I'm a Canadian living in New Zealand. I was surprised that a bus driver here picked up that I had a "Toronto Accent with something else in there". He was mostly correct as I have an Ottawa Valley accent with Toronto influences from my University and early working days. I asked him when he visited Canada and he replied that he's never left NZ - just really likes accents.
I picked up on an Australian accent from a customer once and he looked at me in surprise, told me he was born and raised in New York but both parents were from Australia. He said no one else had ever picked up on the Australian before.
I was on a train in London with my Indian father in law who was fluent in English and a Scottish guard spoke to me in English but with a really strong accent. When he left my father in law said " I know you were answering in English but what language was that man speaking?"😄
I'm an American and if the Scottish or Welsh accent is to strong, then I have a problem understanding all of it ... although the same goes for people from India who are speaking English but also have a strong non-English accent. Going on RUclips looking for technical programming videos, some of them were speaking English very fast but their Indian accent was too strong for me to understand everything.
It was cute you felt the need for excuses, no-one expect French people to know English accents in the same way no English people can recognise French accents. I enjoyed the video.
I think it's easy to tell the difference between Québecois and Metropolitan (from France) French but it might just be due to exposure living in Canada.
@@skybananaqueen4051 “attempting to learn” implies that I don’t know French. At least not to a level that’s useful. However, I am a fluent Spanish speaker and I can tell you that most people who learn Spanish later in life can’t differentiate between Spanish accents either. It drives me insane when a movie or show cast someone as “puerto rican” but they are clearly Colombian. Or an actor who sounds Mexican but they are using Dominican slang. Some of my friends who have a decent grasp on the language but learned it as adults don’t notice things like that at all.
You're exactly right about the Irish accent. The accent you heard was a neutral accent that reporters/newsreaders are taught. You'll only ever that accent on TV/radio.
One thing they got incorrect is assuming Canada has one type of accent. We actually have multiple accents as well, depending where in the country you are. The west coast sounds different from the middle which sounds different than Ontario which sounds different from Quebec which sounds different than the Maritimes (with Newfoundland having an even more unique accent) which sounds different from up north. And often the more metropolitan areas that are closer to America will sound similar to American's in that general area.
As a fellow Canadian from Ontario, I second that. The problem with much of the content on the Internet and RUclips is that it's dominated by American and British content. Other Anglosphere countries like Canada abd Australia often get overlooked.
As a western US speaker - whose mother was Canadian - so I have many Canadian relatives. I would have placed the example used as someone who lived no further west than Winnipeg, but not from the Maritimes. I'd be interested in hearing what Canadians think.
It's the same thing everywhere. The "Welsh" example in this video is just one example from hundreds. The people in my village sound different to the people in the nearest town about 4 miles away. There is no one "Welsh" accent, the same as there is no one "English" accent.
I spent a few days in Newfoundland once and took up with a girl who sounded American to me. Her mother, on the other hand, who'd been born and raised there, had a distinctly Irish lilt to her accent. And they told me that people in a different part of the island sounded French.
Once while on deployment in the US Navy, we pulled into Mombasa, and my buddies and I met some French sailors. We started buying rounds, trying to converse. The more we drank the better we understood each other! Weird!
Did the same with Australians. When we first started talking we all sounded like totally different languages to each other, than both of us speaking English. LOL
LOL. Same thing happened to us after meeting some German exchange students "back in the day". Only one of them could speak broken English. None of us could speak German. We broke out a bottle of Kentucky bourbon. They had slipped a couple of bottles of real Jägermeister through airport customs. ( airport security really didn't exist during the 1980s) Long story short, we all were best friends in about an hour.
My husband said the same thing about Japanese! He was stationed in Northern Japan for 18 months and would run into Japanese Air Force guys in the bars and just like you said, the more they drank the more they understood each other!! Of course there was a lot of hand gestures and finger pointing at whatever idea they were trying to get over!! Hilarious!!
Had the same experience while stationed in England. I met a group of Dutch sailors and they invited me back to their minesweeper and we drank many Heinikens!
