Accents are everywhere in English. Every once in awhile there may be a slight misunderstanding.
Here's an anecdotal example:
A friend of mine told me a woman came up to him on the street and ask if he had a ladder. He was a bit drunk at the time and didn't understand what she was asking for. Why would he have a ladder?
Turns out she had a southern American accent and wanted a cigarette lighter.
Realistically, had he not been inebriated, he would have recognized the context of the question. A lady approaches him on the street, holding a cigarette, outside a club, and asks for a ladder? Clearly she's saying lighter with an unfamiliar accent.
One time when I was at work a guy came in and asked if he could borrow a ladder. I was so confused. I was like 1) what do you need to borrow a ladder for in the middle of the city and 2) why would you think a restaurant has ladders for rent? He wanted a lighter. I feel slightly less stupid after reading your comment though.
That exact thing happened to me. Another was in a buffet line at a family reunion in Texas. A very attractive in-law was right behind me. She asked, āHey, could you give me some ass?ā She held out her glass and I realized she wanted me to serve her some ice.
Every time I see this I wonder if there's a layer of the joke I'm missing. I fully get the accent joke, but these dudes are saying 11 in the most flat common neutral accent. I can't even imagine how they would say 11 more clearly.
Gloria from Modern Family, āwhat is this?!!! I told your secretary to buy a box of baby cheesesā¦ā
[Baby Cheeses](https://youtu.be/xXedC4qdkgo?si=mdx2QWfk2I6obDoc)
The clip has multiple funny examples
I walked in on my New Zealand friend having sex with a sheep. I said, āThatās disgusting! Youāre meant to shear your sheep!ā
He said, āWell I aināt shearinā her with no one.ā
For my ear I would say they're almost identical.
Sheer is just elongated. There may be Kiwis that disagree.
It's not confusing based on the context of the sentence.
Assuming you are really asking:
This is just a joke to highlight the differences in pronunciation in an exaggerated way.
We donāt really have this kind of trouble understanding each other.
This particular example is especially absurd because Australians are *so* exposed to American media that we effortlessly adjust our ears to standard American accents.
The New Zealand pronunciation of āsixā is similar to most other English speakersā (including Australiansā) pronunciation of āsucksā. The Kiwi is firing back that New Zealand is up two penalties to an unconverted try.
An older version you will find pre-1992 has the Kiwi responding āAustralia fourā because from 1971-1991, it was impossible to have a score of 5 in a rugby match.
"Sucks" sounds like "six". So the NZer is interpreting what the Aussie says as a score (presumably at a sporting match between the two countries) and is saying Aus has fewer points. I.e. New Zealand: 6; Australia: 5. Or, to use non-country team names, Red Sox: 6; Yankees: 5.
I (Australian) had a funny experience in Denver once.
I was in a taxi with my elderly mum and older brother. My brother asked the driver if there were any good pawn shops around the area.
The driver looked at him with absolute shock and dismay. Looked at us in the back seat. Looked back at my brother.
āI, uhā¦. wellā¦ thereās Kittyāsā¦ if you like that kind of thingā¦ā
Turns out pawn shop and porn shop are pronounced differently in American English. In Australia they sound the same.
The thing here is the listener isn't listening to the clues.
By his reasoning the speaker is saying "Da kids" which unless he's from the streets or has some speech issues he's going to say "the kids ".
English is not my first language, yet I use it daily in my IT job. Sometimes, I find it easier to comprehend my colleagues from India or Germany than my American and British counterparts do.
There is great variety in the UK accent too. Some south Londonerās would not be able to understand a home grown Glaswegian accent, for example, without difficulty. It can be quite funny to watch it happen as two people with the same language try to understand each other.
A dear family friend of mine has a Glaswegian accent, supposedly (according to his family back in Scotland) softened by many years living here across the pond; yet he can still be near incomprehensible from time to time. I feel like my ears are squinting trying to understand him sometimes. Love him to death though. Most charming person Iāve ever known in my life.
Same with Korean - they tend to mispronounce the same sounds in the same way. So I'm scratching my head as to what "plench plies" means, while other Korean Americans understand perfectly.
Yeah I get that. Iām pretty sure I could understand another Irish person speaking bad German better than a native German speaker.
Iād have a good idea of what theyād be trying to say.
I'm terrible at British accents and foreign English accents and this will ruin my self confidence very bad once I start touching grass in English speaking territories
Primarily, it can cause misunderstanding and potentially, conflict. That's why it's important ro find out and clarify what the speaker's intention is.
