# Relative difficulty of understanding different regional accents or variations



## mally pense

This topic arises from a discussion in another thread: "Trouble Understanding Spoken Words". _(The relevant trio of posts can be found on pages 3 and 4 of the thread starting here: __http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?p=3292800#post3292800__)_

I thought it was worth starting a new discussion specific to this new topic, i.e. the differences that regional variations make in understanding the spoken word, particularly for learners of a language, for these reasons:

The original discussion covers a variety of aspects of the difficulty of understanding spoken words, and this particular aspect, which I think may be of interest to a lot of language learners, may otherwise get lost in the multitude of pages.
The original discussion has already covered a large number of pages and is therefore difficult to navigate
The original discussion is very general, and I thought it would be useful to have a more tightly focussed discussion on this aspect
In order to help keep this discussion reasonably focussed, can we:

1. *Try NOT to cover differences which are not regional in origin*, e.g. different social backgrounds, levels of education, formal/informal situations, except where these are pertinant to the primary focus, namely regional differences.
2. *Try to focus on the difficulties faced by non-native speakers*, except of course where difficulties faced by native speakers of the same language are relevant.

I could begin this topic with some thoughts of my own _(e.g. by replying to the direct question "And have you ever had this kind of problem?" in the original thread)_, but thought it might be better to let this introductory post stand alone rather than complicating it further, so for the moment, I will just say:

*If anyone has any thoughts or experiences on this, I would be very interested to hear them.*

_Note 1: I have checked for existing forum discussions specifically covering this aspect and have found none._

_Note 2: If anyone thinks it might be useful to split this into different threads covering different languages, perhaps this is something we can do as we go along?_


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## JamesM

I'm forever trying to improve my French.  It seems to be stuck at some sort of intermediate level, but then again there isn't much call for using it in suburban Los Angeles. 

I've found that French speakers from the south of France are much easier for me to understand than those from the north.  They seem to speak much more slowly, in general, and to pronounce each syllable more distinctly.  

I don't know if this is just my personal experience or a regional trait, but it's held true so far in my (limited) experience with native French speakers.  I even have French podcasts from different parts of France and the podcast from Marseilles is far easier for me to understand than the podcast from Paris, even at the same speed.


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## mally pense

> I don't know if this is just my personal experience or a regional trait, but it's held true so far in my (limited) experience with native French speakers. I even have French podcasts from different parts of France and the podcast from Marseilles is far easier for me to understand than the podcast from Paris, even at the same speed.


 
James, if you still have the links for the podcasts, it might be useful to post them, or at least, I personally would be interested.

I'm sure speed of speech is a factor, but I'm not entirely convinced it's all that regional in nature. It seems to me that there are a lot of factors covering the speed at which an individual speaks, but whether there is some sort of regional norm set to which all speakers from that region tend to conform is another matter. One thing is for certain, if you list to any of the French Rap from Marseilles, you'll appreciate that it certainly doesn't _have_ to be slow.


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## mally pense

I came across a very interesting video clip, a news item in French from Radio Canada, which struck me as being a particular good example of regional differences:

Disparition de Cédrika _(streaming video in Windows Media Player format)_
There are two speakers: The first is the regular news presenter, and I'm presuming for the moment that she is from Montreal. The second is the director general of a research institute in Quebec. Both are (presumably) well educated, well spoken, and speaking in a formal environment, so the differences you can hear (hopefully) between them will be largely due to regional differences.

I'm presuming that the second speaker is speaking with a Quebec accent, and the difference to me is very noticeable. In terms of how much difference that makes to my level of comprehension, well I certainly find the news presenter's accent much more immediately understandable (and really not much difficult than a standard French French newsreader's accent, if at all), but at the same time, I'm reasonably confident that with time and exposure to the second speaker's accent (Quebecoise?), I would probably reach the same level of comprehension. I'd be interested in hearing other people's reactions to this comparison though (assuming the video link is still working when you read this).


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## ronanpoirier

I live in South Brazil and I can say I have some difficulty understanding the accents from Northeast Brazil. Also, the accent from Lisbon is hard to understand in my opinion. But nothing that some minutes to the ear get used and the problem is done.
About English, I could never understand people speaking in Beverly Hills 90210 (so I had to read the subtitles) but I could understand perfectly the girls from Sex & The City and the kids from Degrassi. I don't understand about American accents but I guess the accent of the actors are from the places the series were from: BH 90210 - Los Angeles, Sex & The City - New York, Degrassi - Ottawa.
I have difficulties understanding Brittish English too.


