AIBU to mention it takes a while to tune my ears to the accent?

[blcakgaragedoor]

So I’m in my 50’s. I live in NI. We have not had a diverse population until recently so our ears aren’t as tuned to different accents.

my mother had a care assistant who visits daily and recently it has been a lady who moved to NI only in January. She has a very strong accent and her English is a little broken.

Mum is terrified of upsetting the lady or appearing racist and can’t always understand what the woman is saying. She asked me to ask the lady to speak slowly because she is afraid to.

I suggested she tell the lady it’s just taking her a little time to tune to her accent but my brother said that’s a terrible thing to say!

H ow do we say this without upsetting her or appearing racist. If she was a Derry girl or a Townie we would just tell her to slow down. Thank you.

When I moved to the North East from the Midlands, it took me a good year to get my ear tuned in to both the accent and some of the various dialects that people here use in different areas. I was completely baffled at times, and felt very ashamed every time I had to ask a person to repeat themselves...

I think that’s mums worry. That she will offend them bunjust asking them to
repeat all the time.

Just tell your mam to tell her she’s a bit deaf and could she speak slower and clearer if possible

Yes, I’d do this

Not that it helps in your situation but when I was working taking calls and some from Northern Ireland or Scotland called I would say they had to email me about whatever they were calling about because I simply couldn't understand when people would call with strong accents.

Just tell her (in front of your mother) that she needs to speak more slowly and clearly. Your brother's take is ridiculous.

@KeyToTheCitythats hilarious because we forget we sound odd too. I’ve heard it say we have an aggressive accent

She might say the same to you as the Northern Irish accent can be difficult for other people to understand, particularly for foreigners.

Unless she has an RP accent (which she presumably doesn’t), she likely knows she has an accent that others might struggle to understand.

You say if she was a Derry girl or a Townie you’d ask her to slow down. Just do the same here, it’s not really any different. I wouldn’t use the phrase “tune into” or blame the fact you’re not used to hearing other accents though. Just ask her to slow down. Care assistants will be used to doing that for people hard of hearing etc anyway.

I was thinking this. It would be the truth in my case.

I had a train journey where the gentleman across from me was really chatty. I had to ask him to repeat himself quite a lot at the beginning but by the end of it I found it easy to understand him.

He was from Ballymena.

I'm now old enough (66) to invoke deafness if I have trouble with anyone's speech or accent. This happens with increasing frequency across a range of both native Brits and people from overseas.