British Accents? do you have some trouble to understand each other?

Question

Hi, I was wondering if English people have some trouble to understand Scottish people or Welsh people and mutually.

Answer 1

Definitely, yes. Some accents in the British Isles are very strong, with specific regional dialect words that are not commonly known outside the area where they are used.
I find it can be very difficult to understand the broad Geordie (Newcastle / Tyneside NE England). The Glasgow accent can be complete gobbledegook to every-one except another Glaswegian. I once had a girlfriend from East Wall, Dublin, a charming Irish coleen, but I would get rather embarrassed when I'd ask her for the third time to repeat what she had just said because I could not understand her accent. And the Belfast dialect....'Wadeeowdynaee' can be translated as 'What do I do now'.. To end, there is the famous Cockney accent from East London with its rhyming slang and the sing-song Liverpuddlian accent from Liverpool that is delightful to hear but sometime very difficult to understand, eg 'Gorra-cob-onyer-avyer?' can be translated as 'Are you in a bad mood?'
This rich variety of British accents may be disappearing to be replaced by 'Estuary English' heard on British TV. The 'T' has been completey abolished ('b-er' for 'better', etc.), and the short anomatopaeic anglo-saxon words are becoming much more popular in every-day speech.
A living language changes, but I hope the rich variety of regional British accents will survive.

Answer 2

English people have GREAT difficulty in understanding Welsh people when they speak Welsh.The same goes for Scots Gaelic.When they are speaking in English, however there is no more of a problem understanding the accents than other English accents.(Remember, the Scottish accents of, say Glasgow and Edinburgh are very different as are the accents of North and South Wales). Geordies, brummies, cockneys, scousers, west country people all find each other's accents a bit strange.
Welsh and Scottish people can understand most English accents as Caicos Turkey has suggested due to exposure by TV; it's dialects that pose the greater problem as Brian O has so eloquently pointed out..

Answer 3

Not usually no.
Sometimes there are the odd words or phrases which a specific part of the UK uses and the rest dont, which may sometimes get a bit confusing.
But as for the accents, no.


P.S. I am adding this as an extra bit after reading other answers - accent and dialect are 2 different things. The phrases and types of slang, such as the London cockney is a dialect, not the accent. The accent is simply the way things are said, not what is said. I know I myself have referred to this, because yes it does make it harder to understand, but the accents (i.e. the sound of the voice when the words are spoken) dont always cause problems.

Answer 4

I doubt any Brits have trouble understanding Americans thanks to how much American media we see, I certainly don't. However, there's a variety of accents in Britain, some of which are quite strong. I believe Cheryl Cole was kicked off the American X-Factor because they couldn't understand her Geordie accent (she's from Newcastle, England). Most Americans won't have heard a Geordie speak before so a lot will probably have difficulty understanding them well, especially when they're using Geordie slang (no-one else in Britain can understand that!). The same could be said about many other accents in Britain.

Answer 5

A lot of the answers have been "no", but I find it depends more on the person than the accent. However, when I speak, I find that English people seem to be unable to understand what I say, and the Scottish neds can't understand me because I'm well-spoken :P

Answer 6

I think it depends on the area in Scotland or Wales they come from..The Glasweigians speak so fast it does seem like another language, as for the Welsh i just don't WANT to understand them, the ones i've met are very rude!

Answer 7

Takes some getting used to...I spend a lot of time in Scotland and they tend to speak slower when speaking to an English person...If they speak to each other it can be very hard to understand...don't spend much time in Wales...The Welsh of course have their own language....

Answer 8

Yes. Especially Glaswegians.

Answer 9

I find some Glaswegians difficult to understand. However, I think the encouragement of regional accents of all kinds on TV has accustomed us all to accents which we wouldn't perhaps otherwise have been exposed to.

Answer 10

I find Geordie difficult sometimes. And people in Aberdeen seem to talk faster than other Scottish people. Unless it was the beer.