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## mally pense

> I live in South Brazil and I can say I have some difficulty understanding the accents from Northeast Brazil.


 
Although I don't speak your language, I am familiar with the sounds of Brasilian from having worked with Brasilians and through my interest in Brasilian percussion. I'm also interested in the music of the _nordestinos_ (esp forro), and can easily hear a difference in their accent, even as a non-speaker. I can imagine the difficulty being similar perhaps to the difference between some of the more contrasting different regional accents of the UK. (I'm sure you'd have no problem with mine - I would be very kind to you!)


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## Kibramoa

I had studied English in Mexico and as a teen lived in Arizona (US). Years later I moved from Mexico to Mississippi (US). The first weeks here were a learning experience. Here are a couple of stories. 

Simple expressions like "_how y'all doing?_" would confuse me as I would understand _how_ and _doing_ but had no idea what was that in the middle. Neither "you all", "y'all", "yous" nor "all y'all" were ever included in the ESL/EFL books used when I was learning English. 

I remember when a neighbor asked: "_What y'all fixin' to do?_", to which I answered: _I do not know any mechanics, but I have the yellow pages_. She looked at me perplexed, "_There is a problem with your car that needs to be fixed, right?"_ I added. I explained to her that in my English book _to fix_ meant _to repair_. She explained that "_fixin'_" was like saying about to, _what are you about to do?_" We would have frequent conversations about language, one day she said that she had never thought of the English language from the point of view of a foreiner learning it.

It took me a while to figure out that it was not only getting used to the southern drawl/accent but also the use of the words. 
Y'all take care now!


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## TimLA

Great thread! Thank you! I love accents of all kinds!
In my opinion, there are three separate issues that impact a learner in terms of regional variations.

The *first* is obviously accent, which even to this experienced AE ear can be a problem. I remember an episode in Baltimore (Balimer) in which a Baltimore resident said a complete sentence to me, and I understood...*not one word*. Another English example would include Irish movies with "English" subtitles. Even the "native" language can be difficult to a native.

The *second* is sentence construction - which can be quite different regionally, and learner must become used to it, over time. The *third* includes local idioms. Idioms can vary widely over a short distance, and must be learned by experience.

Because of your desire to keep focused, I'll only comment on accents, and only Spanish accents from my perspective. I learned Spanish in the Dominican Republic and was surrounded by Cubans and Puerto Ricans, thus those accents are my "base". When rolling through the Spanish-speaking channels, I'll often hear something "familiar" - it always turns out to be a Dominican or Cuban accent - which is like English to me.

In Spain (I've only been to Madrid), the accent was no problem at all once you get past the first "corathon" and "letze" )).
I find the Argentine and "Spain" accents similar, but not equivalent.

Being in LA, I hear Spanish accents from everywhere, especially Mexico. It took a while to get used to the construction and "sing-song", melodious Mexican accent, but it is not that bad after a bit.

The most difficult accents for me are Central American - for some reason the accents are sufficiently different that I have to concentrate quite hard to catch everything.

To conquer the issue of accents, to me, is just more listening experience.
The larger issues are those of sentence construction and idioms.


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## Hutschi

Hi, I was born in a German regian with usage of the "itzgründisch" dialect. It belongs to the "fränkisch" dialects.

This is almost incomprehensable by non-dialect spreakers from distant regions when they hear it the first time. It has a lot of dialect words, different pronunciation and different grammar. 

But the speaker switch to a standard German mode with itzgruendisch accent. This is completely comprehensible. I can hear where (which region) they come from, even if they are speaking standard high German language.

Each village there had one or two variants of the dialect. There was a saying, that somebody could tell where cou com from with an error of two or three km. (I'm in daubt.)

So you can see: If they speak accent, it is comprehensible, if they speak dialect, it is hardly comprehensible.


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## mally pense

> Because of your desire to keep focused, I'll only comment on accents, and only Spanish accents from my perspective


 
Hmmm.... this may be a mistake on my part. I had intended it to cover all the regional factors you've identified, and "accents" was unfortunately chosen rather loosely without considering the limitations it imposes.

