What accent is hardest for you to understand?

[kay1864]

I was at a conference awhile back, and we had representatives from France, England, Ireland, Germany, India, Japan, and Italy. All spoke English with strong accents. Had no trouble understanding them, except...

the woman from Ireland. It's like she was substituting different vowels.

Same thing on a trip from Paris to Versailles. I asked a couple about validating our train tickets. They said no, we didn't need to validate the ticket. I asked where they were from, and the woman said "Ardent". It wasn't just me--all five of us heard "Ardent".

I thought maybe that was a town in the UK, so I asked where that was. She looked at me incredulously, and after a few more exchanges, I finally understood she was saying "Ireland".

Very odd that it's only strong Irish accents I have trouble with (and I do mean Irish, not Irish-American). Scottish, no problem. English (north, central, south), piece o' cake.


What accent do you guys have the most trouble with? (I'm including regional American ones)

[Writer]

1. Glasgow Scottish

[zanne]

2. Yup. Some Scottish people.

If they talk too fast, it's like they're not even speaking English.

[pagerbear]

3. Many southeast Asian accents

[kay1864]

6. Any in particular?

I rarely have trouble with Korean, Thai or Japanese accents. But accents of some not-yet-acclimated Indians are more difficult.

[AllegroRondo]

4. When I was in Scotland

MOST of the people we spoke with were very easy to understand, and incredibly nice.

But one night we were out for a walk in Sterling, and spoke with a group of high school aged kids. I dont know if it was because they were young, or because we all had a couple beers, but there were many times I had to ask someone to repeat themself because of the accent.

[grace0418]

18. We had to watch the movie Sweet Sixteen with the subtitles on. The accents were

so difficult, not to mention the slang. Good movie though, sooooo bleak.

[Guava Jelly]

5. Redneck

:D

[kay1864]

7. Heh

What flavor? You got your Alabama, your Mississippi, your Georgia...

I live in Georgia, and believe me, each state sounds different after you listen for awhile. They're not homogeneous.

[Guava Jelly]

9. Bama probably

They all sound similar to me :D

[kay1864]

14. They do indeed

It's only after at least a month in different Southern states that you notice differences.

[skygazer]

8. Vietnamese

I work and go to school with a lot of people from a lot of places - I think the main reason I sometimes have some difficulty with the Vietnamese accents is because the people I'm speaking with are talking rather fast. But there are some inflections and pronunciations that just slip by me.

I don't really have a lot of trouble with most accents, though. The main trouble I have is with tone of voice - if someone has both an accent and speaks in a low register, I have a lot of trouble because I'm a little deaf at those tones.

[kay1864]

13. That would be second on my list

I don't encounter many Vietnamese, but I know of what you speak.

What's truly amazing to me is what I heard on NPR awhile back--that Chinese people (I assume this applies to both Mandarin and Cantonese, but I think they interviewed only Mandarin speakers) can distinguish a quarter of a semitone difference in inflection. Moreover, they reproduce the same pitch (within a quarter of a semitone) from one day to the next.

Fascinating. I can probably find the story if anyone's interested.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

10. uneducated american accents is the one i have most trouble with

if i try to watch jerry springer or anything like that, half the time i have no idea what the hell people are talking about.

[femmocrat]

52. I know what you mean!

After we moved "out in the country," I thought I was in a different state or something. I cannot understand that accent even now. When I see these people on TV, I wish they would run sub-titles.

[CottonBear]

11. Scottish and the accent of the new Indian cashier at my local grocery.

The Indian guy has a strong accent and he speaks very rapidly. If he would just slow down the customers could understand him better. Maybe our Southern ears are not used to the accent.

[Joe Fields]

12. Bostonians

Something about the way they drag their A's out in words.

[Rob H.]

15. Basque

One of our neighbors in Idaho was a farmer from the Basque Country and his accent was the thickest I've ever heard. My dad, who was in the Navy when I was growing up and consequently traveled a lot, was the only one of us who could understand him without having to ask him to repeat everything two or three times.