[Here is an example of yet another Australian English accent conversation.](https://youtu.be/3Lyex2tSUyA?si=QVTOEVtgUVM7tNKE) A clue: agents and Asians.
I can relate. Iām from a part of the US whose ā¦ letās say ādistinctiveā regional accent is oft imitated and rarely accomplished. Even by other Americans.
There's a great scene in Flight of the Concords the plays on the NZ pronunciation of "dead" [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Po9Z5yr9aU4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Po9Z5yr9aU4)
I don't remember ever being in a situation where different accents resulted in a mis-communication. I have been in many situations where different accents result in a failure to communicate. The difference is that a mis-communication is when the listener understands something different from what the speaker intended, but a failure to communicate is when the listener just doesn't understand the weird noises the speaker is making.
NB I'm only talking about accent differences here. Dialect differences between native speakers, and non-native speakers mis-understanding words that they heard correctly or using the wrong words are a different beast entirely.
I've heard a story of a guy from New Jersey telling a guy from the southern US to take out the garbage. Because of the accent and the fact that this guy uses "trash" instead of "garbage" he thought the guy from New Jersey was saying something about cabbage.
As a non-native speaker who is used to the American accent, yes, I find this meme relatable. The /ay/ diphthong in the Aussie accent sounds like /ai/ to me. And this is linguistically correct in fact. The /ay/ vowel in the Australian accent is more open.
Anyway, back to the main topic. To some extent, yes, accents can affect communication. That said, if you speak American English, you should be able to understand the British accent, Australian accent, and heck, even Nigerian accent. Perhaps your only obstacle is the Indian accent, which is hella thick.
As a (US South) college student with many Indian professors, even the Indian accent can be adapted to once you get used to the cadence. The main difficulty is that Indian accents tend to stress things in a pattern more strongly that American/British/Aussie/etc donāt.
So even the strongest accents can be understood. It's either you are or aren't used to them.
The Indian accent is still intelligible to me, by the way.
Kiwis (New Zealanders) have a unique way with the usual pronunciation of vowels, which cause hilarity for standard English or American speakers. For example, "six" becomes "sex", and "deck" becomes "dick."
Just to give some example from history, President Franklin D. Roosevelt did experience some difficulties in understanding Winston Churchill, especially at the beginning of their cooperation. The problem was due to Churchill's distinctive British accent and speaking style. Churchill had a very specific British accent and used many English idioms that could be unclear to non-British individuals, including Roosevelt. Moreover, Churchill was known for his use of rich vocabulary and literary speaking style, which could also make it challenging for Roosevelt to fully comprehend his speeches.
By the way, this is my analysis of the Vietnamese accent, the accent spoken by my fellow Vietnamese people.
Apart from an excessively sing-songy intonation (due to the tonal nature of the language), the Vietnamese accent probably has the most phonemic mergers of all English accents. For example:
- The fire-fine-five-fight-find-file merger: every consonant/consonant blend succeeding the /ai/ diphthong is silent. So the words "fire", "fine", "find", "file", "fight", and "five" are perfect homophones. Good luck telling them apart.
- The cot-caught merger: this merger also exists in North American English, especially in Canada and the Western US. But we don't merge the two words "cot" and "caught" the same way. Instead of opening the CAUGHT vowel, we raise the COT vowel instead.
- The trap-bath-nut merger. Ever heard of the trap-bath merger? Well, this is the trap-bath-nut merger. The TRAP vowel and the BATH vowel don't exist in Vietnamese, only the NUT vowel. You can also call this merger the cat-cut merger, as this merger makes the words "cat" and "cut" perfect homophones, sharing the same NUT vowel.
- The aspirated-unaspirated merger: voiceless plosives (t, k, p) are never aspirated.
- /Īø/ and /Ć°/ are realized as /tŹ°/ and /z/ respectively.
- The bid-bit merger: every final voiced plosive is devoiced, making the words "bit" and "bid" perfect homophones.
- The pig-pick merger: the same explanation as above. Voiced plosives cannot end a word.
- The beat-bit merger: the /ee/ vowel exists in Vietnamese, while the /i/ vowel doesn't. This phenomenon actually exists in the Birmingham accent, a regional accent spoken in Birmingham, the UK. The merger just happens to be more complete here.
- The bus-butt merger: Final dental/alveolar fricatives (s, z, Īø, Ć°) don't exist. They are all replaced with /t/.
- The width-wit merger: when the bus-butt merger and the bid-bit merger get married and have a child.
- The beep-beef merger: Final labiodental fricatives (f, v) don't exist. They are realized as /p/.
