Topic: American vs. British accents

British accents are my favorite, followed somewhat closely by Australian accents, although I'm not big on American accents.

Even though I live in Australia, I get no fancy accent, sadly. I've always wanted a nice, clean English accent...

Everybody has a freakin' accent. EVERYBODY.

I'm an Aussie living in the USA at the moment, and it's amazing how many times people can't understand what I'm saying. I mean, it's not all the time, but often enough to surprise me.

I was trying to order a cider from the pub the other day. I had to say it about 5 or 6 times, after which the bar girl still didn't know what I wanted, which ended up with me having to point at a sign on the wall to tell her what I wanted. Amazing. (Particularly so, since she'd already served me a couple of ciders that night).

For a while we were living across from a Irish couple who we were friends with, and my wife went with the Irish girl to do their shopping. At the checkout, the girl working there said to the Irish girl, "Oh wow, I love your accent. I wish I had an accent."

Both my wife and the Irish girl looked at each other funny, and the Irish girl said, "Umm... You DO have an accent."

"Really? What does it sound like?"

facepalm

The is nothing better than the British Accent.
I can pull off a pretty good Geordie Accent,and Scottish. ones.

I agree that I like british accents and Southern or new jersey accents I can't stand. Seeing as I have a new york style accent, I'm okay with the way I speak. NO offence to people that do have those accents.

I love british accents. Americans are... alright.

I have a New York accent. If you don't know what that is, well...I don't either. It's harder to tell if you have an accent when everybody here talks the same...as for my opinion of other accents, I find them interesting. They add character and personality.

I was gonna say this, too. I can understand why some people think they don't, but they do. They just don't know it because it's how they and everyone around them talks, so it sounds natural to them.

As for people not understanding other people with accents, I often find that funny. While I have to strain sometimes, I never seem to have trouble understanding people unless they're mumbling or have a particular British accent that apparently even british people have difficulty understanding. I sometimes have to play the interpreter when my parents watch British shows (which they love even though they often have difficulty understanding what they're saying). Even my brother can have difficulty - I remember my brother was watching an interview of the actor who played Harry Potter, and he couldn't understand a word he was saying. Sure, he had a heavy accent, but I don't think I actually had trouble understanding him. :/ I wonder why that is? I don't exactly have good verbal or listening skills. Perhaps it's just because I watched a lot of TV and read Redwall (where every species has a particular way of speaking) as a kid? Or maybe some people are just better at understanding accents than others?

It's just that people can't hear their own accent, so as a result they sound 'natural.'

As fr difficult accents - trying to understand most south east Asian accents is difficult. Thai, Phillipinos, Indonesians... These people usually have very thick accents and it takes a lot of practice to understand them.

I'd say the only difficult native English accent would be the Scottish people. They make non sense to me (or most of the civilised world, it seems )

The Boston accent is hard to understand. They talk way too fast!!!

I think it's largely a matter of exposure. Growing up I've seen a lot of TV from overseas, so I can understand many different accents (i.e. all US ones, most UK and Irish ones except for perhaps the really broad ones). Also, Australia gets a lot of tourism so we're exposed to accents from all around the world. As an aside, I know what most of the words Americans use mean, even if I don't use them myself, so I haven't really had any problems adjusting since I've moved here.

On the other hand, I don't think that's really reciprocated - at least in the USA. A lot of the words I use are met with questioning stares (even stuff that SHOULD be obvious to figure out - my wife wanted to buy what we would call a 'keyring', but the girl had no idea what she wanted until my wife thought to ask for a 'keychain'). Most of the shows on US TV that I've seen are US shows, so they don't really get exposed to international accents and might have trouble understanding them. When I've travelled to cities (I'm in central Pennsylvania) that have more tourism (such as Washington D.C.) we seem to be understood better, I assume because people have had more exposure to various accents. People in those places can pick me as Australian, whereas in PA they always have to ask.

I'm a scientist, and a few times I've gone to conferences and have had trouble understanding some presenters. On subsequent times, however, it's become easier - I assume, because I'm just getting used to it.

to be fair, that could just as easily be attributed to the fact that new stuff hits all the time — for all the girl knew, you may have been asking for a new type of actual ring, like for a finger, but in the shape of a key. I know i've made that sort of mistake myself while working retail, someone will come in asking for something totally weird and i'll be about to send them in the wrong direction until they explain exactly what it is they want, and we'll carry it under a different term than what they were using. that sort of thing isn't limited to foreigners or immigrants, my friend; we do it to our own too :3

Sociologically, America is an incredibly closed nation with very little tolerance for foreign culture, so that's why the Americans either don't know, or refuse to acknowledge cultural quirks and mannerisms.