[Blue Diadem]

16. Scottish and very strong Southern

I think it just depends on how strong an accent and how fast the person is speaking. Most of the time I have no problem understanding my Scottish SIL. If she's excited and speaking fast I don't have a clue. I do have a harder time understanding her sister though but then she is a fast speaker so I just sit there like a complete moron and hope I nod my head in the proper direction.

I've only run into a couple strong Southern accents..not sure where they were from but I was embarassed having to ask them to repeat and still didn't understand what they were saying.

[MrScorpio]

17. Scottish, No doubt

Saw this movie set in Scotland once. All the characters were speaking English, but their accents were so thick the movie has subtitles.

That's really thick

[kay1864]

19. Didn't Brad Pitt play a character like that in a movie?

Snatch, was it? Was he Scottish or Irish?

(I know, imdb is my friend...)

[MrScorpio]

21. Snatch

He played an English gypsy. No subtitles


I have the DVD

[kay1864]

26. I looked it up after I posted...

"Mickey O'Neil" is an English gypsy?

[MrScorpio]

29. Yep

You should see the movie.

Has Jason Statham in it too, before he began his ass-kicking phase

[T_i_B]

30. No, he played an Irish gypsy

Irish Gysies do happen to get about in England too, and he was playing it with a heavy Irish accent.

As to funny accents, well Barnsley's one that gets a lot of people. Even Sheffielders sometimes have trouble with Barnsley accents!

[MrScorpio]

34. Thanks for the clarification

I should watch my DVD again

[Rambis]

41. Kate Rusby

Love the Barnsley accent on that lassie! I do love the fact it does not go away when she sings.

[JTG of the PRB]

20. I have trouble with LOTS of saccents.

I'm not sure what it is, but maybe my ears aren't tuned quite right or something to understanding accents on the first time around. I've always had difficulty understanding accents from outside this country.

[begin_within]

22. Jive

[Aristus]

32. "Now jes' hang cool, blood. 'At mama's gonna catch up on a lil rebound on the med-side."

"Mama, doan buss me upside th'head! I dug her rap!"

"Cut me some slack, Jack!"

:rofl:

Love that scene!

[FloridaJudy]

23. Singaporean English

AKA "Singlish". It's not just the accent, it's the grammar and the loan words from multiple Asian languages. Give it a try here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ess4LnyrhQU

[spinbaby]

24. Liverpool

Totally incomprehensible. Although it may have just been the one guy I was working with.

Generally, I find that eastern European accents grate on my ears. Most Africans seem to speak English with a round fullness that's lovely to listen to.

[T_i_B]

31. Scousers aren't incomprehensible!

Although many people do find their accents annoying.

And on the subject, here's an old Harry Enfield clip that demonstrates how scousers tend to be viewed by the rest of the English.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7VspOs3Qt0

[muriel_volestrangler]

67. Heh - if more people here would understand the joke,

I'd lock any thread here with "all right, all right - calm down, calm down!" (it just doesn't look half as good written down though, does it?)

[T_i_B]

68. Eh! Eh! Eh! Eh!

(Does that funny arm gesture) :-)

[Rabbit of Caerbannog]

25. Dubya speak (n/t)

[raccoon]

27. A put-on Texas accent. nt

[redqueen]

28. Eh, no particular accent... just have trouble with really thick ones. n/t

[Flaxbee]

33. Some Asian, and stronger English/Scottish/Irish accents

any cockney or northern English, as well as heavy Scottish or Irish, throws me - I found the accents in Snatch to be completely incomprehensible. Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (I think that's what it was), too. No fucking clue what was being said.

Very strong Chinese accents, no clue either.

It's weird - I can pick up 'foreign' language pronunciation very very well - maybe I'm a good mimic, but I 'get' other pronunciations easily. But I can't really understand heavily accented English.

My husband, on the other hand, seems to be completely unable to pronounce anything in a foreign language correctly - he hears it once or twice and then makes it his own, much to the amusement of any native Spanish or French or Korean or... speaker. BUT, he can understand almost ANYTHING said in heavily accented English. I'll be standing there feeling rude and stupid asking someone to repeat themselves, and my husband will tell me what they're trying to say, while the person I can't understand is nodding happily at my husband.