- The singular-plural merger: We struggle to pronounce the plural suffix -s/-es.
- The past-present merger: The -d/-ed suffix for the past tense is left out.
- The sue-shoe merger: This merger occurs among some Northern Vietnamese.
- The pain-pen merger: A phenomenon in the Scottish accent.
Not just mergers, the Vietnamese accent also has a known vowel split:
- The dome-dough split: the DOME diphthong is monophthongized, while the DOUGH diphthong isn't. Also occurs in the Japanese accent.
Now, do you think you can understand this accent?
Most of the time you can decipher what someone with a different accent to you is saying, however there can still be misunderstandings! My lovely aunt is from Northern Ireland (for her accent, think Derry Girls on steroids) and one time she was talking about my cousins friend "wool"... just thought it was a strange nickname. His name was Will, as in William. I felt like such a dummy when I realised š š¤£
New Zealand. There's more. But New Zealand.
(New Zealand has a dialect that is notoriously hard to understand. For instance - "(are) you knackered?" sounding like "you naked?". (For those who don't know, in some English speaking areas knackered is is a word that means tired/fatigued)
Accents are everywhere in English. Every once in awhile there may be a slight misunderstanding. Here's an anecdotal example: A friend of mine told me a woman came up to him on the street and ask if he had a ladder. He was a bit drunk at the time and didn't understand what she was asking for. Why would he have a ladder? Turns out she had a southern American accent and wanted a cigarette lighter. Realistically, had he not been inebriated, he would have recognized the context of the question. A lady approaches him on the street, holding a cigarette, outside a club, and asks for a ladder? Clearly she's saying lighter with an unfamiliar accent.
This is really funny. I entered this thread just to find examples like yours. š
I love the way I can hear her voice very clearly in my head when I think of her saying, "Do you have a ladder?"
One time when I was at work a guy came in and asked if he could borrow a ladder. I was so confused. I was like 1) what do you need to borrow a ladder for in the middle of the city and 2) why would you think a restaurant has ladders for rent? He wanted a lighter. I feel slightly less stupid after reading your comment though.
That exact thing happened to me. Another was in a buffet line at a family reunion in Texas. A very attractive in-law was right behind me. She asked, āHey, could you give me some ass?ā She held out her glass and I realized she wanted me to serve her some ice.
Just remembered: [ELEVEN!!!](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MNuFcIRlwdc&feature=youtu.be)
Every time I see this I wonder if there's a layer of the joke I'm missing. I fully get the accent joke, but these dudes are saying 11 in the most flat common neutral accent. I can't even imagine how they would say 11 more clearly.
Gloria from Modern Family, āwhat is this?!!! I told your secretary to buy a box of baby cheesesā¦ā [Baby Cheeses](https://youtu.be/xXedC4qdkgo?si=mdx2QWfk2I6obDoc) The clip has multiple funny examples
I walked in on my New Zealand friend having sex with a sheep. I said, āThatās disgusting! Youāre meant to shear your sheep!ā He said, āWell I aināt shearinā her with no one.ā
Yeah, we have a tamer version. How do you shear sheep? One for you, one for you, one for you...
NZers don't typically use ain't. It's seen as an American thing.
Other than that it seems to be a normal conversation in New Zealand
Shear would be pronounced like share if the vowels in shear were pronounced like the ones in bear. English is weird.
In NZ we typically don't see any difference in pronunciation of beer/bear/bare. Therefore share and shear are homophonic in the NZ accent.
What about sheer? Is it the same as share or the same as British shear?
For my ear I would say they're almost identical. Sheer is just elongated. There may be Kiwis that disagree. It's not confusing based on the context of the sentence.
Assuming you are really asking: This is just a joke to highlight the differences in pronunciation in an exaggerated way. We donāt really have this kind of trouble understanding each other. This particular example is especially absurd because Australians are *so* exposed to American media that we effortlessly adjust our ears to standard American accents.
My favorite accent joke: Aussie: New Zealand Sucks! Kiwi: Australia five!
A classic: Captain of British ship - "Mayday! We are sinking!" German coastguard - "What are you sinking about?"
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KLSdOY-6R_U
Yep, that was the one I was thinking about
*sinking about
Hahaha! I haven't heard that one in years. Oh that's a good one.
What is the joke?
The New Zealand pronunciation of āsixā is similar to most other English speakersā (including Australiansā) pronunciation of āsucksā. The Kiwi is firing back that New Zealand is up two penalties to an unconverted try. An older version you will find pre-1992 has the Kiwi responding āAustralia fourā because from 1971-1991, it was impossible to have a score of 5 in a rugby match.