You find a similar thing in Japan. The main difference is that the Japanese manners won't let them missunderstand a gaijin, so they'll often pretend they understand you when really they have NFI what you just said.

Americans will just go "what you say?"

Fascinating country to study from a social psychology perspective.

... so there's something wrong with asking someone to repeat themselves if you don't understand what they're saying? i'm confused now.

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I find it amazing how, on the news, they'll be interviewing people in a different country and subtitle them. These people are speaking PERFECT English, with a slight but perfectly understandable accent, and the news feels they have to give them subtitles.

Unreal!

@TBD: I've worked retail, and I can understand the occasional confusion. However, this was a merchandise store for the University I work at - they don't sell jewelry. Nevertheless, my problem isn't that she didn't understand, but that I've noticed a lot of people don't even ATTEMPT to help you out and offer suggestions or figure out what you're looking for. They just stare at you while you fumble around in your brain trying to remember what an American calls it. I've had this happen on multiple occasions. I'm not assuming all Americans do that - that would be unfair - but in my experience, it happens a lot.

(Another one I love is getting food. Me: "Can I please have a ... to take away?" Them: "Is that for here or to go?")

Oh, no, there's nothing wrong with it. I'm not criticising here. It's just that the Japanese culture is too proud to admit any failing, perceived or otherwise. The American culture would rather understand what the heck is going on - and on their terms.

Similar to Wheels, I will never forget the time I went to an American Starbucks and asked for an iced chocolate. Common and all heck drink here - milk, ice cream, chocolate syrup or melted chocolate. The woman looked at me like I was nuts and simply said "huh?" on the third time I gave up and asked for a cappuccino instead. I hate cappuccino, but everywhere in the world has those and I wasn't going to risk asking for a long black in case that is then Aussie term for it.

While I recognise that she was likely simply an idiot, and I've had nice retail experiences in the US to compensate, I've learned not to ask for anything in an American shop. If I can't see it myself, I don't buy it

American's win because we don't have accents. We are the normal way of speaking. Everyone else has an accent though

so? lol, do you know how many times I've been asked directions to a random nearby landmark, which restaurant has the best blah-blah-blah, or what other store would carry (insert item you have absolutely no experience with here)? surely you got those sorts of questions during your own retail days :3

that's retail, man — it happens to all of us — and a University store? i'm assuming students are behind the counter at that kind of place? if so, that's like double-retail in terms of 'they probably don't give a crap' (no offense to college kids, it's just that i've worked alongside too many of you :3)... either way, in a retail situation i'd chalk that kind of thing up to laziness or apathy long before i'd chalk it up to any sort of potential language barrier, lol.

that question is drummed into their brains... it's like 'would you like fries with that' even if you already ordered them — i've done food service before too. your brain kinda goes numb after a while, and you won't even realize you said something totally idiotic until about an hour after you said it, even if the person called you out on it right when it happened.
_{food service does strange things to you}

@Waltz: ... did they even have that item on their menu? if not, you can't really fault them for not knowing what you're talking about when you come in and ask for it by name, lol... even a big international chain like Starbucks has its regional quirks :3 to be honest, though, i kinda hate going into coffee shops sometimes; they've all got their own names for stuff the other chains carry, and sometimes you'll get the wrong thing entirely if you ask for Shop A's item-name at Shop B on accident

Although it's not my native language, I've never had much trouble understanding any English accent, be it UK, Aussie, American or anything else. I've seen plenty of British and American shows alike, so I am inclined to listen to the similarities rather than the differences.

Terminology allows for confusion, though. What the British call 'Chips' are 'French Fries' in the US. (Why French? They were invented in Belgium.) When you ask for 'chips' in the US you get what a Brit would call 'crisps'. I also hate those ambiguous words. Take the word 'liberal' for example. In the US, that seems to refer to someone with leftist political beliefs, while in many other countries, it is the opposite. And then there's that weird football/soccer thing.

Usually I can tell by the accent where English-speaking people are from. The only things I can't distinguish from each other are the Australian and the New Zealand accent.

You don't have to worry about the accents in that case. You just wait about five minutes and see if the person mocks New Zealand. If they do, you've found an Australian.