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Old 05-15-2013, 10:17 PM
 
Location: Seoul
11,556 posts, read 9,280,412 times
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NYC is full of different accents (East European accent right here), and some may be harder to comprehend than others. Which ones are difficult for you to understand?

West Indian accents completely baffle me. The way people from Trinidad and Jamaica blur their consonants is confusing tbh. Haitian accents are even harder
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Old 05-15-2013, 11:07 PM
 
Location: North Eastern U.S.
439 posts, read 894,183 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Warszawa View Post
West Indian accents completely baffle me. The way people from Trinidad and Jamaica blur their consonants is confusing tbh. Haitian accents are even harder
I'm on the same boat as you with the caribbean folk. Some of them have some pretty thick accents that are hard to understand.
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Old 05-16-2013, 01:58 AM
 
916 posts, read 2,239,587 times
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I think the most difficult accent to understand from my experience is calling tech support to India if
that counts. It's harder to understand what people are talking about on the phone even without the
accent alrready, now you add crappy phone voice, random technical jargons with HEAVY accent into
it. You'll be going like WTF did he just said? Can you repeat that again please..... What do you mean
^#$%^$# again? And it's embarassing for both side if you keep asking someone to repeat themselves,
It gets so awkward you want to change subject or just say "I got it!".

I'm by no means computer illiterate, maybe it's the rhythm of the way they speak that is so different
compare to American English speakers. It probably takes time to get use to it, I bet they have no
problem understanding each other if they speak with the same heavy accent to another Indian. I guess
the more exposure you get with certain accent, the easier it is to understand. But then once a while
you get an Indian tech support that speaks perfect English without any discernible accent at all.
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Old 05-16-2013, 05:02 AM
 
Location: MSP
48 posts, read 144,985 times
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For me as a Europeaner, the hardest accents are the British and the American Southener... especially the second... half of the spelling is left behind when they talk and me as a foreigner I'm just trying to put the puzzle together xD

edit: i know a few grom guyana, and they are also very hard to understand, but i think its more the broken english lol
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Old 05-16-2013, 07:30 AM
 
2,848 posts, read 7,558,388 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Selfmade92 View Post
For me as a Europeaner, the hardest accents are the British and the American Southener... especially the second... half of the spelling is left behind when they talk and me as a foreigner I'm just trying to put the puzzle together xD

edit: i know a few grom guyana, and they are also very hard to understand, but i think its more the broken english lol


My husband is originally from central European (though he's lived in NYC for over 20 years) and his biggest issue is with think British accents. We have to put subtitles on for some movies haha.
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Old 05-16-2013, 11:36 AM
 
Location: Dallas, TX
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Of English speaking countries the hardest for me to understand is the Scottish accent. Maybe some Caribbean or African countries as well.

Of non-English speaking countries, it's
Asians. Especially Thai, and some Chinese.
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Old 05-16-2013, 01:34 PM
 
Location: Planet Brooklyn
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In my life experience, I think 2 are hard to comprehend: 1)Filipino (tagalog/high pitch) 2)Spanglish talk.
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Old 05-16-2013, 03:21 PM
 
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For some reason, I have an impossible time with Irish accents, which is sort of embarrassing for me.
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Old 05-16-2013, 03:29 PM
 
Location: USA
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sometimes english-speaking nigerians and russians.
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Old 05-16-2013, 04:38 PM
 
Location: Seoul
11,556 posts, read 9,280,412 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by likeminas View Post
Of English speaking countries the hardest for me to understand is the Scottish accent. Maybe some Caribbean or African countries as well.

Of non-English speaking countries, it's
Asians. Especially Thai, and some Chinese.
Yeah, Thai is also confusing. I live a mile away from a Thai area, and it's still hard to understand at times

Out of the English speaking countries, Irish is the hardest
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