[BOSSHOG]

35. Drunken Cajun

Get boo-dro and tee-ba-doe drinking and arguing about crab traps and you won't understand a word but its incredibly wonderful live theatre.

[The Inquisitive]

36. none stands out in particular for me

Though I do remember once, having recently moved from Connecticut to Maine, a tourists told me he couldn't understand me because of my Mainer accent... I was a little perplexed, seeing as he was from White Plains, New York.

[Magrittes Pipe]

37. Accent circonflex.

I just don't get the point of it.

[kay1864]

42. Wêlcômê tô my îgnôrê lîst

Yôû dîâcrîtîcâl-hâtîng Frêêpêr.

:rofl:

[dropkickpa]

38. For me, chinese

and yet I no problem with japanese, thai, korean, vietnamese, indian, spanish, scottish, irish, slovak, czech, russian, norwegian, icelandic, etc. I work with people from all over the world and have noticed that, for some odd reason, I have a lot more trouble understanding a chinese accent than any other language (Some french accents are hard for me too). Not sure exactly why. :shrug:

[XemaSab]

39. Old-timey Low Country

Man, there was this one dude in South Carolina that I just COULD NOT understand. :shrug:

[idgiehkt]

55. honestly

I have trouble with the flatlander side of my family sometimes. We grew up more with the hillbilly side and it is totally different. I know what you mean. I can understand a TN hill accent but sometimes the coastal and flatlander types stump me, even as a fellow southerner. And Chinese accents are sometimes hard for me to understand.

[MysticalChicken]

40. Scottish...

I can understand it but I have to really listen. I can't fake it at all.

[LostInAnomie]

43. I have trouble with Indian accents.

Once, when I worked at a Kmart, I had to trick a lady into writing down what she wanted because I couldn't understand what she was looking for.

[Nikia]

45. I do too

This can be frustrating for me because I work in the food processing industry and Indians are well represented amongst food processing professionals. I especially have troubles with names because I cannot try to guess what they are saying.

[GoddessOfGuinness]

46. I don't have trouble with the accent, but

I have trouble with the rate of speed at which they speak.

I've had the same trouble with some Americans.

[Rambis]

44. Slang

I have a friend from Rosslare County Wexford Ireland and I can understand him perfectly well I just don't know the slang terms he uses. I did notice that after about 6 months his accent got a lot thicker because he knew if he didn't use slang I could understand him perfectly well. Now, when I go out with the boys (4 guys) I can understand the northern Irish (Co. Tyrone),Donegal, and one guy from Dublin who is a Dr. but the other Dubliner talks so fast it is amazing. If I didn't know him better I would think he is coked out of his mind.

[u4ic]

47. Finnish and sometimes Spanish

The former is just an odd accent, I find.

The latter (I will include a Spanish fellow I know, as well as some Central and South American speakers) might be because I haven't been exposed to it a lot (though I can say the same with other accents and I don't have a problem). Their tendency to talk very fast compounds the problem for me.

[edbermac]

48. Indian.

Our tech desk is now in India and I can't understand two words they're saying.

[trof]

49. Gullah

It's beyond me.

[idgiehkt]

56. that reminds me

I've heard some creole accents where they were speaking english but I had no idea what they were saying. And one Haitian lady I worked with too, her name was Gifty, which I thought was a pretty name.

[janx]

50. Mid east and Indian (as in India).

I've worked with a lot of university students from different places, and my boss had the most trouble understanding Asians, while I had the most trouble with students from the middle east and India. :shrug:

I adored them all, and each one had something to contribute, but it was frustrating sometimes. I teach at a great university now, but most of the students there from other countries have been assimilated to such an extent that a foreign accent is not a problem.

In the United States, the regional accent I have the most trouble with is a Texas accent--but some kind of specific one, since Texas has different sounds depending on where a person lives in the state (like many states).