I will ask the moderators if it can be changed. Perhaps "Relative difficulty of understanding different regional *variations*" _(the word you've used)_ would be better?

Perhaps for the moment we could consider the other aspects you've identified as being *on-topic*. That is consistent which what I've said in my introductory post, specifically where I've said _"i.e. the differences that regional *variations *make_".


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## mally pense

> I remember an episode in Baltimore (Balimer) in which a Baltimore resident said a complete sentence to me, and I understood...*not one word*.


 
This certainly happens occasionally to all of us I think, even if it's not the general rule. In fact, there's a stock response (in the UK at least): _"What's that in English?"_. Maybe it's the same in the USA?



> The *second* is sentence construction - which can be quite different regionally, and learner must become used to it, over time. The *third* includes local idioms. Idioms can vary widely over a short distance, and must be learned by experience.


 
I'd like, if I may, to add a *fourth*: which *set of words* available in the language tends to be used in everyday conversation. I don't know about other languages, but English has evolved historically from different sources, and it's possible for regional variations to favour the words (and perhaps constructions) from one source over another making the language easier or harder to understand depending on the country of origin of the listener and the vocabulary they've been exposed to previously. _(*Kibramoa* has identified the use of words as an issue too. I'm still trying to work out if his experience in this respect fits into this category)._

I should really give examples, but I'm not really an expert on this and could easily fall over on the details. However perhaps "beck" meaning stream or brook would be a good example. This is used in certain Northern variations (e.g. Yorkshire) but probably not in the South of England. The word is of Scandanavian origin I believe, so might be more easily understood by someone with a Scandanavian background than someone from (say) Spain who will presumably have been taught the word "stream" instead.

This can work the other way round possibly. I don't speak German, but I remember being in Germany one time and hearing a German woman _(or at least I assume she was German)_ shouting what sounded like "come here!" to her dog. I've looked up "come here" using Google translate _(very fallible as we all know)_ and it gives _"hergekommen"_, but is there something in German (or a dialect local to Bielefeld) that sounds phonetically the same as "come here" and which would be used to call a dog?

Another example (of which I'm more certain) was when I overheard a German girl asking someone "learnst du Ainglish in der schoolen?" or at least that's what it sounded like to me, but despite my lack of German, I understood every word! (Google translate gives _"erlernst du Englisch in der Schule?"_ for "Do you learn English in school?", which is presumably what I heard, or perhaps _"erlernst du Englisch in den Schulen?"_. Either way, it was immediately intelligable, and it struck me at the time just how close the two languges could be on occasion.



> To conquer the issue of accents, to me, is just more listening experience.
> The larger issues are those of sentence construction and idioms.


 
I think you possibly have it in a nutshell_*_ here, except perhaps to add the issue of vocabulary.

_* To 'have it in a nutshell': to have a concise summary of the situation, issues or facts_


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## TimLA

> In fact, there's a stock response (in the UK at least): _"What's that in English?"_. Maybe it's the same in the USA?


Exactly the same! 



> I'd like, if I may, to add a third, and that is which *set* of words available in the language tends to be used in everyday conversation.


I couldn't agree more. But the best examples in English are the differences "across the pond".
Boot=trunk, windscreen=windshield, tea=meal, lorry=truck...and millions of others.



> shouting what sounded like "come here!" to her dog


Probably "kommt hier" (?) - fortunately English is Germanic!

Getting back to the Spanish examples, I can think of one that occurred some years ago.
I was talking to someone who spoke Mexican Spanish and she asked me if I'd had lunch yet, and I replied in the usual fashion "todavia" (meaning, to me, "not yet").
She looked at me funny and said "todavia sì o todavia no?" (yes, or not yet).
I explained that where I learned Spanish (Dominican Republic) "todavia" was always "not yet".
That night I checked my dictionary, and as it turns out, one should always use "todavia no", except in the Caribbean, where I learned Spanish.


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## Hutschi

> shouting what sounded like "come here!" to her dog


It is "Komm her!" and an imperative form of "herkommen" - to come here

"Komm" is rhyming almost with English "Tom" and "her" is rhyming almost with "where". A little sound shift produces "come here".

Here you have a case, where German and English mainly is different in accent (articulation).  I hope German "Akzent" and English "accent" have the same meaning here: style of pronunciation. And you can see the English vowel shift. The same vowel until now - on paper. 

