# Do British and Irish people have a hard time understanding Americans speak? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 10, 2008, 5:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-british-and-irish-people-have-a-hard-time-understanding-americans-speak/462903 "2008-09-10T05:01:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Indistinguishable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/90ced4/32.png) [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2008, 8:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-british-and-irish-people-have-a-hard-time-understanding-americans-speak/462903/21 "2008-09-10T08:03:11Z")
> [@Desert\_Nomad](#): > > Native Nevadans can tell who isn’t… locally we say Ne-Va-Duh, and many from outside No. Ca and Nevada say Ne-VAH-duh. Yeah, this is why I hate so-called “phonetic spelling”. I guess the first is meant to be the vowel of “cat” and the second the vowel of “bra”? ---
**Author:** ![Pushkin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ee59a6/32.png) [@Pushkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pushkin)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2008, 8:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-british-and-irish-people-have-a-hard-time-understanding-americans-speak/462903/22 "2008-09-10T08:52:53Z")
Are there any dialects in the US where people speak more softly and quickly? On TV, over the phone and in person, Americans seem to speak a little bit more loudly and slowly, making them easier to understand. Just my experience. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2008, 9:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-british-and-irish-people-have-a-hard-time-understanding-americans-speak/462903/23 "2008-09-10T09:10:33Z")
Perhaps they’re speaking loudly and slowly so that you can understand them better. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2008, 9:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-british-and-irish-people-have-a-hard-time-understanding-americans-speak/462903/24 "2008-09-10T09:14:13Z")
> [@Cisco](#): > > British English: Ee finks aow shoht men sit on veir lauruws aow day. Dick Van Dyke is American. ---
**Author:** ![An\_Gadai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@An\_Gadai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Gadai)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2008, 9:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-british-and-irish-people-have-a-hard-time-understanding-americans-speak/462903/25 "2008-09-10T09:22:46Z")
I, for one, have no problem understanding the majority of Americans I have encountered. The trouble comes for me, both here and in other Anglophone countries when specific dialectal words are used. The vernacular in rural Co. Tyrone where my family are from would be difficult to decipher by someone not familiar with it. That whole myth that we’re the ones with the accent and they have no accent is just ridiculous and I have encountered it so many times “OMG you’ve got an accent!”, “So do you,” “No I don’t.” etc. I don’t know if I make more effort with Americans but I’ve encountered more English people who have had trouble understanding me than Americans, there again usually down to dialectal terms that perhaps I wouldn’t use when talking to an American. My girlfriend is American and she has confessed that sometimes when I’m talking with my friends she doesn’t understand fully what we’re saying. In a comparable scenario the other way around I would have no such problem. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2008, 9:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-british-and-irish-people-have-a-hard-time-understanding-americans-speak/462903/26 "2008-09-10T09:58:22Z")
> [@Cisco](#): > > 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.) I think there’s something wrong with this statement - you pronounce words closer to the way they sound _in your dialect_ - it’s a tautology - you’ve accepted that your perception of how things _ought to sound_ is somehow independent from how _you make them sound_, when in fact, no such objectivity is really possible. Yes, you can construct representations of how a foreign accent appears to violate the spelling/sounding conventions built into your dialect - for example, it may appear to many Americans that the BBC presenter, trying to say _Hot Dog_ is actually saying something that you might represent in writing or ‘hort dorg’ (or possibly ‘hawt dawg’), but that BBC presenter listening to a Texan saying _Hot Dog_ might think it would better be represented in writing as ‘hart darg’ (or possibly “haht dahg”). Neither is closer to or further from some universal sounding scheme, because there is none - you can only judge it in comparison to your own scheme - and it’s no surprise that when you measure yourself this way, you find a close match. ---
