Silvance5 Groupie United States Joined 5496 days ago 86 posts - 118 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, French
| Message 1 of 28 03 February 2010 at 2:34pm | IP Logged |
This is just a question for sating my own curiosity. People on here who learned English to fluency as a second or third language, what English dialects are the most difficult for you to comprehend?
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Sprachprofi Nonaglot Senior Member Germany learnlangs.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6472 days ago 2608 posts - 4866 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Esperanto, Greek, Mandarin, Latin, Dutch, Italian Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written), Swahili, Indonesian, Japanese, Modern Hebrew, Portuguese
| Message 2 of 28 03 February 2010 at 3:15pm | IP Logged |
Accents are typically more of a problem than dialects. For me, the Belfast one was worst.
When I first heard it, I couldn't even believe it was English. I also sometimes have
trouble understanding Africans or African Americans when they speak English. Possibly the
worst I've heard in that regard is the black housekeeper in "Gone with the wind".
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oten Diglot Newbie Brazil Joined 5482 days ago 1 posts - 1 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, English Studies: Spanish, German, Sanskrit
| Message 3 of 28 04 February 2010 at 1:45am | IP Logged |
Glaswegian and some southern Irish accents. But in general any thick Scottish or Irish accents are pretty hard for me.
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tritone Senior Member United States reflectionsinpo Joined 6122 days ago 246 posts - 385 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Portuguese, French
| Message 4 of 28 04 February 2010 at 2:42am | IP Logged |
As a native speaker,I will say that Glaswegian is wholly unintelligible.
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Raincrowlee Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 6704 days ago 621 posts - 808 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin, Korean, French Studies: Indonesian, Japanese
| Message 5 of 28 04 February 2010 at 3:15am | IP Logged |
oten wrote:
Glaswegian and some southern Irish accents. But in general any thick Scottish or Irish accents are pretty hard for me. |
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There was an independent film a while back set in Scotland, and all the actors spoke with such a thick Scotish accent that the film had subtitles. For English speakers.
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tritone Senior Member United States reflectionsinpo Joined 6122 days ago 246 posts - 385 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Portuguese, French
| Message 6 of 28 04 February 2010 at 3:31am | IP Logged |
Raincrowlee wrote:
oten wrote:
Glaswegian and some southern Irish accents. But in general any thick Scottish or Irish accents are pretty hard for me. |
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There was an independent film a while back set in Scotland, and all the actors spoke with such a thick Scotish accent that the film had subtitles. For English speakers. |
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Sweet Sixteen.
...it was more than just an "accent". What they spoke was unrecognizable as any form of English. I remember catching it on IFC half way through unaware of the setting, and thinking "what language is this?"
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davidwelsh Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5531 days ago 141 posts - 307 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, Norwegian, Esperanto, Swedish, Danish, French Studies: Polish, Sanskrit, Tibetan, Pali, Mandarin
| Message 7 of 28 04 February 2010 at 9:28am | IP Logged |
tritone wrote:
Sweet Sixteen.
...it was more than just an "accent". What they spoke was unrecognizable as any form of English. I remember catching it on IFC half way through unaware of the setting, and thinking "what language is this?"
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It's Scots, which is recognised as a separate language by the European Bureau for Lesser Used Languages.
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QiuJP Triglot Senior Member Singapore Joined 5857 days ago 428 posts - 597 votes Speaks: Mandarin*, EnglishC2, French Studies: Czech, GermanB1, Russian, Japanese
| Message 8 of 28 04 February 2010 at 9:52am | IP Logged |
The accents that I could not understand well are the Indian accent and the English spoken by Chinese (surprisingly)........
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