is your accent a hindrance or helper ?

this discussion comes about as i tried to explain to a american about nottingham accent.its spoken vocal sounds and such.

to a outsider our local speech/accent sounds a bit dumb/lazy.it is kinda slang/shorthand thing is do some accents actually hinder perception ?

do you have instances of your accent for eg that make you sound daft or even smarter ?

Alexa seems to think it's a hindrance

Feel like my accent is a positive. I'm from the oxfordshire coubtryside but i don't sound snobbish just sort of cliche english accent like everyone uses in movies. Can't think of any particular situation where its really helped out but atleast I'm easily understood when abroad ☺

I'm a Brummie. Need I say more

Though in saying that, I vaguely remember reading about a survey about accents that found a Brummie is regarded as one of the worst within the UK but not so abroad.

I'm Scottish.

Most people don't know what I'm saying.

Greboth said:

I'm a Brummie. Need I say more

Though in saying that, I vaguely remember reading about a survey about accents that found a Brummie is regarded as one of the worst within the UK but not so abroad.

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I live around brummies and yam yams so even my rough accent sounds like the queens poshest

If your English is poor people will find it hard to understand you. My accent isn't a hindrance, I'm from Liverpool but I don't have much of an accent. A little bit of effort isn't difficult.

Speaking of which DG, you should put some more effort into your posts. 16 mistakes in a short post really isn't good.

Aye me dook, that I do.

My accent changes, depending on who I'm speaking with at the time... which they then assume is me immitating them and taking the pee, which can be a hindrance.

My wife can't understand most heavy accents anyway, but when she really struggles her own accent becomes posher and posher - It's hilarious to watch!!

ttaskmaster said:

My accent changes, depending on who I'm speaking with at the time... which they then assume is me immitating them and taking the pee, which can be a hindrance.

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That sounds a little, uhh, unhealthy.

Begbie said:

I'm Scottish.

Most people don't know what I'm saying.

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Took a while but I've translated this post for those who couldn't understand


"I'm Scottish.

Most people don't know what I'm saying"

spoffle said:

That sounds a little, uhh, unhealthy.

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It is something we all do to varying degrees, supposedly in a bid to integrate with different groups. You only have to listen to someone who, for a number of years, has lived in another city/country and lost some (or all) of their accent. Hear them on the phone to someone back home and their accent will be stronger but their accent will fade again as soon as they put the phone down.

JBuk said:

Took a while but I've translated this post for those who couldn't understand


"I'm Scottish.

Most people don't know what I'm saying"

Click to expand...

Thanks.

Greboth said:

It is something we all do to varying degrees, supposedly in a bid to integrate with different groups. You only have to listen to someone who, for a number of years, has lived in another city/country and lost some (or all) of their accent. Hear them on the phone to someone back home and their accent will be stronger but their accent will fade again as soon as they put the phone down.

Thanks.

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I don't think that's comparable to it changing on a per conversation basis though. People's accents soften or go after time, but that's another matter.

spoffle said:

I don't think that's comparable to it changing on a per conversation basis though. People's accents soften or go after time, but that's another matter.

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I pick up accents. I don't try to, it's just one of those things.
I generally tell people it just means I'm paying attention to what they're saying!!

I was never 'good' at languages in school, either getting the grammar or remembering the long lists of words, but my accents were apparently very good.
Same too with replicating accents around me - I can often hear the differences between Jo'burg, Maritzburg, Durban, Pretoria and Capetown, for example, despite never having been to SA, so replicating them comes easy.

You give me anyone with a definite accent, I just pick it up, whether I like them or not. Scottish is the big one and I have to try hard not to slip.

When people hear me speak normally, they have thought I was Scottish, Aussie, American, German, Saffa, Geordie and even Spanish... either I have a naturally adaptable accent, or they're crap at telling the difference!

JBuk said:

Took a while but I've translated this post for those who couldn't understand


"I'm Scottish.

Most people don't know what I'm saying"

Click to expand...

You joke, but I normally holiday with a friend and he will translate out of habbit now. It's mostly when I'm drunk and speaking jockanese to some bird he chips in. I've lived out of Scotland for sometime too and I speak quite clearly.

Not really, but then I do have the dulcet tones of a Stokie.

It could be worse....

I don't have much of an accent, well, I don't think anyway. I moved around a lot growing up so one accent never really stuck. I have picked up words from different areas I have lived, but not the accent. I probably talk a bit faster than some, I think maybe that's due to my family being from Aberdeenshire.

People certainly don't seem to mind it. I've been asked a few times to record the prompts for our ACD at work. We had a migration of the system once and recordings by a professional voice artist were included. There was some whinging as they preferred my recordings

Don't really know what my accent sounds like from someone else's perspective plus its likely somewhat mixed having lived in a couple of different places or so long enough for that to have an impact.

Generally no one ever really comments on it or seems to have much problem understanding me though the Americans take the mick out of the way I pronounce low.

Was a hidnerence throughout most of my life.

Grown up I had one of the thickest broad Yorkshire accent. I went to a private school and the accent got me a lot of bad attention and bullying.

By the time I had left school I had lost most of the accent (well to me compared to my local friends) but even when I moved down south people thought I had a strong accent.

Spent a lot of years in Nottingham/Derby so have quite a mixed accent now.

If back in Bradford/Leeds area though within miniutes I have fallen back into my thick original accent.

Being from Ipswich and therefore the possessor of a fairly strong Suffolk accent, I've found myself battling the assumption that I'm some thick, straw-chewing, inbred yokel most of my life. That said, one of life's great joys is then shattering that perception ...