What is it with British accents? (page 6)

stillajwexelder

A guy from Glasgow Scotland speaking English I find difficult to understand -- interestingly on Newsnight CNN with Aaron Brown on Friday night, he showed a London Times newspaper headline with the word Totty in it - -he made a joke and said "I speak this language" but did not understand the headline --- I understand Totty to be a slang word for a nice female -- am I correct?

Country_Woman

lol

I'll like the accent but some areas are very difficult to understand (like Liverpool)

It's easier for me to understand American then English (due to all the movies) but I hardly understand a Portuguees or a Frenchmen when talking English.

I remembered that some men asked for a direction (30 years ago) and I did'nt understand their talking - thought they were talking a foreign language..... Turned out they were from Amsterdam..... (today I do understand it)

Fries (Fryske as they say it) I can't understand either - and with me, most of the Dutch don't understand it: it is a completely different language. Nearly the same with "Limburgs" it is not a different language - just a very heavy accent with parts of German and French in it - but when spoken fast, I don't understand a syllable.

As for understanding Nederlands or Dutch.

And I agree with Englishman: Since English is from their country, all "other English" is with an accent

Heavens forbid you ever hear mine.....

Sirona

I have a 'lovely' Northern English accent, just think of the woman in Frasier, she comes from just down the road.

We have a great dialect here, one of my fav local phrases is "av geet yed wark" which means "I have a headache" (av geet = I have got, yed = head, wark = ache)

Sirona

Englishman

--- I understand Totty to be a slang word for a nice female -- am I correct?

Oh yes..however "Totty" is plural. You'd normally refer to a single attractive female as a "Bit of totty", unless you prefixed it with a description such as "Wow! Now she is Top Totty!"

Women don't care for the expression much, though most don't mind being top totty.

Englishman.

Satans little helper

It's the colloquialisms that get me, I'm from deepest darkest south west and we have a soft rolling accent. Mine is not too pronounced until the third pint of scrumpy and there are times when the only person who will be able to understand what I'm saying will be my wife.

ee was gown dun pub un oi asst im wurzit to = he was going down to the pub and I asked him where it was.

Note the adding of to at the end of the sentence. I really need to dig out the Jannerisms web site

Aztec

ee was gown dun pub un oi asst im wurzit to

Okay, that sounds a bit like what I was hearing the other night. In my dialect; gibberish. Eeeeps! They both had lovely voices though...LOL!

Sirona, I'm sure you have a lovely lilt to your voice. I tend to understand British women more easily than men.

I suppose there are as many dialects in Britain as there are in the US and Canada combined. However, we somehow manage to understand eachother.

~Aztec

DanTheMan

To me it seemed like that lady in Frasier exaggerated her accent. Maybe I'm wrong, but it annoyed the hell out of me to hear her speak in what struck my ears as being such an anal-retentive, too perfect British accent. I've seen interviews with Minnie Driver and I would accuse her of the same thing, of playing up her natural accent a little too much, like she's trying to sound really Brit-sophisticated.

A bloke from Newcastle spent a few days with my sister and bro-in-law a couple of years ago. He had a great accent.

Satans little helper

that woman has the most irritating accent I have ever heard. People don't actually speak like that, I'm sure someone would give them a good slap if they did

Leolaia

Good grief. It's "A" to "Z" as everyone knows. You know, Ay to Zed.

Oh nooo....how can you sing the ABCs when Zed doesn't rhyme with anything? QRS (ess) .... TUV (vee) ... wx (eks) ... y and z (zee), now I know my ABCs (sees), why don't you sing with me (mee). It has a nice rhyming pattern (AB CB BB) that is totally ruined by ZED!

Leolaia

I always thought the silliest thing in British English was the word "hire" meaning "to rent"....I'd like to hire a car....Hire it to do what? Take you places and stuff? And just how much are you gonna pay the car to do all this for you? At least the car should be paid more than minimum wage, huh?

What is it with British accents?

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