While watching the TV show “Father Ted” the other day (which features Irish accents speaking English), I said, “Man, those are some thick accents. I wish there were subtitles.” It occurred to me that to my U.S. ears their pronunciation sounds odd and slurred. So I wondered, “What does my American (Tom Cruise like) accent sound like to the Irish.?” I’m not talking about understanding Southern accents. That’s a whole different matter. And I’m not talking about TERMS (“truck” for “lorry” and “boot” for “trunk”). I’m talking about plain, old, TV speak. Do you wish there were subtitles for “Friends” on TV, or can you understand your fellow Irish just fine, but it’s even easier to understand Americans since we speak so clearly?
Open mouth, insert foot…
I’m just gonna go find something to hide behind while you get flamed for that choice of phrase.
I was being intentionally ironic. I forgot to add the “Winky” smiley face. 
Heh 
To answer your question, No, I never have any probs understanding the dialogue on American shows. They do mutter a bit on Buffy and Angel sometimes though, so the odd time I’ve had to wind the tape back and re listen to a scene.
Never had any problems understanding US accents, living in close proxomity to Scotland, Wales and Ireland means we get pretty good at deceiphering the various dialects of English.
There was an American TV show on English TV a while ago (World’s Wildest Scariest Police Chases Ever, or someting similar) where there was a broad Wesh accent subtitled, confused me as to why it was needed, but now I know.
This is a sort of survey, so I’ll move it over to IMHO.
Since nobody’s explicitly said it yet, I’ll state the obvious: we Scottish (and Irish and English) dopers were exposed to a wide range of American accents in growing up through Hollywood films and T.V. I suspect that aged 16 I’d probably heard more of a Brooklyn accent than, say, Welsh or Northumbrian. It’s really no wonder that I don’t remember ever finding American accents problematic.
Interesting question KXL. I just got a phone call today from a friend I’ve met on the internet who is from England. I had to keep having him repeat himself and he never had a bit of trouble understanding me. And once when I was talking to a friend from Belfast it was nearly hopeless me understanding him. I thought I was the problem, but I feel better now. Btw, I don’t have any trouble understanding the people on Father Ted.
As an American abroad, I very rarely encounter native English speakers from other countries who have trouble understanding me, but it does happen. FWIW the people most likely not to understand me have been (a) older and (b) from either the rural west of Ireland or from Scotland. It hasn’t been strictly limited to those categories, though.
As an Aussie exposed to American English since TV appeared, I have no problems with comprehending Yanks, but I DO have a problem with thick brogues (ala Scots) on the telly and I reckon they need subtitles!
Smiley or no smiley, KXL had it right; Americans do tend to speak more clearly, or at any rate more slowly, than many other English speakers, and this makes them relatively easy to understand.
My WAG, for which I have no evidence whatsoever, is that this is partly due to the fact that much of the early English-speaking immigration to North America was from the West of England, where they speak fairly slowly, and partly due to the continuing need for a country which kept receiving waves of non-English-speaking immigrants to develop or maintain speech patterns which would be easy for non-native speakers of English to understand and, in due course, acquire.
Add to that the fact that most non-American English speakers are exposed through the media to US speech patterns all the time, and are therefore quite familiar with US speech patterns before they ever meet a real live American.
I have severe difficulty with many American accents, particularly some southern and some African American ones.
Every country has its own variations of such strong accents. My partner works with a girl from Glasgow, in Scotland. All of her Irish workmates have difficulty in understanding her. They have to keep her off the phone, as customers would just hang up when faced by her accent.
Last week I met an elderly man from west Cork, a rural area in the south-west of Ireland. He had a very strong accent, and I had severe dificulties in understanding him, although I am Irish.
I can certainly understand pretty much all American accents, presumably from media exposure.
Having said that, I once had a terrible time understanding an African American friend from Tennessee, who kept on saying (to my ears): “Yubo” - it took me about 10 minutes to work out that he was saying “Do you bowl” [as in ten-pin bowling].
I think the “we speak clearer” sentiment is nonsense: it’s entirely subjective; everyone thinks they speak clearly.
Usually, no problem at all. But I did have a hard time deciphering the accents in Oh Brother, Where Art Thou.
