When I visited America ( I’m from the UK ) I found some deep southern accents a little tricky at times. So same for you across the pond, are there wordly accents that make you go “sorry, what??”

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  2. I have to turn on subtitles when I watch the Australian TV show “Wentworth”.

  3. The Scottish seem to come in two varieties: people who sound like Craig Ferguson and the completely unintelligible.

  5. It just depends on how heavy the accent is. Any of them could be hard to understand if powerful enough lol.

  7. Some Indian accents I can only catch about every 5th word. Jamaicans as well.

  11. If we’re talking specific about English-language accents, then I sometimes have trouble with certain Caribbean and Indian accents. I find most other Anglophone accents easy enough to understand.

  13. It depends on the person more than their specific accent, but there have been a lot of Indians and Chinese people I struggled to understand — and a lot I didn’t.

  15. Lol my wife has trouble understanding her own mother sometimes. They are both from Alabama, but my wife doesn’t really have an accent. However her mom definitely does. Lots of her family members are very hard to understand.

    But I remember a guy who was from Newcastle who was pretty hard to understand. To be fair it really is another language though. We both just use the same base language, it’s just done in a very different way. So it’s not always just not understanding what someone is saying. It’s also understanding what they actually mean when they use words in a different way than what someone is used to.

  16. I remember watching a documentary on The Troubles once and genuinely not being able to understand half of the people.

  17. When I visited the UK, I saw a BBC report about the Loch Ness Monster, including interviews with some people local to Loch Ness.

    I did not understand a single word any of them said.

  18. Flame me or whatever but I really have a hard time with Indian accents. I remember talking to a doctor after my brother went to the ER after eating a plate of human feces at a party on a dare. Doctor was indian and I felt like a dummy just nodding my head over and over.

  21. I am really good with accents. However, for some reason, I can’t understand most people from Cork. Just Cork. Everyone else I can sort out. You people from Cork take the cake. I am an adult ESL teacher and can understand every crazy accent under the sun. Not the Cork accent.

  22. I’d say prob 90% similar to whatever you find difficult to understand.

    It comes to a point where the words are almost pronounced entirely differently.

    If its hard to understand a southern accent for you, its prob the same for a decent % of Americans. Same with some accents in Europe I’m assuming. The only one that ever stuck out to me was this one I think:

    https://youtu.be/nJ7QB3om-QY

    Either that or something similar where its just pretty much impossible to understand unless you have a similar accent lol

  24. Yeah, British. If I’m watching a British show, I have to turn the volume up to understand what they are saying.

  26. I saw an accent neutralization product at a trade show earlier this year and listened to their before and after on certain Indian dialects, and there was one where I thought they had also translated it. So, whatever accent that was. Incredible product, BTW.

  27. Whatever UK accent(s) they have in the show “All Creatures Great and Small.” I understand the characters for the most part, but sometimes have to rewind a scene and watch with the captions on because I didn’t understand some of the dialogue.

  28. Basically Indian Accent are difficult for Americans to understand.

    Mostly its because Punjab, Hindi and other Sub continent Languages tend to speak fast and have odd pronunciations when they learn english, so Americans generally have to be seriously concentrating to make sense of what is said.

    Americans in General do understand most African accents in English, and do very well with Spanish accented english.

  29. The accents people in Jersey and Guernsey have are difficult to understand

  30. Indian. So hard to understand especially when you are trying to troubleshoot something over the phone

  31. I lived in London.

    I had a Scottish guy I worked with, very nice guy, but I couldn’t understand a single thing he said.

    I also met a chap from Birmingham (I think). I could barely understand him.

  32. I tend to struggle with a lot of east Asian accents and some African ones. I’m exposed to many different ones in the city and at work, but there are some I’m not that familiar with that I have a hard time understanding.

  34. My husband is English, his family is from the Manchester area. I struggle with the thicker Yorkshire accents some times and Liverpool.

    I find Scottish accents easier to understand for some reason.

  35. Geordie. Had ZERO issues in London understanding anyone and as a Newcastle fan I listen to lots of the accent regularly but nothing prepares you for an impromptu conversation when you look like you’d fit in (British heritage). Lots of responses for Scottish accents here but ‘Wey Aye, thas proper loosh like.’

  36. Scottish accents are hard to understand. This is a bit off topic, but I love the Liverpool accent.

  37. I had a Nigerian TA for one of my college classes. He seemed like a nice enough guy, but his accent was totally unintelligible. I learned nothing from him that semester.

  38. Indian accents are really challenging for me. The rhythm that they speak puts emphasis in odd places, and it completely throws off my brain, even when they’re speaking fluent English

  39. I don’t hear accents very often in every day life so any accent other than “flat, American English” is somewhat difficult for me to understand. New York, British, Australian, SCOTTISH

  40. My my grandmother was a big traveler, and really enjoyed going to really oddball places. In London she booked us theater tickets to this really weird play about coal miners I think the accents for so sick Iris, really struggling to understand it on top of being extremely Jetlaged.

    When I lived in Australia for a year, I was in line to pay for something in a cell phone shop. The guy in front of me had a really thick accent that whatever he was saying to the clerk, I could not understand at all the clerk didn’t seem to have a problem understanding him, but I was completely lost.

  41. In once attempted to speak to a Welshman. He spoke English. I spoke English. It was impossible.

  42. There are accents within the US I find hard to understand, and I claim to be really good at understanding people. I went on a tour of Mammoth Cave in Kentucky and I literally, for the life of me, could not understand the ranger driving the bus. He was local to the area and had the THICKEST backwoods Appalachian accent I’ve ever heard to this day.

    That and Scots on the whole

  44. Really thick Scottish, Irish, and Northern England accents are probably the hardest.

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