In your country, are there any regional accents that are so impenetrable that you can have trouble understanding what the person is saying?
I’m not really referring to dialects, just accents that someone speaking the same language you speak might have.
There are a fair number of regional accents in the U.S. and even the “Southern accent” varies according to what part of the south you are from; there’s a variety of regional accents in the northeast, etc. but…
you really don’t ever have trouble understanding people. Except once, for me. I met this guy whose East Texas accent was so heavy that I basically couldn’t understand him, even though he was speaking English. He was a friend of my friend’s husband and they were all laughing a going back and forth and all I could to was stand there and smile and nod my head occasionally because I only understood about every fifth word he said
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17 Answers
People from the bayou in Louisiana. Ohhhhhh god.
I’m from NY and spent time with a guy from Mississippi. What’d he say? You know better than I.
All of them. I have trouble understanding my husband when he talks New Yorkish, those OKies from Oklahoma (my relatives) are impossible to understand, and don’t even get me started on Texan.
This NSFW video is fairly amusing… the first minute is the lad explaining what he’s about to do, so you can skip that if you wish. The first 11 or so accents he does are UK accents, then he travels around the world…. Much swearing (including the C word) so don’t watch if easily offended!
I cannot understand what a very small minority of East Texans are saying. They sound sort of iike they have a mouthful of mashed potatoes. Not one single professional actor could ever or has ever imitated it.
Like @KateTheGreat, I find a fast-talking Cajun pretty tough to follow. Also, it can be difficult to understand the Irish too.
In the rural and southernmost parts of Mississippi/Alabama/Georgia, especially around where the old plantations used to be.
I presently live in Oklahoma, when I first moved here from Texas it was very difficult for me to understand what most people here said, my ears just weren’t tuned to cut through the twang in their accents. There was one guy though who I never could understand, I knew him as Ollie (not sure whether that was some sort of nickname or his real name) and he had the most indiscernible speech of anyone I’ve ever met in my lifetime. He was an elderly man who lived next door to a friend of mine. It was a mixture of heavy southern drawl, hill twang, slurring with a little profanity to spice up the mix. Interesting fellow, veteran of the Korean and Vietnam wars, just couldn’t understand about 75% of anything he said, it’d be nice to know where he originally came from so I could kinda get a bead on the origin of his accent but I guess it’s just one of those things that I’ll never know.
Not really no, although a lot of people find my own accent quite tricky.
A divin nar why like, a mean howay, ar tark like this arl the time & arv got nee botha kenning what am gannin on aboot!
I currently live in Virginia. A few years back I started hunting with a club located about half an hour North of Richmond; very rural community. For the first season there were a couple of guys I couldn’t understand. After a while I picked up on what they were saying.
Most of them I understand but I did once meet an old man from Newcastle-upon-Tyne who had the thickest dockworkers accent I’ve ever encountered. He was talking to me for fifteen minutes and I didn’t understand a single word he said.
I’ve encountered a few Bostonians that threw me for a loop. One person in particular literally sounded like he was speaking a foreign language (to my Texas ears), but I finally cracked the code. Of course, I don’t have an accent ;-)
@picante “Of course, I don’t have an accent ;-)”
I’ll attest to that. I just read your post and you sound exactly like me – and I’m from NY!
@worriedguy, much like the British/American dichotomy, we Texans/New Yorkers are divided by our common language. It’s good the keyboard has a softening effect, and we do sound identicle!
There’s a few in the UK that, if strong enough, I have trouble understanding. As much as I love the Scottish accent, when that is strong it is sometimes hard for me to grasp as is the Geordie (Newcastle and surrounding areas) accent and some of the Yorkshire based ones. Of course, all these areas have their own slang as well which only adds to the confusion!
@Aster You describe that East Texas accent pretty well, like they have a mouth full of mashed potatoes. :-) As mentioned in my details, that is the only American regional accent I have ever had any trouble with. And I have no doubt no actor has ever been able to imitate, and they probably shouldn’t. No one watching the movie would be able to understand their dialogue!
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