Oh... but what is a typical American accent..????? ????????? Is that like a typical British accent.. or a typical Italian accent... or a typical German accent?? Is that typical American accent like the California accent or the Seattle accent or Kansas accent or maybe the Alabama accent or the Louisiana accent.. or north Dakota accent or the Washington accent.... or maybe the Minnesota accent with it's hard "O"'s it's cOHld outside you knOH... or maybe Missouri... So many different accents from so many states.... Some states have more than one accent of their own... You know not one of these states sound anything like the other right????!!!!!! And that "new york" accent .... that one that is like from 1946 ... that Brooklyn Italian accent??? That new york accent that is mixed with Italian??? That isn't really even a full "new york" accent?????!!!!!!!!!!!! barely anyone has that "accent" anymore.... oh well... alright.... yes it does exist.. but only a small percentage of people actually have that accent... Oh But That Brooklyn "new york accent?????!!!!!! It is a new york accent... But wait... Is it possible you meant one of these other NEW YORK ACCENTS.. What about the Queens accent?? Or maybe the Bronx accent or was it the (you know) the Long Island accent ??? Think about that..... in Queens alone there is long Island..... which is in queens.... and long Island has their own accent!!!!!!!! Did you know that????!!!!! How about the Staten Island accent???? Or did you mean the upstate NY accent ... There are so many different new york accents... so was it like maybe the Syracuse accent???? Or maybe that accent further north, upstate ny.. ????? Which "New York" accent did you mean Exactly?????!!!!!!!!!! Just curious..
@@orangie8426 There are accents that are more representative of the average American accent than that one...that's the point. They are easily found even by just turning on the TV and listen to presenters talk.
A unique thing about the Australian accent. When it initially formed it was a combination of accents from across the UK leveling out. As a result, for a significant period of time, it was considered the most pure form of English. Of course, as time went on, we developed our own eccentricities.
The early Australians were sent to Australia as prisoners. The census of 1901 showed that 98 percent of Australians had Anglo-Celtic ancestral origins, and was considered as "more British than Britain itself". ... In 1939 and 1945, still 98 percent of Australians had British/Anglo-Celtic ancestral origins. Until 1947, the vast majority of the population were of British origin.
@@aryansigrid I’m questioning your viewpoint on if those statistics were a good or bad thing. But Australia is so much more diverse today, which is great to see. My state still has the highest percentage of people with ancestors from the UK, but it’s slowly changing for the better.
I would question how much of the queen's pronunciation made it over to mix in, though, and given the socioeconomic background implied in the linguistic groups that were mixing, and the atavistic elitism of academia, I kind of think the "purest English" narrative might only have been palatable to practitioners of the "purest English."
@@sadrevolution The Queen's pronunciation is called Received pronunciation and is actually a more recently developed accent, it is generally considered to be the purest form these days.
You make an excellent point on the sheer diversity of the English language. As you say, it cannot meaningfully be said to belong to the people of the uk anymore. This video highlights the sheer diversity of its dialects, with the vast majority not being from the uk. And it’s just scratching the surface of how large and diverse it is.
Those were two different Irish accents. The first one was the "neutral" South Dublin accent common with newscasters. The second was a Donegal accent, but I can't narrow it down any further than that.
As someone who has never been to Ireland (or Europe, for that matter), I thought those were British (or at least British-influenced) accents when I heard them, since to an American they sound close to RP, or at least closer than many English accents. I think the American stereotype of an "Irish accent" is much closer to what you can hear Shay Given using in this interview: ruclips.net/video/SjzQzAR8bSc/видео.html What would you call the kind of Irish accent he has, or a similar-sounding one?
@@philipmcniel4908 Shay Given is from Donegal. Donegal accents are one of the Ulster accents that are synonymous with Northern Ireland but as 3 of the counties of Ulster are in the Republic, not exclusive to Northern Ireland. The Northern Irish accent in this video sounds like actor James Nesbitt who was born in Antrim but grew up in Coleraine which an hour away from where Shay Given grew up. Their accents are fairly similar but you also have to account for the natural variation in people’s speaking voice that can make them sound different.
@@Dreyno Thanks! I did notice the similarity between Shay Given's accent (which is what most Americans would try to imitate if they were asked to "imitate an Irish accent") and the Northern Irish one in this video. I suppose it makes sense, as 1) the Irish (not Northern) accents given in this video were similar enough to British that many Americans would not hear the difference, and 2) lots and lots of US immigrants came from that part of Ireland. It does make me wonder if the Scots-Irish (a.k.a. the Ulster Scots) sounded similar to that Northern Irish accent by the time they arrived here, as they made up a huge number of the immigrants to the US in some areas, particularly Appalachia and the early American frontier.
