I can’t help but think they’re the ones with the accent, though I know I must be biased from growing up in the US. Several of the less cultured people I know cannot understand a word that British and Irish people say. Hell, my wife is college educated, has been to the UK, and is only a few generations removed from British and Irish roots, and she won’t watch Snatch because she can’t understand a damn word they’re saying - and not just the pikies.
Stephen Hawking famously complains that his voicebox gives him an American accent.
But I think, just by looking at written words, we say more words closer to how they’re spelled more often (I know the English language is guilty of allowing multiple pronunciations, stress on whatever syllable you fancy, etc, so believe me I’m not saying Americans are perfect here.)
The other day a Scottish lady called my office and just began talking as soon as I picked up the phone and I honestly thought for quite awhile that she was speaking Arabic.
So, do they ever have trouble understanding us, or do we sound as “flat” to them as we sound to ourselves?
The general answer to your question is “no”, although there are bound to be exceptions of course.
Brits hear US accents a lot more often than Americans hear Brit accents, due to the large number of US TV shows and movies seen there. they will also be much more likely to meet an American in Britain than an American is likely to meet a Brit in the US.
No, you don’t sound flat, you’ve all got an accent (we’re very self-aware of the variety of our native accents, too). However, we’re so heavily exposed to a wide variety of American accents, so no, we rarely have trouble. Where things start to get difficult is where a greater level of slang or dialect is involved - when there’s a creole influence, for example.
This is just silliness, and the usual effect of the bias that leads people to think they’re the accentless ones. (As an example of where the Brits beat you: Do you pronounce “metal” and “medal” differently? Most Brits do, most Americans don’t. Do you pronounce “Mary”, “marry”, and “merry” differently? The Brits know what those spelling differences indicate, but many American don’t. And of course there are examples of where you beat the Brits. And there are debatable examples, where each side thinks theirs is the one matching the spelling. And none of it matters for anything… spoken language is primary, written language is a highly artificial secondary. There’s no reason to consider concordance with popular spelling a mark of “accent-less” speech (not that any such thing exists).)
I might be going out on a limb here, but I’ll bet that you have never had any difficulty understanding a BBC announcer, or the Queen (what little we actually hear her say here), or any “media spokesperson” types, and so on. They sound different from Americans, of course, but it’s not as if you have to struggle to understand. Some local dialects, of course, are more difficult for foreigners, just as some American dialects are. Scouse (Liverpool dialect) and other Northern dialects can be quite difficult for American listeners to understand. And I imagine we might find counter-examples in some American dialects, like those of rural Southerners, some Bostonians, and Marylanders.
Several reasons. A simple result of the ratio of populations is one, the same reason you’re more likely to meet an American in Canada than vice versa. Two others come to mind immediately: A greater established background here for many Americans, through military postings across seven decades, and that, while both countries are big tourist destinations for the other’s population, a visiting American will be able to visit a number of places spread across the two countries, whereas visitors to America tend to be concentrated in a few relatively small areas.
Silliness? I said it’s my perception. Unless you have some kind of comparison database then my perception being “silliness” is just your perception. Neither of us are perfect, of course. Brits seem to drop soft-Rs, change TH to F, drop Ls off the ends of words, drop Hs off the beginning of words, etc, more often.
British English: Ee finks aow shoht men sit on veir lauruws aow day.
American English: He thinks all short men sit on their laurels all day.
It’s a good point about the way accents vary throughout the US, though (but mostly only east of the Mississippi.) I’ve had a hard time understand people from New England before. Hell, I’ve ever had a hard time understanding southerners and I grew up in the south.
You’re combining an awful lot of features from some very particular accents (your main model apparently being Cockney). Just as U.S. accents differ, so do British ones. (Also, the rule governing which 'r’s are “dropped” is very systematic; all postvocalic ones are dropped (i.e., after a vowel and not immediately followed by another vowel); thus, one wouldn’t expect to hear the “r” in your “veir”, above). Furthermore, to the man who pronounces “thinks” similarly to “finks”, that is the sound that “th” makes; he’s pronouncing it exactly as it’s spelt.
