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?

*TV/radio accent

I have always lived in the southern half of Great Britain and have a fairly accentless voice. I often cannot follow a thick Scottish accent on TV, and also a Northern ireland one. I literally could not understand Derry Girls, and would need sub titles for it. West Country accents are lovely, Birmingham flat and nasal and not very attractive to my ears, but I love a Geordie accent.
It was very intesting what you said about accents in Spain, OP. I love Spain and want to improve my self-taught and quite basic Spanish. What region's accent would be the best to learn it in, do you think? I go to Andalucia mainly. My mother was once told quite disparagingly by someone from Castille that she had a "very strong Andalucian accent", as if it was not a good thing!

The Newfoundland accent is heavily influenced by south and south eastern Irish accents, which are quite distinct from northern, western and northwestern Irish. They're not a million miles apart, but there's a difference between Waterford/Wexford/Carlow and Donegal/Derry/Fermanagh accents.

@HotWashCycle
I guarantee you do not have a fairly accent less voice.

I can guarantee you don't have an 'accentless voice' because there is no such thing

Central Scotland here. Struggle with broad Doric accent, Inverness and the inner and outer hebrides is just beautiful. Orkney and Shetland completely different to each other but easy enough to understand. Have worked with both northern and southern Irish no problems in understanding them and I do love the Welsh accent.
Think I struggle with being corrected when saying my postcode over the telephone...think S mixed up with F. My English is perfect.....I was hired years ago to teach my 3 Italian charges English(albeit with a Scottish accent)
My surname has a T which I pronounce but here it's dropped similar to Drayton but it's said Drayun.....that annoys me. I talk slang when out with friends so I'm guessing folk may struggle to understand me then.

I went home (Newcastle) whilst living in France and I genuinely thought everyone in town was speaking German. I was like, blimey, lots of tourists around today. 😆My friend thought I’d gone nuts.

There’s a meme I saw that says (about driving in the UK) ‘It’s been 4 hours, the accent has changed 5 times and breadbuns have a new name’. It’s so true!

I find Canadian French very difficult to understand, despite being totally fluent in French.

I can't follow Geordies, at all. It's the cadences.

I understood what you meant — I was once told I sounded "like the lady on the tapes" by an Estonian friend. It would probably be on the CD or app now.

Most people guess I'm from much further south than I am (until I say mither!), but I suspect my "lazy" accent would be quite different from someone actually from the Home Counties.

I struggle with strong Geordie too, my ears just can't pick it up for some reason. I'm NW English (Merseyside) and have lived in central and NE Scotland, no problem with broad Scots but Geordie is impossible. I once worked abroad for a car hire company and was approached by a customer who I thought was speaking to me in Polish. I replied (very loudly and slowly) "I'm sorry, does your wife speak English?" The poor guy then revealed he was from Newcastle, I nearly died of shame 😳

Oh god this really pisses me off!

”I don’t have an accent”, said in an accent like Phil Mitchell’s or Prince Harry’s (thst was two different people, obvs).

I'm originally from SW England. I find most accents reasonably easy to understand but confess that I have trouble with some Scottish accents.

I've been watching Taskmaster recently and have found Fern Brady very difficult to understand. I don't think it's just her accent though - there's something else about her voice too, but I can't work out what.

I used to speak to a carer on the phone in work and thought he was Eastern European. He was called Kevin and he was from Glasgow.

🙄Oh the hilarity of it all

@derxa don't you get the gist of the thread?

That's called Oxford grammar because it's published by OUP. It's the name of the company not the thing.
We used to use Swan's grammar back in the 1990s because Michael Swan wrote the book but he didn't invent a new grammar.

Absolutely

To get back to the OP - I really struggle with Eastenders type accents

The gist of the thread seems to be people denigrating others' accents whilst claiming not to have an accent themselves. I've seen many versions of this thread over the years.

I'm laughing at the comments about Orcadian being easy to understand. When Orcadians 'chant' (over announciate and speak very slowly) to speak to Southerners then the accent is delightful and relatively easy to understand. When we talk to each other it's different, I've lost count of the number of my southern friends who just about managed to follow my Dad when he was talking to them and then their face fell when he turned to me and started talking normally.

Was just going to say this. You have a southern English accent, not “no accent”.

No.
I was answering the poster who was sneering at "Americanisms" (specifically mentioning grammar differences) pointing out that most of them absolutely reflect the English spoken in Britain at the time.
I didn't mention accent.

Aye.
Though it's fun to point out that those who come out with this guff (hoping to demonstrate how much they know about language) just show how little they know about language...

When I reach the end of my tether with it all I usually point out that I studied Linguistics and Phonetics for 5 years and I'm a qualified SALT. I've reached that point.

Men with deep voices who mumble and drop the end of sentences are the hardest for me to understand, regardless of their accent!

I have always lived in the southern half of Great Britain and have a fairly accentless voice.

No such thing. I have a southern English (Home Counties/ RP) accent too. What makes you think your southern English accent is any less an accent than any other?