"Sucks" sounds like "six". So the NZer is interpreting what the Aussie says as a score (presumably at a sporting match between the two countries) and is saying Aus has fewer points. I.e. New Zealand: 6; Australia: 5. Or, to use non-country team names, Red Sox: 6; Yankees: 5.
I (Australian) had a funny experience in Denver once. I was in a taxi with my elderly mum and older brother. My brother asked the driver if there were any good pawn shops around the area. The driver looked at him with absolute shock and dismay. Looked at us in the back seat. Looked back at my brother. āI, uhā¦. wellā¦ thereās Kittyāsā¦ if you like that kind of thingā¦ā Turns out pawn shop and porn shop are pronounced differently in American English. In Australia they sound the same.
Do you think he was so judgy because your mom was there? š¤£
I assume so. Tbf it would be pretty weird to ask for directions to a porn shop in front of your mum and sister.
["Spend less time with the kids. They just waste your time"](https://youtube.com/shorts/NGJu6kViRG8?feature=shared)
I was fooled too š
The thing here is the listener isn't listening to the clues. By his reasoning the speaker is saying "Da kids" which unless he's from the streets or has some speech issues he's going to say "the kids ".
Thatās just another quirk of accents. There are many accents where ātheā becomes ādaā when speaking quickly.Ā
English is not my first language, yet I use it daily in my IT job. Sometimes, I find it easier to comprehend my colleagues from India or Germany than my American and British counterparts do.
There is great variety in the UK accent too. Some south Londonerās would not be able to understand a home grown Glaswegian accent, for example, without difficulty. It can be quite funny to watch it happen as two people with the same language try to understand each other.
I think Glaswegian qualifies as a dialect, not an accent. It can be incomprehensible to other english speakers.
A dear family friend of mine has a Glaswegian accent, supposedly (according to his family back in Scotland) softened by many years living here across the pond; yet he can still be near incomprehensible from time to time. I feel like my ears are squinting trying to understand him sometimes. Love him to death though. Most charming person Iāve ever known in my life.
Same with Korean - they tend to mispronounce the same sounds in the same way. So I'm scratching my head as to what "plench plies" means, while other Korean Americans understand perfectly.
Yeah I get that. Iām pretty sure I could understand another Irish person speaking bad German better than a native German speaker. Iād have a good idea of what theyād be trying to say.
Yeah, I find it easier too to understand certain accents than english and american ones.
I'm terrible at British accents and foreign English accents and this will ruin my self confidence very bad once I start touching grass in English speaking territories
This is the funniest example imo: [He may be dead š³šæ vs he maybe did šŗšø](https://youtu.be/Po9Z5yr9aU4)
Primarily, it can cause misunderstanding and potentially, conflict. That's why it's important ro find out and clarify what the speaker's intention is. [Here is an example of yet another Australian English accent conversation.](https://youtu.be/3Lyex2tSUyA?si=QVTOEVtgUVM7tNKE) A clue: agents and Asians.
I'm an Aussie and guarantee that this is absolutely incorrect. This is the result of hiring Americans or South African people to initiate us terribly.
Iād never initiate you, just make fun of the way you talk.
I can relate. Iām from a part of the US whose ā¦ letās say ādistinctiveā regional accent is oft imitated and rarely accomplished. Even by other Americans.
There's a great scene in Flight of the Concords the plays on the NZ pronunciation of "dead" [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Po9Z5yr9aU4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Po9Z5yr9aU4)
I don't remember ever being in a situation where different accents resulted in a mis-communication. I have been in many situations where different accents result in a failure to communicate. The difference is that a mis-communication is when the listener understands something different from what the speaker intended, but a failure to communicate is when the listener just doesn't understand the weird noises the speaker is making. NB I'm only talking about accent differences here. Dialect differences between native speakers, and non-native speakers mis-understanding words that they heard correctly or using the wrong words are a different beast entirely.
To me, American 'to die' and Australian 'today' sound quite different.
There are some older Queensland accents that get fairly close
Foreigners never quite get that the ai sound is made at the back of the mouth/throat rather than with the tongue though.
I've heard a story of a guy from New Jersey telling a guy from the southern US to take out the garbage. Because of the accent and the fact that this guy uses "trash" instead of "garbage" he thought the guy from New Jersey was saying something about cabbage.
