English regional/country speaking accents

[Alondra]

A couple of days ago I saw a video from Snoop Dog commenting a Planet Earth segment of an iguana v snakes. Apparently is an old one but I never saw it before and thoroughly enjoyed it. Not many videos can make me laugh out loud, and he did..... .....except I could only understand 80% of what he was saying, thank goodness for the subtitles.

I had a coffee with an Aussie friend yesterday and while commenting the video and the fact that after 9 years living in Australia, I still have problems understanding English she breezily said "don't worry, I still get problems understanding some accents as well"

Which led to a lively conversation. I learned English in public schools in Spain where the emphasis is English Oxford grammar....and prepares us shit at all to understand different accents. When I arrived in Australia I couldn't understand a word anyone was saying and was ecstatic when I saw Queen Elizabeth Christmas speech - I understood everything.

I've progressed a bit since then ....but I still have problems with American accents, Scottish accents (much as I love Scots) and other English accents as well (my niece in law is Cornish and boy, I keep saying"What, what?'" when we talk.

So, if you are a born English speaker, do you have some problems understanding other regional/country accents? And if you do, which ones?

It's amazing how we all "hear" the same language so differently, The last thing I would consider South Africa English is clipped. It's so mellow and soft to my ears.

My friend at uni was a Geordie and I could understand her fine, until her family came to visit and when they were all talking to each other it was like a different language!

There is no such language as 'Celtic'. There is a group of languages which are considered to be Celtic languages, including Welsh and Gaelic etc.

Which led to a lively conversation. I learned English in public schools in Spain where the emphasis is English Oxford grammar What is English Oxford grammar and what has it to do with different accents of English?

elt.oup.com/student/practicegrammar/?cc=gb&selLanguage=en

If you learn English (or any language, in my experience) pronunciation in one accent, without variation? and that’s the only one you ever hear (as you’re not in an English speaking country), then you have to acclimate to hearing words in that language pronounced in other accents. Some people are better at this than others.

I’ve a very flat Home Counties accent and I know I struggled when I was younger. But I’ve lived in Liverpool for half my life now, and am good at understanding and identifying different accents within certain areas.

Very strong Irish accents and (forgive me!) farmer type accents (I’m going on a bloke a follow on tiktok who calls himself a farmer, he doesn’t say where he’s from) I find hard to understand, and American accents I’m finding harder to understand these days, although I can’t tell you why. Never used to have a problem. Scottish I’m fine with!

You're right, was just going from memory, have just Wikipedia'd it and I'm talking out of my arse

That's written grammar which is often a world away from the spoken grammar of a native English speaker.

I'm a farmer. I doubt you would have any difficulty understanding me. In fact farmers sometimes have the prized RP accent.

My Portuguese tutor (born in Brazil) said she can't understand Australian or strong Cockney accents and struggles with Scottish too. She understand me perfectly fine (I'm from Newcastle) but I do make an effort to enunciate and to not use slang when I'm speaking to her.

I find strong Scottish accents difficult and also as a PP mentioned the farmer folk type accents - Norfolk? Yorkshire?

It’s written and spoken: m.youtube.com/watch?v=EoieoondCjg

This is how a lot of us were taught English and then how we were taught in English. And, yes, it’s often a world away from the spoken grammar and accents of native English speakers. That’s rather the point re our sometimes having difficulties understanding people.

It's not that I'm not bothered to understand, there are just some accents that I find really difficult! I have an aunt whose partner has an accent and I've known them for more than 20 years and I still struggle to understand him!

I'm southern English and really struggle with strong Geordie, Scottish and Irish accents.

Lol, yes, and it works in other English speaking countries too.

One of my DCs picked up the strong local accent in school here in the US. It's a notoriously strong accent that has been parodied on comedy shows. The rest of the DCs have a neutral accent.

When the local accent DC went to university on the east coast some of her classmates thought she was a foreign student. People frequently asked her to repeat what she had said. She settled down in the university city after graduating. I have noticed that her accent has toned down a lot.

I’m Canadian (Anglo, not French), lived in the UK for years and watch almost solely UK tellly. The only accents I struggle with are strong Glaswegian and rural Irish. I love the sound of both of them but can’t follow them easily. Dialect is a whole nother issue, but accent wise I’m pretty fluent. But that’s due to exposure. Native English speakers struggle just as much as you do if they’ve had no exposure to other accents.

Spoken sentences are completely different from written sentences. Your example shows written sentences spoken out loud.

I’m Canadian. Dh and I went to the UK years ago for a vacation. In England, they seemed to have problems understanding me but not dh. In Scotland no problems for me but dh couldn’t understand them.

Another vote for South african english , sounds lovely always.
Could listen to Sir Tom Jones all day long but I have to switch off the One show the instant that lady speaks, it goes right through me, sorry!

Yes, and that’s how we were taught. You asked what Oxford grammar is and what it has to do with different accents of English. As a non-native speaker who was taught in this way, I have answered the question.

as A Canadian understanding a fast talking Newfie can be a challenge or Cape Breton native. But it’s more the colloquialism than the accent “my love” 😉
Fast talking welsh is my downfall.

I think there are lots of different things feeding into this. Some people are just naturally better at auditory processing than others. Some people have more direct experience of talking to people with a wide range of accents in their own language (and in other languages), which improves their ability to understand without accents impeding their comprehension. Also, how comprehensible an accent is can be massively affected by the actual voice (not just accent) of the individual speaker.

Imo it's absolute nonsense to suggest that people find certain accents hard to understand because they 'can't be bothered'. I'm a languages teacher and have nearly 30 years' experience of observing people's varying abilities to do accents and understand accents.

Unsurprisingly, I'm pretty good at understanding other accents. I occasionally have trouble with some very broad Scottish accents or Geordie accents, but usually only if the speaker talks especially fast or particularly unclearly.

I'm from the north west but living in Norfolk now. It amazes me when people say they can't tell the difference between scouse and manc accents - they're entirely different!

I'm also a bit that someone thinks Yorkshire and Norfolk are similar.

I find I have issues with the speed at which people speak sometimes rather than the accent itself. When I first moved to Norfolk one of the 'old boys' at work was incomprehensible to me but I think mostly because he garbled really quickly.

"Strong" accent makes me laugh. Does anyone have a weak accent?

Yip. It always amazes me that English people often need subtitles when a Scottish accent is in use and yet us Scots are expected to understand Geordies, Cockneys, Scousers etc. Open your ears and accept that not every accent's English.

Precisely. Everyone has a an accent which they use in their own unique way. It's called an idiolect