I was listening to an online interview recently, and I can't remember where in Texas this person was from, but there were a couple of words that I literally did not understand because of the pronunciation/accent. It was a politician, and I wish I could remember which one.

[Skittles]

51. Egypt and India

I speak to many people in Egypt and India at work and they tend to speak very fast, mumble, and not let you get a word in edgewise if you need pertinent information....and I am so, SO sick of them starting half of their sentences with the word, "ACTUALLY". :o

[QMPMom]

53. SE Asian accents directly from there. I deal with that accent at work sometimes and find

it somewhat difficult.

[Starbucks Anarchist]

57. You have to figure out the rhythm and tone.

Believe me, that helps. (I'm of Indian descent.) :hi:

[QMPMom]

59. Thanks, SA. I think the Indian accent is one of the most

beautiful. I could listen to one of my friends, Raj, speak all day. His voice is so melodious and smoothe. It's almost hypnotic.

[Alexander]

54. I have no trouble with accents.

I did take an extracirricular class in "Phonetics and Dialects" where we learned many different accents.

My dad has extreme trouble with any non-American accent.

[Tektonik]

58. Indian accents can be pretty daunting

especially when the person with the accent is teaching upper div. math classes at your university :crazy:

[alphafemale]

60. Cajun

Just can't do it.

Don't know why.

[baldguy]

61. Know what gets me?

When the teevee has a person on, speaking perfectly good English. But because their skin is a little darker they slap subtitles up.

One program I saw was a group of South Africans talking to one another. Most spoke English, a couple Whites spoke in Afrikaans, a couple Africans spoke in Bantu. They obviously understood each other well enough to communicate, but the Africans invariably had subtitles, and the Whites invariably did not have subtitles - no matter what language they spoke.

[Katina]

62. It can be difficult

since she probably spoke very quickly as well. My nephew by marriage is from northern Ireland and when he gets on a roll or has had a few, forget it, you catch a couple of words and just get the gist of what's been said. His father on the other hand, is damn near unintelligible!

[Rhythm]

63. At school, i've only had problems with one prof thus far...

My very first semester, the grad student who was teaching my PSYC 101 class was from China, and had only been in the States for a few months.

I sat in the front row, even tried to lip-read, but it was virtually impossible to understand him most of the time.

Thank goodness the exams were mostly from the book material. *L*

[patricia92243]

64. I had an Irish girl leave a phone message. I almost deleted it, thinking the person had made a wr

wrong number. I listened to it again, and recognized my son's name being said - so I saved it. Other than my son's name, I would not have known she was speaking English.

[annonymous]

65. I have the most trouble with Indian and African accents

There was this one professor from Nigeria that I could barely understand. I used to work with people from India and always had the most trouble understanding the ones who just arrived on work visas. The movie had the most trouble understanding because of the accents was The Committments. I swear they should have used subtitles.

[hedgehog]

66. I'm pretty good with most accents due to Irish grandparents and

being raised in Northeast Ohio and Buffalo. I was exposed to Appalachian, rural, city, and assorted Italian, Polish, Greek and Latino variations. Having teachers from all over Southeast Asia and the sub-continent added those varieties. It may take me a few minutes to pick up the rhythm, but then I'm in. Very deep South black speech is hard for me to understand.

On the flip side, my accent slips to match my surroundings. Some people have thought I was foreign-born! My daughter tells me I sing with a brogue!

I can understand Irish films, but my kids need the sub-titles.

At a meeting with English speakers from all over, the native English were the hardest to understand because they al have a habit of speaking low and in a diffident manner. Other nationals seem to have picked up the American manner of speaking loudly and firmly.

Favorite story: the time my son was translating back and forth for a Chinese speaker and an Indian speaker. Everyone was speaking English, but the two guys from India and China couldn't understand each other. Generally, Indians learn "English" English and Chinese learn "American" English.

[Pacifist Patriot]

69. Native tonal language speakers.

i.e. Vietnamese, Chinese...

I don't know if there is a relationship or not, but I have found that to be a common denominator. If someone is a native Romance, Germanic, Slavic speaker I generally do not have a problem.