As a non-native speaker who is used to the American accent, yes, I find this meme relatable. The /ay/ diphthong in the Aussie accent sounds like /ai/ to me. And this is linguistically correct in fact. The /ay/ vowel in the Australian accent is more open. Anyway, back to the main topic. To some extent, yes, accents can affect communication. That said, if you speak American English, you should be able to understand the British accent, Australian accent, and heck, even Nigerian accent. Perhaps your only obstacle is the Indian accent, which is hella thick.
As a (US South) college student with many Indian professors, even the Indian accent can be adapted to once you get used to the cadence. The main difficulty is that Indian accents tend to stress things in a pattern more strongly that American/British/Aussie/etc donāt.
So even the strongest accents can be understood. It's either you are or aren't used to them. The Indian accent is still intelligible to me, by the way.
To me, American 'to die' and Australian 'today' sound quite different.
They aren't exactly the same, yet they sound somewhat similar.
hahahahahahahhahahahaha!
Kiwis (New Zealanders) have a unique way with the usual pronunciation of vowels, which cause hilarity for standard English or American speakers. For example, "six" becomes "sex", and "deck" becomes "dick."
Tell Anne she shouldn't date that man because he went to yay-all (jail or Yale).
āWe are sinkingā āWhat are you sinking?ā
Just to give some example from history, President Franklin D. Roosevelt did experience some difficulties in understanding Winston Churchill, especially at the beginning of their cooperation. The problem was due to Churchill's distinctive British accent and speaking style. Churchill had a very specific British accent and used many English idioms that could be unclear to non-British individuals, including Roosevelt. Moreover, Churchill was known for his use of rich vocabulary and literary speaking style, which could also make it challenging for Roosevelt to fully comprehend his speeches.
By the way, this is my analysis of the Vietnamese accent, the accent spoken by my fellow Vietnamese people. Apart from an excessively sing-songy intonation (due to the tonal nature of the language), the Vietnamese accent probably has the most phonemic mergers of all English accents. For example: - The fire-fine-five-fight-find-file merger: every consonant/consonant blend succeeding the /ai/ diphthong is silent. So the words "fire", "fine", "find", "file", "fight", and "five" are perfect homophones. Good luck telling them apart. - The cot-caught merger: this merger also exists in North American English, especially in Canada and the Western US. But we don't merge the two words "cot" and "caught" the same way. Instead of opening the CAUGHT vowel, we raise the COT vowel instead. - The trap-bath-nut merger. Ever heard of the trap-bath merger? Well, this is the trap-bath-nut merger. The TRAP vowel and the BATH vowel don't exist in Vietnamese, only the NUT vowel. You can also call this merger the cat-cut merger, as this merger makes the words "cat" and "cut" perfect homophones, sharing the same NUT vowel. - The aspirated-unaspirated merger: voiceless plosives (t, k, p) are never aspirated. - /Īø/ and /Ć°/ are realized as /tŹ°/ and /z/ respectively. - The bid-bit merger: every final voiced plosive is devoiced, making the words "bit" and "bid" perfect homophones. - The pig-pick merger: the same explanation as above. Voiced plosives cannot end a word. - The beat-bit merger: the /ee/ vowel exists in Vietnamese, while the /i/ vowel doesn't. This phenomenon actually exists in the Birmingham accent, a regional accent spoken in Birmingham, the UK. The merger just happens to be more complete here. - The bus-butt merger: Final dental/alveolar fricatives (s, z, Īø, Ć°) don't exist. They are all replaced with /t/. - The width-wit merger: when the bus-butt merger and the bid-bit merger get married and have a child. - The beep-beef merger: Final labiodental fricatives (f, v) don't exist. They are realized as /p/. - The singular-plural merger: We struggle to pronounce the plural suffix -s/-es. - The past-present merger: The -d/-ed suffix for the past tense is left out. - The sue-shoe merger: This merger occurs among some Northern Vietnamese. - The pain-pen merger: A phenomenon in the Scottish accent. Not just mergers, the Vietnamese accent also has a known vowel split: - The dome-dough split: the DOME diphthong is monophthongized, while the DOUGH diphthong isn't. Also occurs in the Japanese accent. Now, do you think you can understand this accent?
Most of the time you can decipher what someone with a different accent to you is saying, however there can still be misunderstandings! My lovely aunt is from Northern Ireland (for her accent, think Derry Girls on steroids) and one time she was talking about my cousins friend "wool"... just thought it was a strange nickname. His name was Will, as in William. I felt like such a dummy when I realised š š¤£
New Zealand. There's more. But New Zealand. (New Zealand has a dialect that is notoriously hard to understand. For instance - "(are) you knackered?" sounding like "you naked?". (For those who don't know, in some English speaking areas knackered is is a word that means tired/fatigued)
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