@@philipmcniel4908 They would’ve sounded like today. They’d mostly be there a century or two by the time they emigrated to the US. They didn’t classify themselves as Ulster-Scots or Scots-Irish. Ulster-Scots became a term used widely during the troubles. Scots-Irish came about in the 1840s when Americans or Irish descent wanted to differentiate themselves from the poor, starving Irish arriving during the famine. The Ulster accent is similar to the Scottish accent but is actually further from English or Welsh than most Irish accents. English people struggle more with an Ulster accent than a Galway accent for example. Any similarities you hear is to Scottish or a preconception that a part of Ireland that is British must sound more British than the independent part of Ireland.
@@Dreyno Actually, the similarity I heard was not the result of any such misconception, 1) because I didn't know where the accent was from until after I heard it, and 2) because the one that I thought sounded more British was actually the one from the independent part of Ireland, while the one that I thought sounded more "Irish" (based on the American stereotype) was from Northern Ireland.
As a Canadian I agree. People also forget how big Canada is and think we all have the same way of speaking. We don't. Our accents also vary from coast to coast.
I am an anglophone Canadian who primarily watches British television and I still missed three. To deepen the shame, I guessed Canada for the American Northwest because his accent was actually that weird one all professional hockey players use when giving tv interviews.
This was fun! Accents change depending on cultural differences and even individual differences so it’s no wonder they don’t always sound alike. The reason you heard some French in the Jamaican one is because there is a patois (rough speech) mixed in with the European accent and American creole going back centuries.
Years ago I was a flight attendant with a British airline. I’m Australian. I was based in Glasgow once for a week but the crew I flew with were all from Dundee. This part of Scotland has a very strong hard accent and is spoken very quickly. I couldn’t understand a word the crew said for at least three days before I finally got to understand perhaps 50% of the conversations. They also use many words that are only spoken in that part of Scotland so even many if the words were unfamiliar to me. It was quite funny.
I was on a tour bus going to Stonehenge and the two men behind me were speaking a foreign language. After quite a while I realized they were actually speaking English but with such a hard Scottish accent I could only understand about every 12th word. But there’s also a chance they were speaking Scottish with an occasional English word tossed in.
The Irish example has a very neutral accent, not many of us actually speak like her. I have heard some people compare the Welsh accent to a slight Indian accent, and I've heard English people and Aussies get mistaken for each other
@@JimFortune I'm from the North of England and have no issues with Scottish, Geordie or Welsh, Irish accents. I think it's because in the North our accents are similar so we can understand each other better. I don't mean similar as in accents i mean in pace, style and rhythm. We speak a lot faster then the southern accents so i guess that is why some people mishear or don't understand what was said. What's funny to me is that most of all the MP's from the North and other parts of the UK don't even have strong accents compared to the places where they come from. I guess because they spend so much time in the south they speak more slowly and switch their accent to sound more "neutral" so that people can understand but even then the still didn't understand him. His accent would be considered posh in Scotland.
I lived in Glasgow, I understood every single word that MP said. Simply asking about accessibility for disabled folks during the refurbishment of the building. Trust me, this is a light Glaswegian accent, it gets faster and squish words together. Think Brad Pitt's character in "Snatch".
Americans can have a difficult time understand 1 third of the words spoken by some Scottish and UK speakers. It's just nuts. I really admire people like you who can speak multiple languages and challenge yourself to actually identify different accents in a language that is not your 1st language. You did ok.
Not just Americans. I used to work with a Scott and a bunch of Indians, in South Africa - and effectively had to try and translate between them. My Indian Colleagues thought I would be able to understand him because I was white. Ha!. It was an interesting experience indeed, especially as the night wore on and his hip flask would start emptying.
I worked for many years in consulting so I work with people who have all types of accents of English; all over the United States, China, India, Russia, France, Australia, Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, yup all over the world but the accident that finally defeated me was an accent from northern England. You could’ve knocked me over with a feather when I realized that these two young lads from northern England were absolutely unintelligible to this poor old midwestern American.
This test was easy for me because I'm a scholar from the USA, I have traveled internationally, and I have been in contact with people from many parts of the English speaking world. This would be a hard test for someone for whom English is a second language.