Well, I’m going to go against the grain here, and support KXL’s statement that Americans speak clearly. Most of the non-US posters in this thread have attributed their ready understanding of spoken US English to media saturation, but I’d go as far as to say that if we were never exposed to American English on TV or in the movies, I’d still have no trouble. The only way media exposure has helped me is to understand American usage of certain words.
American accents can be quite thick, but they do tend to be clear. The strange thing is that they seem much stronger when I’m talking to an American in person than when I hear the accent on TV. Especially that low, rumbling “rrrrrrrrr” (which I quite like).
Listening to an educated, unpretentious American accent is quite a pleasure.
The only criticism I have is that the reverse seems not to be true. I’ve seen recorded TV interviews with people speaking English as a second language, and although they have heavy accents, the language isn’t hard to follow -then I’ve noticed the speaker has been subtitled! In this case, it invariably turns out to be a US interview.
It’s only in the most extreme cases that a British or Australian news report would subtitle a person speaking English. I’m sure most Americans are able to do without the subtitles too -does it annoy you guys as much as it annoys me? It seems to be insulting the intelligence of the US TV-viewing public.
That’s so interesting! Having been raised in a rural, small midwestern town, those accents were so natural to my ear.
Slight hijack to this thread…
What I find interesting about American vs. English accents is that for us, an accent will identify the region of our country where the person either lives or was raised but for you, it also tells you the person’s class and/or status. It’s just so bizarre for me to grasp that just by opening your mouth and talking, the listener knows that your father was a lorry driver in Liverpool. How would one ever escape their station in life? Would you always be identified with your accent vis a vis your occupation?
Here, you could sound like a hillbilly and actually be the head of a Fortune 500 company. Cite - Sam Walton who founded the WalMart chain of discount stores.
Surveys indicate that the Glaswegian accent is a very popular telephone accent. Companies agree, which is why Glasgow has a massive number of call centres serving not just the UK, but Europe and the US as well.
Your partner’s colleague may be an exception, which is why we should never draw conclusions from anecdotal evidence. The stereotype of the impenetrable Glaswegian accent is exactly that, a stereotype. You are just as likely to have difficulty understanding a thickly accented individual from any other urban conurbation that do not you have much experience or contact with.
Well, as someone who works in television and in documentary film production where we do have a lot of interviews with non-native English speakers, I have to say there there is no hard and fast rule but we do tend to err on the side of caution and would prefer to subtitle rather than have our viewers switch the channel because they can’t understand what the person is saying.
Ratings! It’s all about ratings.
Actually, I’ve even subtitled a native English speaker who was, IIRC, Scottish. The accent was so thick, I had to ask the producer exactly what was being said so that I could even have a slight attempt at creating the subtitles.
My boss, as Brit, uses me as her guage. If I can’t understand the native speaker, s/he gets subtitled. We once got a cut with the scratch track (not the final narration) done by a Scot. My boss asked me for my comments and I told her the biggest one was that I couldn’t understand a word that the scratch track narrator said!
Well, as someone who works in television and in documentary film production where we do have a lot of interviews with non-native English speakers, I have to say there there is no hard and fast rule but we do tend to err on the side of caution and would prefer to subtitle rather than have our viewers switch the channel because they can’t understand what the person is saying.
Ratings! It’s all about ratings.
Actually, I’ve even subtitled a native English speaker who was, IIRC, Scottish. The accent was so thick, I had to ask the producer exactly what was being said so that I could even have a slight attempt at creating the subtitles.
My boss, as Brit, uses me as her guage. If I can’t understand the native speaker, s/he gets subtitled. We once got a cut with the scratch track (not the final narration) done by a Scot. My boss asked me for my comments and I told her the biggest one was that I couldn’t understand a word that the scratch track narrator said!
I also work with Glasgow people, because my employers have a sister company in Glasgow. Most Glaswegians have pleasant accents, as you suggest. However, some have a very strong accent indeed.
I present in Glasgow when a call centre operative tried to talk to an Irish caller with a strong accent (from County Kerry). Although both spoke plain English with no dialect words, neither could understand the other’s accent. Finally, I had to translate the query to the Glaswegian and translate her response to the Kerrywoman.
My firm has had many complaints about this kind of problem. It is a serious issue for transnational call centres.
::Hijack - last night I heard a man speaking Japanese on the radio. I do not speak Japanese, but I knew immediately that he was Irish. I am puzzled - how can someone have a recognisable Irish accent when talking Japanese? /Hijack ::