If the accent is not too strong, one will adjust, and if the sound is not too far away, one will understand even if spoken with another accent. But in some cases an accent can avoid one to understand a special word at all.


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## mally pense

> It is "Komm her!" and an imperative form of "herkommen" - to come here


 
It certainly _was_ imperative, probably even to the dog! If she'd shouted it to me, I'd have been compelled to comply too - there was no mistaking the intention! 

Thanks for the detailed explanation - and analysis.


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## PocketCathy

I've studied Spanish since I was 8 years old, and I still have a terribly difficult time understanding Cuban Spanish. Mexico, Central America, South America, Spain... no problem. I even grew up in Miami, surrounded by Cubans, and still have a lot of problems understanding them. My father-in-law is Cuban and thinks its really funny that his 'gringuita' daughter-in-law can't understand him when he deliberately speaks with a strong Cuban accent. I think a good portion of it has to do with slang, but certainly not all of it!


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## ireney

Dialects aside (there are some that I need a transcript to understand), when it comes to common, Demotic Greek, the Pontiac, Cypriot and Tsakonic dialect need my full attention to understand. When Vlahoi spoke (those of remote villages that is) it can be a bit of a problem to since they have the habit to leave many vowels out (e.g. Sikoni skoni -> S'kon' s'kon, to pedi ine arosto ->t' p'd in' aroust').

When it comes to English anything North of Northumbria and East of, well, London  (OK so I am exaggerating a bit) often makes me pause and rapid Irish needs to be repeated s l o w l y!  I can more or less get by with most American accents for some reason (haven't heard them all so I can't really comment on all the local American variations) although God only knows why the very clear Middle Wester accent can sometimes confuse the heck out of me!


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## shoobydoowap

PocketCathy said:


> I've studied Spanish since I was 8 years old, and I still have a terribly difficult time understanding Cuban Spanish. Mexico, Central America, South America, Spain... no problem. I even grew up in Miami, surrounded by Cubans, and still have a lot of problems understanding them. My father-in-law is Cuban and thinks its really funny that his 'gringuita' daughter-in-law can't understand him when he deliberately speaks with a strong Cuban accent. I think a good portion of it has to do with slang, but certainly not all of it!


Yes! I'm the exact same way with a Cuban accent--I can't understand it! It is really beautiful though, I think... it just goes completely over my head.

And I wonder if many people would have trouble understanding me if I switched into a really, really thick Kentucky accent?


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## PocketCathy

shoobydoowap said:


> And I wonder if many people would have trouble understanding me if I switched into a really, really thick Kentucky accent?


 
Probably a lot! I think the only reason I can understand Kentuckyfied English is because my grandfather was from there. I'm pretty sure that Kentucky would be one of the more difficult regions for people who learned English as a second/third/etc. language.


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## mally pense

> And I wonder if many people would have trouble understanding me if I switched into a really, really thick Kentucky accent?


 
I don't know. Is it anything like any of these samples from the International Dialects of English Archive?:

http://web.ku.edu/idea/northamerica/usa/kentucky/kentucky.htm


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## shoobydoowap

mally pense said:


> I don't know. Is it anything like any of these samples from the International Dialects of English Archive?:
> 
> http://web.ku.edu/idea/northamerica/usa/kentucky/kentucky.htm


Example #10 is EXACTLY what I had in mind. Music to my ears! Although I've heard even stronger Kentucky accents.


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## ernest_

I find accents that replace t's with glottal stops to be generally a lot harder to understand. It's no problem when the glottal stop is in the middle of the word, but at the end of a word, in words such as what, but, lot, it, bit, etc., is really awful. I understand, because I do it myself, that when you start talking like that it's very difficult to revert to good old plosive t's, though.


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## mally pense

> Example #10 is EXACTLY what I had in mind. Music to my ears! Although I've heard even stronger Kentucky accents.


 
I'd possibly have to ask you to spell a couple of the proper names, but other than that no problems. I think we're probably exposed more to regional USA accents here than you or I probably realise, e.g. in documentaries, newsclips, interviews & visiting musicians etc. While not being able to identify specifically which accent was involved (except of course on this occasion I already knew), the accent sounded immediately familiar or at least very similar to others that I know I've heard in the past.