I was raised around my grandfather, an Irish immigrant. Years later my brother went to Ireland. He spoke to my granpas nephew. Asked my Irish cousin if he was speaking Gaelic. She said nope...Queen's English. THAT is how thick the Kerry Ireland accent is😁.
# 16 was Adrian Chiles who was born in Quinton, Birmingham, to an English father and Croatian mother, and moved a few miles away to Hagley, Worcestershire at the age of four. A feature of his presentations is his Birmingham accent. He also speaks Croatian, despite having a self-confessed imperfect understanding of the language's verbs, declensions, and cases. The Essex gezzer was tele "chef" Jamie Oliver. The Northern Ireland bloke was actor James Nesbitt.
I naturally speak with an Eastern Kentucky accent (the more tired/drunk I am, the stronger my accent gets). One of my earliest jobs was as technical support for consumer printers over the phone. In training, they told us that the one accent most Americans hear as a typical American accent is from Omaha, Nebraska. Also, when you said, "Whaaaat?" after the Southern American accent, that's how we say it, too.
I laughed when I heard number 11 because I recognised the voice! It was a famous British chef called Jamie Oliver. He has a classic Essex accent. Then I recognised some more: 16 was a tv presenter called Adrian Chiles, 19 was an actor and writer called Steven Merchant, 20 was an actor called James Nesbitt. But I got quite a lot of them wrong! It was good fun, though, thanks Marie! 👍
@@jimclark1374 There’s a similarity, but 11 is definitely the Essex accent of the British chef Jamie Oliver. Ricky Gervais is from Reading, which is quite a different accent (to a native speaker), but the tone of the voice is close to his.
I'm Canadian and I got almost all of them, though some were definitely guesses, lol. Considering this one anecdotal anglo-Canadian vs French person's result comparison, perhaps it's due to the various multicultural mixes that we grew up with in our respective regions. In other words, it's much like exposing oneself to unfamiliar forms or music, that is, one needs to develop an ear for the distinctions in accents through one shared language before it becomes second nature to recognize them or even notice them to begin with.
The Singaporean one lost me. I once worked with a guy who was Singaporean chinese, who lived in NZ for a few years, and then London. It was odd because I could detect all three accents.
Thank you so much for this, Frenchfryyy! I absolutely adore languages and variations in the various ones. I'm a little too old to seriously try to learn a new one, but when I was four I spoke more fluent Japanese than English. When we moved back to the states, I never had any kind of opportunity to keep my Japanese fluent. I'm very proud of my son though, because he has a technology industry job that pays extremely well because he is fluent in several languages and he was hired several months before he graduated from his university!
When I was at a shop in Hawaii waiting to pick up my new glasses (I’m from Texas btw, even if you’d never know based on my accent), a woman from Australia randomly started talking to me. Her accent was very strong and all I could hear was “Good die.” After 2-3 times I finally figured out that she was saying good day and returned the gesture. We just sat in awkward silence the rest of the time though. If it were to happen now I would definitely be able to laugh it off but back then I was too embarrassed
This test was easy for me because I'm from the USA, I have traveled internationally, and I have been in contact with people from many parts of the English speaking world. This would be a hard test for someone for whom English is a second language.
I’m English and I found many of these quite difficult so I think you did pretty well. I don’t think the examples given were very typical. there are about 10 main accents in UK but many sub accents For instance London alone has at least six or seven main accents that an Expert can quickly detect. Then of course we have the problem of people who do not speak distinctly slurring their words , dropping h’s and g’s etc. either by upbringing or because they have a dental problem or other speech defect. Some people take pride in not speaking well and consider that those who do are trying to sound posh so they Can claim some form of superiority. Perhaps you have a similar thing in France. for myself in my travels in France when I was young I managed to just about distinguish North France. Paris and the south around Nice and cannes where they roll their r ‘s more. My father was pretty well spoken with a fairly bland accident (which we call received pronunciation ). but being as he came from Birmingham and thus was a Brummie He could put on a very thick accent and it was almost impossible to understand what an earth he was talking about. Many people refer to the difficulty of understanding people from Glasgow but of course well spoken Glaswegians have a very clear and distinct way of talking that you would easily understand although they would have quite a distinct Scottish accent
I guess it never occurred to me that there were so many English accents, other than American or English accents. Being able to hear only about 30% of what a normal person hears made hearing anyone hard enough. Very interesting 👍 I just noticed that you are almost up to 50k subscribers! Wow, congratulations! 🤩
In Canada the eastern coast accent (aboot, sorey/sorry)is different from Toronto, and as you go more west if sounds like California. As a Canadian I got the Canadian accent wrong lol
You did pretty well, actually. I can't imagine knowing ANY regional French accent! All English-speaking French accents all just sound "French" to me. I did well on this test, though, only missing Filipino and South Africa.