**Author:** ![Ximenean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/aca169/32.png) [@Ximenean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ximenean)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2008, 10:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-british-and-irish-people-have-a-hard-time-understanding-americans-speak/462903/27 "2008-09-10T10:21:21Z")
The only American dialects that I have any trouble at all with (of those that I have heard) are some of the African American vernacular dialects, I suppose because those dialects have more grammatical and phonological differences from my dialect. Or because I’m exposed to them less. But I’d agree with others that for many Brits, especially us in the south, other British accents can sometimes be more difficult to understand than any American accent we hear on TV - such as strong north-east English accents, and some Scottish and Northern Irish accents, that have tended to be heard less often outside their regions than “standard” British dialects. ---
**Author:** ![MarcusF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/67e7ee/32.png) [@MarcusF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MarcusF)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2008, 1:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-british-and-irish-people-have-a-hard-time-understanding-americans-speak/462903/28 "2008-09-10T13:35:38Z")
I can only agree with **Usram** - generally have less problem with American accents than some regional British accents. Even with a TV series like _The Wire_ it didn’t take me that long to understand what was being said by the characters with the thickest accents - the drug dealers and their customers on the streets. Mind you, I still have to concentrate! Taking \*\*Cisco’\*\*s Dick Van Dykesque example of British speach: > [@](#): > > British English: Ee finks aow shoht men sit on veir lauruws aow day. Does this say something about British characters in American films and TV programmes? It often seems to me the only English accents heard are either upper class toffs (normally evil!) or salt-of-the-earth, lovable Cockney rogues - which, I guess , is what this is meant to represent. ---
**Author:** ![An\_Gadai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@An\_Gadai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Gadai)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2008, 1:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-british-and-irish-people-have-a-hard-time-understanding-americans-speak/462903/29 "2008-09-10T13:38:15Z")
I hear it said like Father Ted trying to say “I don’t belieeeeeve it”. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2008, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-british-and-irish-people-have-a-hard-time-understanding-americans-speak/462903/30 "2008-09-10T13:45:50Z")
> [@Cisco](#): > > 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. No, no. American English: He zinks ol shoht men seet on deir lohrels ol déi. What I’m trying to point is that, only because you’re used to considering your own phonetic correspondance as “direct,” doesn’t mean it is. To me, a Spaniard, all dialects of English share the characteristic of not being able to know with 99% certainty how to pronounce a word based on how it’s spelled. ---
**Author:** ![Pushkin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ee59a6/32.png) [@Pushkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pushkin)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2008, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-british-and-irish-people-have-a-hard-time-understanding-americans-speak/462903/31 "2008-09-10T13:58:27Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > Perhaps they’re speaking loudly and slowly so that you can understand them better. **What say you!?** If they were, they were avoiding the trap the British stereotypically fall into, MAKING. IT. VERY. OBVIOUS. DO. YOU. SPEAK. ENNNGLISH? ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2008, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-british-and-irish-people-have-a-hard-time-understanding-americans-speak/462903/32 "2008-09-10T13:59:06Z")
> [@](#): > > No, no. > American English: He zinks ol shoht men seet on deir lohrels ol déi. ??? Don’t get me wrong – I think Americans have accents, too. But I’m hard pressed to zink of anywhere in the US where “think” would be pronounced “zink”. And most places in the US (unlike Boston, where I live) don’t drop the “r” in “short”. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2008, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-british-and-irish-people-have-a-hard-time-understanding-americans-speak/462903/33 "2008-09-10T14:09:13Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > ??? > Don’t get me wrong – I think Americans have accents, too. > > But I’m hard pressed to zink of anywhere in the US where “think” would be pronounced “zink”. > And most places in the US (unlike Boston, where I live) don’t drop the “r” in “short”. Spanish phonetics, the th in think is closest to a spanish z than to any other letter we use and the r in short, even when pronounced, is almost nonexistant compared with our soft r. It was just an example of one way in which American pronunciation can be reflected which doesn’t match the actual spelling. I’m sure a French or Japanese or Italian-speaking Doper can come up with another version, again non-matching. ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2008, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-british-and-irish-people-have-a-hard-time-understanding-americans-speak/462903/34 "2008-09-10T14:15:13Z")
What? 😕 ---
