RogueTrader From , joined Dec 1969, posts, RR: Reply 3, posted (11 years 3 weeks 3 days 13 hours ago) and read 1315 times:
I have to agree that the UK has many dialects that are difficult for me to understand. I've had entire conversations with Scotts (in English) where I've not understood any word the other person was saying.
There is starting to be kind of a generic 'mid-western' American accent that journalists supposedly use and is I guess common in most large American cities and where I live. People from other parts of the country often say we have expressions that are a little different, but I think the accent is largely gone. Although not very far away in smaller towns, the accents are still strong.
Banco From United Kingdom, joined Oct 2001, 14752 posts, RR: 55 Reply 4, posted (11 years 3 weeks 3 days 13 hours ago) and read 1311 times:
You are not alone in being unable to understand the Scots, RogueTrader. A lot of the time us English can't understand them either. I've usually told them that this doesn't bother me because what they say doesn't make much sense anyway. From that point it is amazing how quickly and easily they are usually able to get their point across. Of course, I need to refine this technique as the scarring on my face is beginning to become very noticeable.
She's as nervous as a very small nun at a penguin shoot.
OO-VEG From Netherlands, joined Oct 2000, 1081 posts, RR: 1 Reply 6, posted (11 years 3 weeks 3 days 13 hours ago) and read 1301 times:
The Netherlands has some dialects. The province Friesland has a dialect but I don't know that much about that dialect. Also the province Limburg has it's own dialect which is a combination of Dutch, German and a bit French. Each town/city has it's own dialect which and you can't really speak of 1 common dialect for Limburg. Cities closeby the Belgium border where they speak French sound different from the towns nearby the German border (on the German side the dialect looks very much like the dialect at the Dutch side of the border).
And also the North/South difference is quite large. The more to the North you get, the more it looks like Dutch.
I can understand most of the dialect but in some regions it is very hard to understand as they use a strange vocabulary.
Other parts of the country have more of accent but you can't really call it a dialect.
174thfwff From , joined Dec 1969, posts, RR: Reply 7, posted (11 years 3 weeks 3 days 12 hours ago) and read 1288 times:
Yes check out New York State sometime.
If you go to Northern NY you get Canadian accents, lower NY you get the classic New York City accent, and Central New York you get no accent.
Pendrilsaint From United States of America, joined Feb 2001, 685 posts, RR: 0 Reply 8, posted (11 years 3 weeks 3 days 11 hours ago) and read 1280 times:
Im from Western North Carolina , most of the people here have a southern/mountain accent...its not quite as drawled out as the other southern accents and tends to have harsher tones. Also the word You'ns is used instead of Y'all. I dont use the words=P But I do have a slight Georgian/Texan accent...but its not very thick...
Scorpio From Belgium, joined Oct 2001, 4934 posts, RR: 47 Reply 9, posted (11 years 3 weeks 3 days 10 hours ago) and read 1266 times:
In Flanders, there's a huge variation of dialects. Every city and province has its own dialect, and sometimes it's very hard to understand people who only live about 100 miles away from you, because their dialect is so different. If someone in the western part of the country (West-Vlaanderen) speaks to me in their dialect, it's almost impossible to understand for me. Because of this difference, people who speak their dialect on TV are more and more subtitled...
Hurricane From United States of America, joined Feb 2002, 1440 posts, RR: 1 Reply 11, posted (11 years 3 weeks 3 days 10 hours ago) and read 1257 times:
Hmmm...Raleigh, NC...Redneckville...What do you think? As Pendrilsaint said, most locals down here have a very heavy southern accent. (We, however, say y'all more than you'ns) It's kinda funny 'round here, you get accents from everywhere. Of course the thick suth'rn drawl, but then you get the New Yawk/Yankee/Boston accent from all of the relocated northerners. And then there is the Hispanic accent. NC has really become a melting pot of alot of different nationalities/regionalities, so we get alot of accents here. All of my northern/midwestern friends and relatives say I have a pretty bad southern drawl, but all of my relatives/friends down south say they can't even hear it. I figure it is somewhere in the middle...Oh, why can't I have a normal accent???...
Inbound From Trinidad and Tobago, joined Sep 2001, 838 posts, RR: 2 Reply 12, posted (11 years 3 weeks 3 days 10 hours ago) and read 1255 times:
I live in trinidad/caribbean.
one hell of a combination here.
national language is English because we were a british colony,
but we have Dutch, Spanish, French, African, East Indian and Middle Eastern twists to the dialects here....
Mcdougald From , joined Dec 1969, posts, RR: Reply 13, posted (11 years 3 weeks 3 days 9 hours ago) and read 1245 times:
There are different accents within Canada. When I briefly lived in Ontario a few years ago, having grown up in Manitoba, I was told at least twice that I spoke with an accent. Newfoundlanders have a powerful accent of their own, totally distinct from anything else. So do many people who have been fluently bilingual from an early age, but raised in French-speaking families.
EGGD From United Kingdom, joined Feb 2001, 12426 posts, RR: 40 Reply 14, posted (11 years 3 weeks 3 days 8 hours ago) and read 1242 times:
The majority of people here don't have much accent at all. People who have lived here for a long time sound very bristolian, whereas I and some others are sort of posh slang...
Its kinda odd, but I feel awkward when talking to Americans, because their accent is so much more flowing.