I'm South African and even I had to think twice on the SA one. I think the person in the clip might be an SA expat who has modified her accent to suit her new home? (I do it too when I'm overseas, sometimes certain inflections just don't work when abroad so one adapts remarkably quickly)
As a native English speaker, born and bred in the UK, I can sympathize with your difficult in picking out the different accents. In general, I'd say nearly all the clips were too short and some were not very good examples. Both the Irish and Northern Irish accents were fairly mild examples of their particular accents and the Geordie example had very few of the distinctive vowel sounds typical of that accent until perhaps near the very end. I also doubt whether anyone who's not from Malta and who's never been there would recognize the accent, it's not like it's an accent that's heard very often on the world stage.
This was an exceptionally fun video, Marie! I've been all over Ireland and their regional accents can vary wildly in my opinion. Given enough time you're able to quickly identify what area people are likely from after a few seconds of speaking with them. It's actually kind of cool. My personal favorites are Donegal and Galway. (I'm sure it's similar to varying areas of France and Germany, but I don't speak either language fluently enough to quickly decipher.) Take very good care. Here's to hoping the week treats you kindly!
Great video. Really interesting to hear your reasons for guessing your answers. The difference in English accents around the world is truly enormous and must be so overwhelming for learners of English.
There are literally scores of accents in Ireland. The one you heard there was a very middle class / south Dublin accent, the stock accent of the Irish media and establishment.. a universe away from a working class north Dublin accent or a deep rural accent from Kerry or Armagh etc.
I just stumbled upon this video and I want to say thank you for wanting to learn the standard "American" accent. Thank you so much and I appreciate your hard work!!
Loved it! I had to laugh at the "Canadian" accent. Canada is like other big English speaking countries since you encounter different accents in different Provinces. A Newfoundland - in fact most accents down east as they like to say - are quite different from native speakers in Toronto (where I grew up) or even Western Ontario going in the other direction.
Yeah, clearly make by someone from England, where every town has it's own supposed accent that I can't really tell the difference. Yet all of Canada is one and the US is like only four.
@@terryomalley1974 - I'm only half Canadian, but that particular idiocy offends me. The whole "aboot" thing is from South Park needing a ridiculous accent for the Canadian characters, and now it's the first thing most Americans think of when Canada is mentioned. It's like believing that all Americans talk like Yosemite Sam and walk around firing their six-shooters in the air because they saw it on Bugs Bunny cartoons. It's embarrassing to know that we've become so ignorant of the world.
I got Australian, Californian, NY, American Southern, Indian, Midwestern US (which is my region), Scottish, Jamaican, Canadian, Welsh and a few others. I am a native English speaker from Central Ohio USA. These were tough. The differences for the most part are VERY subtle and might come down to a single word in a paragraph.
The Parliamentarian stated because of his "antipodean background" he was having difficulty, so he was born in OZ or NZ and has spent some time in UK -I'm Aussie and didn't understand the Scottish guy either!
I understood the Scot perfectly well. They were being obtuse purely because he's an SNP member. The behaviour of that backbencher to him was quite obnoxious.
That was a fascinating listen into quite wide ranging types of different accents. I got quite a few correct, but I should because I’m an American who’s traveled a bit, and I enjoy British television here on RUclips! And yes Marie, the ones I struggled with one of the more remote English accents. Most of the American accents were quite easy for me. But I also struggled with Maltese, South Africa and Singapore. The Scottish accent particularly The Glaswegian accent I knew right away. Because one of my favorite stand-up comedians is a man memes Billy Connelly! You should check him out, he’s very funny‼️😂🤣🤪
Like you, I'm an American who's lived in England (Suffolk and London) a little, and who enjoys British TV. Also like you, I got all of them except So. Africa, Malta, and Singapore! I even managed to correctly name many of the areas of Britain and Ireland (London, Essex, Northern Ireland, etc.), and guessed "north England" for the Geordi, and "James May" for the Bristol accent. :D
RUclipsr Diane Jennings talks about various Irish accents. UK RUclipsr Simon Roper goes into great depth about the changes in English over time. I'm convinced he knows more about the subject than most professors of linguistics. Erik Singer has a multi-part series on the Wired RUclips channel regarding the huge number of accents within the United States. Even living in the US my entire life, I did not know there were that many regional accents in the USA.
