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 . . .

[boxtops]

My then OH went to work in the Black Country a long time ago, he was broad Glaswegian, he couldn't understand them and they couldn't understand him. Interesting! These days I can manage most accents - posh doesn't really come into it. Molly, you do have an regional accent to people in other parts of the country - it's only when I have lived in Scotland and the Midlands that I realised myself what a Surrey accent I grew up with - to me it was just normal. My sister now lives in the West Country and has developed a distinct burr - my brother lived in Manchester for a long time and still says Bath with a short A. I find I change my own way of speaking to mirror the local way of speaking, it makes life a lot easier!

[starone]

That's because we both talk normal zzxxee. It's everyone else has these funny accents.

[venator]

I ran a business in Aberdeen, and had a sales rep who was an accent genius.

Lowland Scots is lovely & soft - Paisley's my favourite, but as you get further North, you start gargling with spanners.

When you get to the Hebrides, it sounds worse than that.

[boxtops]

venator, I found that when I went to Inverness, the accent was lovely - so clear to understand - it was Fraserburgh had me stumped. I remember the BBC interviewing a trawlerman on TV one time - it was incomprehensible to most of us at that time.

[mollykins]

I didn't say I don't have an accent, jsut that I don't think it is particularly broad.

[NOX]

I'm originally from Belfast, and I don't find that people have problems understanding my natural accent nor do I have problems with other people's, but I do find that some people don't take kindly to it and that if I talk with RP then I get a better reception. I practically never do that by the way, but it was interesting to see the difference;-)

[mollykins]

There's an irish teacher at one of my high schools, who someone in my class always says 'top o' the mornin to you' . . . to

[AlBags]

I bet you wouldn't understand strong Bristol .. or Glasgow, come to that : )

[237SJ]

I`ve spend my working life desiphering what people from other parts of the world are saying but I was in Barbados on holiday recently and although I can understand what the locals are saying when they talk to me, it`s almost impossible to understand when they speak to each other. They might as well be speaking another language.

[boxtops]

Ah but the Scots can be like that too, when they use the vernacular - OH speaking to his mum on the phone is really broad!

[askyourgran]

I'm not very good at understanding strong accents, mostly with " call centre brian" from India. I also had an uncle from Durham with a really strong Geordie accent. If they speak slowly it's not too bad My Mum came from Co Durham she had a lovely accent and although she lived in Yorkshire almost 70 years she still had her accent.

[Buenchico]

Blarst garl!

Yah carm frarm Saarfik, an yew darnt think thart yewv gart an arksent?

Or, if you'd prefer a serious answer:
I understand 'posh' people because:
(a) that was the type of pronunciation that my schools tried to teach me (just down the road from you, in Ipswich); and
(b) such people frequently appear in films, on radio or on TV.

I can also easily understand most British accents, partly through studying for my degree alongside people from all over the country. (I'm sure that, when you get to University, you'll have a similar experience, Molly). However I have to admit to occasionally struggling with broad Geordie and Belfast accents, along with some of the broader Scots accents.

Chris