However, as PocketCathy has suggested, it's more likely to be people who've learned English who would have the difficulty. Apart from the fact that most of the vowel sounds appear to be shifted from 'standard' American English (whatever that is), and a number of dipthongs introduced (I think), there's also words like "parent" where the 'r' is almost-but-not-quite missing (to my ears at least).

By the way, I was surprised to hear "Illinois" spoken with the final 's' pronounced. Is this pronunciaton common in the USA? We're more used to hearing it with the final 's' silent.


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## mally pense

ernest_ said:


> I find accents that replace t's with glottal stops to be generally a lot harder to understand. It's no problem when the glottal stop is in the middle of the word, but at the end of a word, in words such as what, but, lot, it, bit, etc., is really awful. I understand, because I do it myself, that when you start talking like that it's very difficult to revert to good old plosive t's, though.


 
Very difficult to stop once you've started - that's very true. Even though I don't come from part of the world where glottal stops feature heavily in the local accent, I think I possibly use glottal stops more than I consciously realise, e.g. when speaking fast - though if I try to analyse my own speech (not all that easy to do), then at least some of the time I'm probably using an ''r' sound instead of a glottal stop, e.g. "gorra go now" for "Got to go now" instead of "Go''a go now" (where ''' is the glottal stop).

Even apart from this, I found myself getting 'pulled up' (corrected) by my daughter on one occasion just on a normal word that normally I definitely would NOT speak with a glottal stop. I must have just picked up the habit of saying it that way, possibly from a particular character on the TV or in real life - who knows. I can't remember which word it was now, but I'm sure a made a conscious effort to revert to my former non-glottal pronunciation.

I don't know if I'm getting into dangerous waters here, but in general I'd say it's probably a mistake for a learner of English to used glottal stops unless they are specifically learning a regional accent which normally includes it, or unless they are so far advanced that they understand better than us natives when it is actually used! The reason I'm suggesting this is because unless the glottal stop sounds consistent with the rest of your accent, it will almost certainly sound out of place and unexpected. 

But I could be wrong about this, and without hearing your speech, how can I judge? Like so many things in the linguistic arena, it's difficult to visualise (aurally!) actual speech because so much of what you think you hear (or recall hearing) is what you _imagine_ you hear, not what you actually hear.


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## shoobydoowap

mally pense said:


> I'd possibly have to ask you to spell a couple of the proper names, but other than that no problems. I think we're probably exposed more to regional USA accents here than you or I probably realise, e.g. in documentaries, newsclips, interviews & visiting musicians etc. While not being able to identify specifically which accent was involved (except of course on this occasion I already knew), the accent sounded immediately familiar or at least very similar to others that I know I've heard in the past.
> 
> However, as PocketCathy has suggested, it's more likely to be people who've learned English who would have the difficulty. Apart from the fact that most of the vowel sounds appear to be shifted from 'standard' American English (whatever that is), and a number of dipthongs introduced (I think), there's also words like "parent" where the 'r' is almost-but-not-quite missing (to my ears at least).
> 
> By the way, I was surprised to hear "Illinois" spoken with the final 's' pronounced. Is this pronunciaton common in the USA? We're more used to hearing it with the final 's' silent.


Well, another characteristic of a Kentucky accent is that many times it is spoken.... very.... very.... slowly.... so I imagine that probably helps.


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## mirx

shoobydoowap said:


> Well, another characteristic of a Kentucky accent is that many times it is spoken.... very.... very.... slowly.... so I imagine that probably helps.


 
Or not... The speech of the man in the link provided was so slow, it almost seemed like he'd finished a sentence (making no sense at all) and then all of a sudden he started where he left at.

I CAN'T understand people from Glasgow, at the beginning I thought it was Scots in general, but I've come to realize that all the Scotish people I´ve met are from either Glasgow or surroundings. I thought it was just me who had a problem with the Glaswigan accent but other people have told me that they too find it hard to understand these Scots.

On my first day on Glasgow I asked a pair of women for some directions, after 30 seconds of debating and muttering words at light speed, the only word I understood was _corner._ I just nodded and smiled and thanked them.

Other accents I find difficult to catch up with are norther Irish accents, especially from Derry or Omagh.

In Spanish everybody knows that Andalusians (southern Spain) are very difficult to understand if you haven't been previusoly exposed to the dialect.