@@terryomalley1974 it’s called “Simon Roper”. But, while looking it up, I realised that I was thinking of Simon WHISTLER, 😂 He has several channels, including “Mega Projects” and “Today I Found Out”, which are really good 👍
Simon Roper's channel is one of those ones that *shouldn't* be interesting - like a 1970s late night Open University show on BBC2 (perhaps only UK viewers at least a certain age will get that reference). But it's absolutely fascinating stuff. The one he does where he shows the changes in the London accent from 1346 every 60 years until the present day is so cool! Can barely understand a word of 14th century English!
Thank you for posting this great and fun video. I got a lot of then though others were beyond me. I thought that in some case, as with Scottish, the particular speakers were not that typical. It was impressive that you gave this a go.
You stuck at it it! Good for you Marie. You might think you couldn't pick up on the little subtleties of the various British accents, but I bet YOU can "instinctively" tell apart the different French accents - northerners, southerners, westerners, etc. It's just the same for a native English speaker. And I imagine someone learning French would struggle to pick up on the different French accents that would seem so obvious to you.
#4 was Judge Judy; she's got a pretty distinctive voice that I was pretty sure I recognized with a couple seconds, and the content of what she was saying confirmed it. These are pretty easy as a native English speaker who's been exposed to these different accents, but obviously it's a whole different ball game if you're not a native speaker. All the countries with native English speakers have many different accents depending on the exact region. She got fooled by the first Irish one because she was in a different region of Ireland, obviously.
I’m not surprised you struggled with the British accents. There are loads of them. When I started work I met with lots of accents I’d never heard from England and Scotland. The Irish accent you reacted to was a very soft one and there are plenty of different ones there too. Even different parts of Dublin have very different accents.
I would say that those Irish accents were from news programs. They soften it a lot for television so the whole country can understand. Kinda like RP English in the UK up until the last few decades.
.....Oh, and when I went to my son's graduation from his university, I sort of got into a conversation with a young chef from Scotland, and I couldn't understand a word he said! I felt like the gentleman who said that the response should be in writing! There are many different accents in just about every country! You know California always sends love!!
Travelling in Scotland, I had great difficulty communicating with a young male sales assistant in Inverness. We were both speaking English, but I had trouble with his accent, and he with mine. I am Australian, and he was French, a student from Paris on a working holiday. I think what threw me off was the fact that he was wearing a kilt.
I surprised myself. Got the American, English, Irish, Indian and Australian. But then in America we have all these fine folks living here. And Canadian. Great show 🗽
I once knew a guy from Nigeria who thought he spoke perfectly good English. He had been speaking English his whole life and spoke very fast. I met him when he came to America to go to college. He was a nice guy and liked to laugh but I rarely understood a word he said.
All the accents from what used to be referred to as Black Africa are hard to understand. I went to grad school with a couple of fellas from Ghana, a former British colony. Very nice guys, but virtually impossible to understand.
