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?

I struggle with Scottish sometimes, mainly phone calls

This site is very interesting with respect to some of the accents of Britain:

accents in Britain

@Alondra

I'm American and grew up on the US/Mexico border (my parents are Mexican). I grew up with Spanglish/Border Spanish and slang. It's like a foreign language all by itself.

I speak American English but my husband is from Greater Manchester. I understand him but not his parents and siblings and I have to really listen. His grandmother was from Northern Ireland and as lovely as her accent was, I did struggle with understanding her.

I live in Houston with a very large international population. I do struggle with my Scottish and New Zealand neighbor's accents, American accents from Louisiana (probably the Cajun influence) and some New York ones. But I equally struggle with my neighbors from Columbia, Venezuela and Guatemalan's Spanish and some Mexican accents from southern Mexico.

Obviously, I am just confused all the time.

Born and brought up in Edinburgh but lived in England all of my adult life, I can’t understand a strong Aberdonian accent or some Belfast accents. As a pp said, sometimes it’s just a case of getting your ear attuned.

Grew up in Devon, so can understand 'farmer' perfectly! Went to Wales for uni...and that took a bit of getting used to. Cardiff and Newport accents were easy to understand, but someone I met from Port Talbot was hard to understand at first. After a week or so I got used to it and it was all good.
My partner's from NI and her mother used to talk quite fast, and I couldn't always understand her. Her father talks more slowly though, which is helpful!

I can understand most people with the exception of strong Yam/Black Country accents which I do have to concentrate hard on!

What really none of them ?

My Spanish is fluent. I can understand standard Castillian Spanish no problem, similarly spend a lot of time on the north coast and have no problem with those accents either.

Seville/Granada though - totally lost. They seem to miss off the end of words and I have to seriously concentrate to follow. Similarly people from Argentina with the "vos sos" stuff - so difficult. But it's just not what I'm used to hearing.

The only accents I have trouble with are the ones with a rising inflection such as Geordie and Australian. I have difficulty understanding when these speakers are asking a question or making a statement.

For most regional accents it's all about pronunciation. Northerners tend to pronounce the city Bath with a short "a", but locals say it with a long "ar" .
Some , like Bristolian, add extra words. So " Where is it?" becomes "Where is it to?".

There is actually a Cornish language but it is very much a minority language that almost died out.

Northerners tend to pronounce the city Bath with a short "a", but locals say it with a long "ar" .

I live 20 minutes drive outside Bath and here it's pronounced "Baaff"

My DD loves the subtitles on every programme, irrespective of its language, so that's our norm for watching everything.
I'm so used to them I'd really miss watching anything if they weren't there now and probably understand a lot less.

We watch a lot of foreign language progrmmes and I've found with French, I can sometimes understand quite a bit, e.g. Spiral, then hardly anything apart from the odd 'on y va' in Astrid, yet they are both set in Paris.

I had a friend from South Africa, her mum spoke a soft RP English, but my friend had a very strong clipped accent, she called it Syth Iffrika and referred to a mutual friend Alan as Illin.

Regional accents in the UK I find fascinating.
Hull and East Yorks where th 'o' sound is pronounced 'er' took me quite a while to get used to. One of the gritters is named Er Ner Sner. www.eastriding.gov.uk/say/features/new-names-for-councils-gritter-lorries-are-unveiled/
Here's a roadworks sign in dialect, too
www.hulldailymail.co.uk/news/err-nerr-hull-road-sign-2324619

One of my favourite accents to listen to is Orcadian, (Orkney Islands) so soft yet so well enunciated.

Are you suggesting that American accents are what was spoken in 18th century England and that English people have changed their way of speaking while Americans remained static? Because that's absolutely ridiculous.

Both countries have experienced language shifts for a variety of factors. There is no one left alive who is speaking like the Pilgrims were.

I don't think it is people not making an effor to understand. It takes time to get used to an accent. DH is from the middle of Northumberland, and I struggled to understand most of his family when I first met them (I'm from London), but my ear attuned to the accent and now I don't have a problem with understanding a strong |Northumbrian accent.

I struggle with strong accents on the telephone - calls from Indian call centres and very strong Glaswegian accents, but generally I don't have a problem with UK accents. I'm sure that my bacgkround in telesales has helped.

*I live 20 minutes drive outside Bath and here it's pronounced "Baaff"

So it's the norm locally to pronounce 'th' as 'f'? I'm really surprised by that! I meam - I know it's a feature of some London accents and is a sound some people have trouble with (wherever they come from), but I didn't know it was a standard thing in any other English accents/areas.

I’m from Northern Ireland and the difference in accents within our small geographical areas is amazing. A NI person can tell if another of us is from ‘up the coast’ , ‘round the border’, North Down, Larne, Belfast or Londonderry within a couple of sentences. Give us a paragraph and we can probably work out your local town.

I have no difficulties with Scots or Newcastle but have struggled with Cork (doesn’t everyone?).

I do struggle with Indian/ Pakistani English accents which I put down to the fact that historically NI did not have many people coming here from other countries. I am getting better at it.

@ClaudiaWankleman

No, that's not what anyone is suggesting.

But there are features of American English that have been there from the time of the colonies, which have fallen into disuse in Britain. They are routinely used here as examples of (1) American backwardness and (2) how Americans have mangled the English language.

For example, usage such as 'gotten'.

struggled with Cork (doesn’t everyone?).

Oi!!! shakes fist

@FartOutLoudDay 😁

you know it’s true 😉

How about an experiment to put ourselves in English learners’ shoes?

My French isn’t bad but I was definitely taught the European version.
In this 10-minute video I went from “WTF?!” to flinching at un-European pronunciation and then understanding every word of his clear and grammatical Canadian French (Quebecquois).

Pretty sure the experience is similar to the OP’s.
Link in next post.

Here [].

I see what you mean. Unfortunately I’m part of a Facebook group where ‘Americans speak the language as Shakespeare did’ is parroted as fact. It’s bloody painful.

It's interesting how other people hear accents too
I've had someone ask how long I lived in Torbay for, and the next person tell me they loved my Bolton accent
I mean they weren't wrong on either but somehow I sound both northern and southern depending who speaks to me!

To answer the OP’s question, I find broad Glaswegian pronunciation, and not the Billy Connolly variety, the most difficult to understand.
Love the Newry accent.

A Canadian who struggles with rural Irish accents. You're not from Newfoundland then @Ritascornershop !

"Talk like farmers" ?!

So Yorkshire farmers/Norfolk farmers/Cornish farmers/Shropshire all sound the same? They don't. I imagine you may be influenced (although things are better now) by the TV/accent that used to be known as "BBC yokel" as it doppled and wowed all over the country and bore no resemblance to how people actually speak.