I may have a tough time understanding... yes, Cubans, I was so embarrased that I had to ask the man I was talking to,  to repeat what he had just said everytime.

In overall I think caribean accents both in Spanish and English are a bit tricky.

If anybody saw the movie BrokeBack Mountain, the staring actors had very thick accents specially the one from the northern state -can't remember which-. Are these the real accents for these states (I think Texas and Wyoming) or just the actors's accents?


Saludos.


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## Outsider

Panjandrum posted a link to this website in another thread. I can understand most of the samples well (though of course it's easier with the aid of the transcript), but for some of the speakers in west Scotland it's as if they were speaking a different language altogether.

I have also heard some very difficult accents from Northern Ireland, on television.


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## mally pense

Outsider said:


> Panjandrum posted a link to this website in another thread. I can understand most of the samples well (though of course it's easier with the aid of the transcript), but for some of the speakers in west Scotland it's as if they were speaking a different language altogether.


 
Fascinating site, but I can only see one speaker in the West of Scotland, i.e. Hector McKenzieHector in Uig, Isle of Skye, or are you including the Glasgow/Ayreshire speakers?

Do you have a link to the other thread by the way?


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## Outsider

Sorry, I had misremembered. The Scotsmen I found particularly difficult to understand were the ones from Portsoy, New Cumnok, and Kilmarnock (not the gentleman from Uig). If I met them on the street, I don't think I would be able to understand them.

The other thread was this one.

P.S. By the way, I also found some of the samples from Northern Ireland very difficult: Ballymoney, Belfast, Bleanish Island.


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## mally pense

Thanks for clarifying. I can certainly understand that you'd have problems with some of the Scottish accents. I've not listened to the Northern Ireland ones yet, but do you also find the 1950's recordings difficult too? Even for someone like me, born and bred in England, it takes a little time to 'tune in' to some of them, and of course there's plenty of examples of unfamiliar dialect words being used.

It worries me hearing all these regional variations though. Even though I can understand all of them (so far, and after getting used to them where necessary), it makes me fearful of the minefields of linguistic difficulties which undoubtedly ahead in whichever languages I may choose to learn in the future.


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## Outsider

Well, if that's a worry, you can always pick a language with very few speakers to learn. Like some lost tribe in the tropical forest... 

P.S. I've been having some non-accent related difficulty navigating the website as well. Where can I find the samples from the 1950s?


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## VivaReggaeton88

I have lived in Costa Rica for a year, and now Argentina. I am from New York, and the southern US accents sound so weird and incorrect to me, I can understand it, but sometimes I don't want to .

As for Spanish, which I learned in New York (mainly from Dominicanos, Salvadoreños y Madrileños) I noticed a significant difference in accents and the different meanings of words. For me, the hardest accent was from El Salvador, 2nd hardest Dominican Republic, and easiest Spain. When I lived in Costa Rica it was a little difficult to get used to the way of speaking (vos and usted, not tú) but it was a lot easier than Salvadoran or Dominican Spanish. Since I moved to Argentina I can finally take a breath of air, the accent is so much easier to understand than all three of the others, and it is beautiful.

So basically, it is all about adapting to your environment and getting used to different ways of speaking.

Qué les vaya bien


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## MarX

mally pense said:


> I came across a very interesting video clip, a news item in French from Radio Canada, which struck me as being a particular good example of regional differences:
> 
> Disparition de Cédrika _(streaming video in Windows Media Player format)_
> There are two speakers: The first is the regular news presenter, and I'm presuming for the moment that she is from Montreal. The second is the director general of a research institute in Quebec. Both are (presumably) well educated, well spoken, and speaking in a formal environment, so the differences you can hear (hopefully) between them will be largely due to regional differences.
> 
> I'm presuming that the second speaker is speaking with a Quebec accent, and the difference to me is very noticeable. In terms of how much difference that makes to my level of comprehension, well I certainly find the news presenter's accent much more immediately understandable (and really not much difficult than a standard French French newsreader's accent, if at all), but at the same time, I'm reasonably confident that with time and exposure to the second speaker's accent (Quebecoise?), I would probably reach the same level of comprehension. I'd be interested in hearing other people's reactions to this comparison though (assuming the video link is still working when you read this).


I watched the clip and I found it easier to understand the brown haired woman. She spoke more clearly and carefully, IMO.


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