Gah! People with accents!! !

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For some awkward reason I cannot understand people with a accent, it does not matter if it is a deep accent or a soft one, i still cannot understand. This was this mute guy once who was talking to me, he was trying to tell me something... I could not understand what he was saying. Finally the person next to me told me he was asking how many months due I was.......

.......... I was not pregnant....

anyways, back to the topic. Whenever I go to buy something, and the cashier talks in a deep accent, I can never understand what they are trying to tell me. It is very frustrating at times....

Anyone else have this issue?

How could someone who was mute talk to you?

I think most people struggle to some extent with unfamiliar accents.

he could like.... breath words.... he could not form words, but I think he could mouth them, and he use hand signals. not sign language... but similar.

his vocal cords did not work... but he could... this is hard to explain... it's kind of like exhaling very hard....

Depending on the background noise I struggle to understand anyone. It is harder with a thick accent. Some are easier than other because I'm more familiar with the cadence. Most southern US accents, especially Texan, are easy because I heard that accent growing up. It's easy to pick up Southern accents myself. Spanish accents are fairly easy to understand for the same reason. Other accents are difficult. I really can't deal with a doctor if there's a foreign accent. No prejudice, I just can't understand them.

Yeah I get really annoyed by Southern Accents..

^ Your from the north aren't you?

I cannot understand ppl with a forgien accent...period. Unless it is an african accent..,most africans who speak english do so with perfect diction, so they are easy for me to understand.

But when the telemarketer from India calls, I just hand the phone to someone else to interpet or hang up. Mom thought I was rude yesterday when someone called from an 800 number with a super thick India accent and after 4 times of me asking him to repeat why he was calling me, I just hung up the phone. She was like, what if it is important? I told her it was someone from India who can barely speak coherant english calling me on an 800 number, I doubt it was important. If it was, they would have had somebody who could speak clearer on the line. This statement did not help my case any.

Also because of my hearing loss, accents are really difficult for me to understand.

Jojo

Who me? No, I was born in Texas and grew up on the Texas border. The Texan accent is normal to me. Some of the thicker Northern accents would be harder for me to understand, or at least spell in my head.

The mute person wasn't actually speaking in an accent, but I can see how he would be hard to understand. That would happen to anyone.

I find that very, very hard to believe.

What about most British accents? Are they hard to understand? OK, some of the accents from the Celtic fringe are hard for us English to understand too...

Why? Most people who aren't from here just love Southern accents. They are completely charmed by how slow I talk and how it sounds like I'm speaking through a mouth full of sugar. And that's "sugah" to us.

I personally like Eastern European accents.

Africans have a sort of a british accent but with more rhythm to their speech and the enunciate very clearly...maybe that was what I was trying to say.

Some do, a lot don't. Also, a lot of Africans can't speak English. English is only an official language in about 20 of the 54 African countries: Botswana (co-official with Tswana); Cameroon (co-official with French); Gambia; Ghana; Kenya (co-official with Swahili); Lesotho (co-official with Sesotho); Liberia; Malawi; Mauritius; Namibia; Nigeria; Rwanda (co-official with Kinyarwanda and French); Seychelles (co-official with French and Seychellois Creole); Sierra Leone; South Africa (co-official with 10 other languages); South Sudan; Swaziland (co-official with Swati); Uganda (co-official with Swahili); Zambia and Zimbabwe. In some of those countries many of the population won't speak full and proper English but a thick English-based creole or dialect.

I think everyone has trouble understanding people with accents to some degree. I know that I do sometimes when people have really thick accents. It makes me feel really bad when I'm talking to a foreigner with a big accent, because I know they're trying their best to communicate and I feel terrible always asking them to repeat themselves!

This is why I hate calling customer service. The person on the other end is ALWAYS someone with a foreign accent who I won't be able to understand.

I can understand most accents just fine. I have issues with really thick Indian accents. Like really thick. And also hard is accents from Vietnam and probably other SE Asian countries. Really hard to understand. I have no trouble with other Asian accents. Chinese, Japanese, Korean, no problem. Philipine is especially neat and easy to understand.

Different English-speaking accents are pretty cool actually. Especially Australian and New Zealander. Eastern European is legible. African is too. Native Spanish and Portugese is also legible.

This comes from a West Coaster, AKA the TV presenter accent. Ours is pretty neutral as far as English accents go.

I have a hard time with many accents, a very very hard time with some. There was an old man living here who spoke Louisiana Black-- I could never get a word he said -- I had to get his wife or one of his kids to translate for me (they were native to right here, lower midwest, as someone said "A TV presenter accent"). We're pretty well averaged out in this area, as in California. I'm the same, but 78 rpm. (That's a joke: a 1950s "accent": how many of you understood it?) Some British accents I get pretty well, some not so much. I have a little trouble when they even type things like "colour" or "tyres".