TNboy From Australia, joined Mar 2002, 1131 posts, RR: 22 Reply 17, posted (11 years 3 weeks 3 days 7 hours ago) and read 1221 times:
Queenslanders tend to speak a bit differently to other Australians, ay! You can quite often pick a Queenslander when they talk, but otherwise we're all much the same. Nowhere near the difference between northern and southern Americans for example, and nothing like the regional differences in Britain. The big difference is probably between rural and city people, but more in the pace of speech than anything else, but guess that's much the same everywhere. Norfolk island has a very definite dialect, almost a different language.
cheers
Bill
Blink182 From Azerbaijan, joined Oct 1999, 5430 posts, RR: 19 Reply 18, posted (11 years 3 weeks 3 days 5 hours ago) and read 1215 times:
I live in a place with the traditional american accent, and then you have the Rednecks with accents I cannot understand one bit. Meanwhile, people have said I sound Canadian.
As for England, I do have little trouble understanding their accent, especially if they are speaking a little bit faster. I love the accent, but I can't understand it sometimes!
blink
Give me a break, I created this username when I was a kid...
IMissPiedmont From United States of America, joined May 2001, 6201 posts, RR: 43 Reply 20, posted (11 years 3 weeks 3 days 4 hours ago) and read 1198 times:
I assure you that where I grew up, there is no "dialect."
On that note I'm fixing to go down ta' the crick and draw some water so's I can red up the house a touch.
What is it with all the "is there a possibilty airline X will.." threads? The answer it'll is possible.
LH423 From Canada, joined Jul 1999, 6501 posts, RR: 55 Reply 21, posted (11 years 3 weeks 3 days 4 hours ago) and read 1194 times:
Oh yeah! I live in Boston and we have one of the most recognizable accents in America. It's a remnant from all the British and Irish settlers. A true Boston accent will erase "r"s from the ends of words and replace them with an "ah" sound, like "car" becomes "cah". A popular phrase is "I pahked the cah in Hahvahd yahd." We also will take those dropped "r"s and put them where they don't belong, like at the end of a word that ends in a vowel when the following word starts with a vowel as well. "I hee-ah Florider is nice this time yee-ah." One exception that almost always carries an "r" regardless of the following word. That word is "idea" which almost always is pronounced as "i-dear".
These days, thanks to television and radio having said what a "correct" American accent is supposed to sound like, there is a homogenization of the accents in this country, and unique accents like that in Boston are slowly dissapearing. More of my generation (myself included) do not speak with an accent that say my parents'.
LH423
« On ne voit bien qu'avec le cœur. L'essentiel est invisible pour les yeux » Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Digitalone From Australia, joined Aug 2001, 137 posts, RR: 0 Reply 22, posted (11 years 3 weeks 3 days 3 hours ago) and read 1190 times:
I know Norway was several dialects, depending on which area you come from (North, South, East or West). The strange this is that some of the Norwegians from my school find it easier to understand the Swedes and Danes, but more difficult to understand a fellow Norwegian from the North...go figure
Shawn Patrick From United States of America, joined Jan 2000, 2588 posts, RR: 18 Reply 23, posted (11 years 3 weeks 3 days 3 hours ago) and read 1188 times:
Yeah LH423 I know what the Boston accent is like! I love it! Also, store=stowah and floor=flowah. Sort of accented on "sto" and "flo". It cracks me up every time I hear these words!
Well, I live in Colorado and here we speak pure, nonaccented English. However, to my family who lives in New York, they think I talk really wierd! tomato=tomato, not tomaytah, water=water, not wooter.
BCal DC10 From United States of America, joined Jul 2001, 717 posts, RR: 5 Reply 24, posted (11 years 3 weeks 2 days 23 hours ago) and read 1173 times:
UK accents go a lot more local than that!
I'm from Lancashire, and people tell me I have a "Preston" accent (which horrifies me, but kinda true - Lytham) whereas I can spot someone from East Lancs such as Burnley or Colne quite easily. You also have a Mancunian accent, and a Scouse accent. I'm sure my online friends from the Manchester/Preston area will confirm, or otherwise.
I can also spot someone from Leeds as opposed to someone from the East Ridings or Sheffield in Yorkshire.
In London you have Cockney, Norf London (Arsenal esque) kind of accent, and also, from my days of living sarf of the rivva, someone sarf landon.
I can (usually) spot the difference between someone from Glasgow and Edinburgh, but not the rest of Scotland. Wales and Northern Ireland I wouldn't know if they have regional dialects within them.
I still think the Brummie is the worlds worst. I used to live there and it rubbed off onto me very badly. Up the Villlaaaa!
25 Banco: Indeed, BCalDC10. However, the variation in accent and dialect across the UK is weakening. The highly individual Kent accents are dying out, to be rep
26 Airsicknessbag: Definitely, every German region except the Hanover area has it´s own dialect. In some regions their respective dialect is used more widely than in ot
27 707CMF: I grew up in Paris, where there used to be a dialect, a log time ago, called "Francien" which by edict of king Francois 1st at Villers Cotteret became
28 Hartsfieldboy: Remember people that an accent is different from a dialect. Dialects have both different pronoucation and grammer, accents just have different pronouc
29 Turbolet: Here in Gozo where I live, Ghawdxi is spoken. It's basically a horrendously distorted version of Maltese -turbolet
30 David_itl: There are at least 2 Mancunian accents as for a large part of summer 1992, I worked with a Northern Mancunian and wished that there were subtitles un
31 Pendrilsaint: What I cant stand is how people are classed upon their accents. Like the person above who said that "rednecks" talked a certain way. Let it be said th
32 Leftseat86: Where I lived , in Los Angeles, we had the "Whatever!" valley girl accent, which I am accustomed to, the "Whas up ese" latino dialect, the "DHAMN NIGG
33 Trickijedi: Well I don't live in the Philippines anymore but from what I know about the country, they have something like 1,000 dialects depending on what part of
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