accents

[mollykins]

I'm from suffolk but don't really have a fixed accent that could pinpoint to a certain place seeing as my parents are a brummy and macunian.

I want to know if the following applies to just a few or most people.

I can understand (just about) every british accent there is. But I find people who talk with a similar accent to me and those who talk poshly the easiest to understand.

However I don't think my accent is that broad, so do people with really broad accents find understanding people who talk poshly just as easy or harder than people who also talk like them? And do you find understanding people with a different broad accent a lot harder than posh people.

I hope this made sense . . .

[erin-x]

I find it easy to understand people with different accents. Well apart from one little boy at placement, he has just moved from Ireland and I think he finds it just as hard to understand us. Being Scottish I find that if I speak normally around my aunties, for example, who are English and African they find it hard to understand me. The Fife accent isn't the nicest :| lol

[alexanderd]

Having served in the Raf and mixed with all sorts its never been a problem

[douglas9401]

Sorry? :)

[tiggerblue10]

I can understand most accents as long as it is spoken without using local slang words.

[tiggerblue10]

*they (not is)

[mightyWBA]

I have to have the sub titles on for Rab C Nesbitt but apart from that am fine.
Have trouble being understood when I talk like I normally do due to my accent,especially abroad ...or 10 miles out of the Black Country.
When I lived in Canada they refused to believe I was British!

[sara3]

I work with a couple of Nigerians, and sometimes I really have trouble understanding them.. and they don't like being asked to repeat it. it's not just me, a lot of people find their strong accents hard to understand.

[cazzz1975]

its more the speed of the accent that makes me struggle to understand, generally I understand most accents, but if they start speaking quickly I can lose it.

[sherrardk]

When I first left home (at 18) and went to college a lot of people couldn't understand me as I spoke very quickly and had a very strong Welsh accent. As I was training to be a teacher I had to moderate my speech (but didn't lose my accent) otherwise the kids wouldn't have been able to understand me.

[mollykins]

Interesting, so how amny of you now would say you have a broad accent? I don't think so, then again, my brummy grandma said I talk like a farmer!

[erin-x]

This is a ged wee example eh a Fife accent ken :) A hink its quite broad.. whit dae you hink??

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGA1XlLvwuQ

[soaps]

Iv'e had that problem as well sara, with the Nigerians, I've also had it with the Chinese race, but they're more patient.

[cc1]

We once had German guests staying and there was an item on fthe News from Northumberland, we couldn't make out what the Geordies were saying but the Germans had no problem.

[scotman]

I have not found any great problem being understood. I was brought up in rural Scotland at a time when children were educated to speak English. If I had ever said 'he has went' instead of 'he has gone' I would have been severely reprimanded. I think it has stood me in good stead.
I am reasonably good at understanding other people as I have lived in Edinburgh for very long time. Lots of Johnny foreigners here!

[starone]

Even if you do not think you have an accent molly, rest assured you have. I am from the West country and when I heard my voice on a recording I sounded like an old country apple woman although I had not realised before that I even had an accent. It is very fortunate that we can write here and everyone understands (most of the time) because our writing hasn't got an accent, unless you make it so.

[zzxxee]

i would understand you starbuckone we do sound like proper wurzels in our neck of the woods x

[karenmac60]

I think most people don't see themselves as having an accent - they talk the way everyone else around them does (usually) and they aren't really aware of it. But they see others who talk differently has having thick accents unless they speak BBC English.

[johne1892]

cc1 - being a Geordie myself that's quite funny.

I think it was the army who were doing some voice activated software a couple of years ago. It worked for every accent apart from those from the North East. They ended up going to an army base in Germany and find some North East soldiers to 'teach' the software how we talk!

Aye, canny.