the joke. But I agree with Carl there; it can be quite warm and endearing.

Well that's all from us for today, and from the Birmingham Comedy Festival, but don't forget to check out the website www.bbcukchina.com for more On the Town programmes. As they say in Birmingham, Ta-ra!

Feifei: Ta-ra!