Greetings from Scotland! This was great fun Marie! I played this along too, here's my results (I been alive 67 years and travelled a lot though!) It would have been very different if I had to guess where different French accents came from, especially as it is spoken in so many different countries? OK, here we go - #1 - Southern Ireland. You must have been in Northern Ireland? North & South Ireland each have very distinct accents, that was a Republic of Ireland (or Éire) accent. #2 - India - You weren't that wrong actually Marie! Depends where in England you go, this could well be the predominant accent due to a high instance of Indian population in some areas? #3 - Well done spotting the London accent! #4 - NY has also a very distinct accent, I knew you'd get that one! :) #5 - You spotted a Welsh accent (where I was born!) - well done you, I'm impressed! #6 - Jamaican can be tricky because a lot of island accents in that group sound similar. #7 - Californians have a kinda well spoken surfer accent (if that makes sense? #8 - Geordie (Newcastle area in N. England) is easy because it's just an hour or so south of the Scottish border! #9 - I had no idea! #10 America but I wasn't sure where in the North. #11 Essex, but that was because I recognised the person speaking as TV Chef Jamie Oliver! #12 Australian, but I have difficulty between OZ and NZ accents, so it was a lucky guess! #13 I had no idea if it was S. Africa or Zimbabwe! So I didn't decide! :) #14 Filipino. A lot of Filipinos in the UK and I listen to several Filipino reaction videos on RUclips every day! #15 Scottish. If I got that wrong after living here for 47 years................... :) #16 Brummie or Birmingham. A very distinctive accent in England. #17 Southern America has quite a distinct drawl. #18 Canadian - I amazed myself because I usually get it mixed up with the US accents! #19 I guessed West Country which Bristol is at the top of, so close enough! :) #20 N. Ireland - do you see the difference Marie? Sometimes it's even stronger than that though. #21 New Zealand but only because I was lucky guessing OZ at #11 :) #22 No idea it was Maltese! I thought it may have been a central African accent! :) I only got 3 wrong! Damn! I'm really surprised! I swear I did that honestly Marie! What I want to know now is - can I get a well paid job with such a random skill!!!!! 😂😂😂
I knew it, with a name like Howells you had to be Welsh! The Welsh accent I think was from around Machynlleth, probably a hill farmer. The Scottish accent, I think would be on the West Coast or maybe the Hebrides (possibly similar to the hill farmer with English as a second language). Not sure why the Republic of Ireland, Wales & Scotland only had one accent shown for each though - Dublin alone has more than one.
@@jinxvrs Hell. Don't complain. Canada, the second largest country in the whole world with several regional accent variations only got one accent example.
@@jinxvrs Well spotted Stephen! My name should be Howell without the 's'. My Great Grandfather got drunk after my Grandad's birth and went to register the birth, put on an 'S' by accident and it stuck ever since! Apparently my Great Grandfather was one of the wealthy Howell family members of "Howell's Garages" in Bath. As a "black sheep" drunkard he was thrown out of the family and ended up with nothing. My life story............. 🤣🤣
A sure-fire way of distinguishing an Oz from a NZ accent is to listen for the ‘e’ sound in the speaker. A NZ person would pronounce it as ‘i’. So, for instance ‘let’s go and check out the eggs’ becomes ‘lit’s go and chick out the iggs.’
Even as a native English speaker - who has heard a lot of those accents spoken, and is pretty good with discerning accents - this was tough. A number of them were using conversations with some of the key "tell" words. - for example, the Canadian said "about" more than once... if you listen closely, it is very recognizable. The Accents within England... you might as well ask an English speaker to identify the regional accents of France. Fun video.
As someone who grew up in the Midwest (aka North Central US) and living in the South, I had no trouble with those two accents. But the NY and California examples did not seem typical to me. The Canadian accent was barely distinguishable from the North Central US accent and less distinct than most Canadians I have known and most Canadians I have watched on RUclips.
I knew the New York accent (my guess was actually New Jersey, but i'd call that close enough). The California was tougher but only because it's so common on TV shows in the US so it's a little less distinct, but the subject matter sounded Californian so I guessed right. There are definitely more stereotypical Californian accents than what they had here though. Bill and Ted is a good example of that...same with Spicoli from Fast Times at Ridgemont High. For women that stereotype would be more 80's valley girl.
@@terryomalley1974 I agree. The Canadians I have met from Ontario are harder to distinguish than those from Alberta and Saskatchewan. The most distinguishable difference is the pronunciation of "about" and words that rhyme with it. That seems to come more strongly with people from Alberta and Saskatchewan.
It didn't help the North Central speaker was a hockey coach talking about hockey, either, so given the prevalence of Canadians in hockey in teams in both countries, his accent could have been Canadianized to an extent. I placed him as rural Canadian. Most urban English Canadians from Montréal westwards have a very similar accent, and more so still if they've attended university. Effectively all of our politicians, business and academic leaders sound pretty much the same. Since it's not the accent of a native speaker it wasn't in the list (Filipino aside?), but a French Canadian would have been interesting for her to hear since Quebeckers speak English with a very different accent than do Frenchmen. The other notable subset of English Canadian accents are those of indigenous Canadians, many of whom are unilingual 'native' English speakers but they often have the cadence, syllable breaking and pronunciations of a second language speaker. In that sense, it's the Canadian equivalent of the Welsh accent.