**Author:** ![bordelond](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bordelond/32/150_2.png) [@bordelond](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bordelond)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2008, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-british-and-irish-people-have-a-hard-time-understanding-americans-speak/462903/35 "2008-09-10T14:19:00Z")
> [@Pushkin](#): > > Are there any dialects in the US where people speak more softly and quickly? “More quickly” is not a problem to find – most of the New-York-City area accents are fast-paced (e.g. Brooklynese, Yiddish-influenced English). However, they aren’t particularly soft 😃 “More softly” would be found in heart of the Deep South (thinking Mississippi and Alabama), in Hawaii, and in areas of Scandinavian speech influences such as Minnesota. But then, none of those accents are particularly quick. Now “more softly and quickly” together, in one American accent? That’s a stumper to me … can’t think of one offhand. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2008, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-british-and-irish-people-have-a-hard-time-understanding-americans-speak/462903/36 "2008-09-10T14:29:17Z")
> [@](#): > > Spanish phonetics, the th in think is closest to a spanish z than to any other letter we use and the r in short, even when pronounced, is almost nonexistant compared with our soft r. > > It was just an example of one way in which American pronunciation can be reflected which doesn’t match the actual spelling. I’m sure a French or Japanese or Italian-speaking Doper can come up with another version, again non-matching. ] _Spanisjh_ pronunciation, yes. But you said “American English”. Unless you’re specifying that it’s in Hispanic neighborhoods, or something, your statement doesn’t apply. Comne to think of it, the Hispanic guys I know don’t pronounce it remotely like “zink”. ---
**Author:** ![Cisco](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ccd318/32.png) [@Cisco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cisco)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2008, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-british-and-irish-people-have-a-hard-time-understanding-americans-speak/462903/37 "2008-09-10T14:47:23Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > Cisco writes: > > \> 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. It’s the lady who sold me my last two cars. She’s from London. EDIT: And yes, she most definitely says both _finks_ and _veir_. Belive me, I’ve spent hours and hours listening to her. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2008, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-british-and-irish-people-have-a-hard-time-understanding-americans-speak/462903/38 "2008-09-10T14:56:25Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > Dick Van Dyke is American. And it’s **Mangetout** for the win! The only Americans I can think of who’d use “zink” for “think” would be little old Jewish people in NYC, and Zsa Zsa Gabor. ---
**Author:** ![Illuminatiprimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/illuminatiprimus/32/11520_2.png) [@Illuminatiprimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Illuminatiprimus)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2008, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-british-and-irish-people-have-a-hard-time-understanding-americans-speak/462903/39 "2008-09-10T14:59:13Z")
I know I’m posting late but this question ellicited a big fat 😕 from me. Don’t you Americans realise your pop culture and media is the most globally pervasive? You think there’s no-one in the developed world who isn’t familiar with the American accent? Whilst I can believe there are Americans who might not understand some of the accents of Ireland/Britain that are further away from Standard English (hell I have to get some Irish/Geordie/Scouse) types to repeat themselves, I can’t imagine there are any Americans we can’t understand. ---
**Author:** ![Duke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e8c25b/32.png) [@Duke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duke)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2008, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-british-and-irish-people-have-a-hard-time-understanding-americans-speak/462903/40 "2008-09-10T15:02:39Z")
I lived in the UK for seven years and I never ran into anyone who couldn’t understand my accent, no matter where I travelled to (from Inverness to Kent and pretty much everywhere in between). But I knew many people from one part of the UK who couldn’t understand people from another part: Oxford folks generally couldn’t understand Glaswegians, people in Leeds had a hard time with some London accents, Mancunians couldn’t get the accents from Newcastle. I know I’m only one data point, but I’m going to have to go with “no, generally” as the answer to this one. The only time I knew of someone from the UK having a hard time with an American accent of any stripe was when my ex-wife couldn’t understand what a pastor from Alabama was saying, which wasn’t suprising as I had a hard time catching what he was saying too. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-british-and-irish-people-have-a-hard-time-understanding-americans-speak/462903.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-british-and-irish-people-have-a-hard-time-understanding-americans-speak/462903.md?page=3)