Seems to me like the most commonly heard accents in English are mutually intelligible, whether mid-Atlantic anchorman or BBC announcer. The trouble creeps in with less frequently heard variations (as in “Trainspotting,” which I did not understand a word of) or ones that deviate more from commonalities across accents.
Here in Indonesia, the non-Americans I know (whether or not their native language is English) report greater difficulty understanding American southerners.
This accent story always makes me laugh: A few years ago I was at a tennis tournament where a lot of different sponsors had paid for the privilege of hanging signs around the courts. To the glee of their competitors in the shipping biz, one foreign moving company had a huge banner that advertised their “FRIGHT FORWARDING.”
Because, you know, Americans say “frate” and Aussies say “frite.” And apparently, when an Australian telephoned the Indonesian sign-maker to order the special banner, the person who took down the instructions only understood American English.
There is not much accent variation west of the Mississippi. Not nearly like from Virginia to Brooklyn to Long Island to Boston to Maine, etc. You’ve got your pockets of Minnesota and North Dakota, sure, but try telling someone from Nebraska apart from an Arizonan, or someone from New Mexico from someone from Nevada.
Everything’s a bit sparser out in the West, sure, but… SomeaccentsfromwestoftheMississippi. I’m sure you’ll have no difficulty judging most of their approximate sources (well, apart from the fact that they’re clearly labelled); at any rate, it should be clear how much they differ.
I’ve lived in southern California for 28 years, and I would give a funny look to that “California accent.” I just got back from a church men’s meeting of ~25 people, so I think I’ve had my daily dose of random accents today in Riverside/Orange Counties, what with my 5 periods of teaching HS, too.
Britain is small and densely populated, and a very large portion of the population live in places that travelling Americans are likely to visit (eg London). The US is huge and sparsely populated, and many of the tourist attractions are not in population centres (eg Grand Canyon, Yellowstone).
Are you saying there is a distinct difference between the typical Oregonian and the typical Californian accent? I mean there are like, hella, like small dialect differences and like… shit, but accent?
No, I’m not making that claim in particular (though I don’t know how well-defined “the typical Californian accent” is); I’m saying “west of the Mississippi River” is a huge place, and no matter how it fares in accent density, there are still lots of accent differences within it.
> British English: Ee finks aow shoht men sit on veir lauruws aow day.
> American English: He thinks all short men sit on their laurels all day.
This is an unfair comparison. The British English version that you give is not Standard British English. It’s one of the more nonstandard dialects. In fact, it’s apparently a combination of several of the more nonstandard dialects. Actually, I can’t even figure out what dialect some of your example comes from.
The American English version is Standard American English or is at least intended to be such. Furthermore, in what sense is the way that “short” is pronounced closer to the way the word is spelled in American English than in British English? “Short” is not pronounced the same as “shot” in British English. The letter “r” is pronounced in British English, but it’s pronounced differently. The fact that it’s not pronounced the same way as in American English doesn’t mean that it’s not pronounced as it’s spelled. Furthermore, in some American dialects, the letter “r” is pronounced in approximately the same way as in Standard British English.
I simply don’t believe an American who claims that they can’t understand Standard British English, although some of the nonstandard British dialects are certainly hard to understand for an American. I don’t remember any period when I was young (and I grew up as a hick from the sticks) that I didn’t hear an occasional Brit on TV (back in the 1950’s) speaking Standard British English. Even when I was very young, I could recognize that they were speaking a different dialect from mine but still an intelligible dialect.
(we’re very self-aware of the variety of our native accents, too). However, we’re so heavily exposed to a wide variety of American accents, so no, we rarely have trouble. Where things start to get difficult is where a greater level of slang or dialect is involved - when there’s a creole influence, for example.