I recently took a trip to America and had a lovely time but had trouble with their accents..?

Question

I absolutely loved my trip to America this l;ast fall. It was amazingly beautiful, but I had a difficult time understanding their thick accents. I traveled to the east coast, midwest, and west coast, and found their accents slightly different in each area, yet still equally hard to understand. I find it funny that anywhere I went, they tend to run their words together ( a lot like the irish!) and even not pronounce certain letters at all. Ex: Mirror was pronounced "meer" Crayon was always "cran". Lots more, but my question is- What do you do when you travel across the pond to make it easier for you to understand the accents?

Excuse me to whoever thought this was an insulting question. I certainly didn't mean it as one, and personally I don't see how it came across as one. It was a simple question about how others can have an easier time understanding the accents of another country. I'm sorry to those who took it the wrong way

Answer 1

I have been in a number of countries other than my own. A sense of humor and the ability to laugh at the differences will usually help that person to speak slower or explain what they mean. It happens in America too when one travels to the different parts of the country. If I do not understand what someone said to me I usually laugh or shake my head no and say I have no idea what your just said to me. They will usually repeat it or change to words that are not slang. Very few take offense once they hear another accent. The ones that do are not worth your conversation.

Answer 2

Hm. I say "meer" and "cran." Sounds like the Midwest was the worst of it. We from up here, as my theatre director tells us, speak with a smile. We say "gawd" and don't drop our jaw to pronounce words fluently. So, moving on to the actual quesiton...

It is difficult to understand accents, of course. I think the British speak the clearest, although British-English and American-English use different words, which can jumble things up. The Australians are very thick, much like those from the deep South, which is difficult for me to understand at time. I'm all right with the Easterners, however the key to understanding different accents is to be familiar with the tones they use: The Midwesterners, like I previously mentioned, don't drop the jaw and the Os often come out as As. The Southerners take their time when speaking, although have a twang. The Easterners don't pronounce their Rs, and the British put Rs after words that end in As. And the Australians, well, I don't really know what they do, but it's thick. So, if you understand what the accent is and listen carefully, it may be easier to understand.

Answer 3

i watch a lot of BBCAmerica, and i had some difficulty at first understanding some things that were said for the same reason. words are sometimes mashed together because they are spoken too fast. but the more i watched, the easier it was for me to take it in. i think it just takes getting used to it...hearing it a lot. it will still stand out to you , but will not be as difficult to understand. i am in california, and i find southern accents to be the worst. (ie: instead of "what are you doing?", you'll hear "whuchalldoin?"). i even have a hard time with those myself!

anyway...i know this doesn't really answer your question directly, but i just wanted to empathize with you and still make a suggestion.

Answer 4

Let me say something and that is I am from California but have lived in Texas for 6 years now and believe me I had problems understanding myself because of the accent.
But the one thing I lived in Italy for 13 years off and on and believe me they have the same problem and thier is much difference between the northern Italy and southern Italy due to accents.
You see we from California are the closes you are going to get no accent at all.

Answer 5

I think those people who said "meer" and "cran" would disagree with you. They thought they said mirror and crayon, and they probably did, you just didn't hear it. Trouble understanding people's accents is due to an untrained ear. They probably said "mee-rr" and "craa-nn" but you heard "meer" and "cran".

Answer 6

I was going to say what she said. Not sure who you were talking to, but it wasn't most of us, at least not here in the midwest.

I'll admit to saying mirror as "mirrer" but a crayon is a cray-on, and I pronouce every letter that is supposed to be pronounced.

I do talk fast though - too many years of teaching.

Answer 7

Americans are very hard to understand sometimes especially texans I once met a texan bloke very strong accent the only thing i could understand was the work whisky

Answer 8

What's the point of your question? Just to be insulting?

As you might have noticed while visiting, America is a big place. Big place = diverse cultures, varying accents. People from Leeds have a different accent than people from London who have a different accent than people from Bristol......

When traveling "across the pond,"
I generally try to skip the UK rather than deal with the never ending superiority complex that is somehow inbred there. When forced to go to England, however, I recognize that I am in a different country where people speak English with an array accents and delight in the differences.

Answer 9

British English, that's a 'distant places accessory' to me, is absolutely the coolest of something, different than in its maximum crude dialects (and that i could say the comparable and worse pertaining to to the crude dialects of my very very own American accessory). The French females are dazzling nonetheless, confident. yet in addition, i've got chanced on the Dutch accessory to be particularly exciting. and that i take place to love the German accessory myself. Heidi Klum... rrrraow.

Answer 10

England and America...divided by a common language.