I worked with a man from Scotland a few years ago and it took me a solid couple weeks before I could understand and comprehend what he was saying to me 😂 I recently found out that he passed away but long story short, I’ll never forget that man! Repose en paix mon frère ❤️
well done for getting the welsh one because it’s actually a north wales accent which isn’t normally as documented on these types of videos. south wales accents are much more common, to the point where some people think it’s the only welsh accent that exists🤦♀️
Like many Glaswegians, the Scottish MP spoke very fast, as well as with a strong accent. That made it harder than ever. Most British people would probably cite the Glasgow accent as the hardest one to understand. We all have horror stories of being accosted by friendly, drunk Glaswegians and not being able to understand a word they’re saying!
I'm an American native English speaker. I found some of these very easy, and some almost impossible. I recognized the American accents, and also the Indian, Jamaican, Canadian, and Scottish accents with no trouble. I also recognized the Irish accents, but didn't know what region they were from. Same with most of the British accents. Some of these accents were new to me. I don't think I've ever met anyone from Malta or Singapore. I think the voice in number 4 is Judge Judy, a former judge who has had a courtroom TV show for years.
@george pal Actually this is almost certainly Hispanic Catholic Sonia Sotomayor, the Supreme Court leftist who channels the spirit of the times to interpret the living document Constitution and so would have voted to uphold slavery and Jim Crow segregation had she been around earlier.
I think you could be right about Judge Judy, I recognised the voice too, but couldn't put a name to it. There were a few other famous voices there too.
I could understand you way better than the the guys debating in the chamber. You English is really good now. You have ìmproved since I started watching you. Your doing great.!
Your French English accent is a lot more understandable than the Scottish English accent. I like the way the Aussies and Kiwis pronounce the word "so".
I'm American (central) and I worked with some South African guys last summer. Even though we both spoke English I only understood about half of what they said and they rarely understood me.
I’m an American. So I got all the American accents correct. Except I said the Canadian accent was a Midwestern United States accent. To be fair, Canada is the second largest country in the world. I think it spends five time zones. So there are a lot more than just one Canadian accents.
@@tifpo33 I've never really noticed a uniquely BC accent, to be honest. To me, ppl in Vancouver sound the same as people in Calgary, Winnipeg, or Toronto. I'll give you the Newfie accent, though. Very distinct, more Irish sounding than mainstream Canadian.
What a fun video ! I've always loved different accents from all countries. And the USA and the UK may be the hardest for new English language students to understand. ( Regional accents are almost like different countries in both nations) But you speak better English than most ... in both the USA & the UK.
My wife, an American, worked as a language immersion teacher in France when she was younger. Apparently they did not respect her much at the school she worked at because she did not speak "real" (aka British) English 🤣
Like many have said there are many different english accents in Canada. I can think of 4 just in the province of Ontario. The northern Ontario accent with snippets of french pronunciation; the Ottawa valley accent that is Irish sounding; the central accent typical of Torontonians that sounds like the Californian example and; the southwestern Ontario accent that sounds like midwestern U.S..
As a Southwestern Ontarian, I agree 100%. But, as usual, most content that focuses on the Englanguage concentrates on the US and the UL, while Canada, Australia, etc., get overlooked or generalized about.
I got 4 right... I live in New Mexico the State next door to Texas and to us their accent is very distinct and different from ours; would be like 2 entirely different countries with very different spellings, foods, dialects, etc. (New Mexico: Chile, Texas: Chili). Foods: NM: Posole, mutton, Chaqueweh, Huevos Rancheros, Sopapillas, Bunuelos, Navajo Tacos, Christmas Chile; Texas: Chili ConCarne, Gorditos, Fish Tacos, Shrimp, Lone Star Beer, Menudo.
My accent story: I grew up in Oregon, so I speak with a Pacific Northwest accent. It's fairly close to the Midlands accent, considered the most neutral American accent. When I went to college in the Boston area, I wanted to confirm if the train was heading toward Harvard Square. The local I asked didn't understand me the first two times I asked, "Is this the train to Harvard?" I then asked, "Is this the train to Hah-vahd?" Only then did he understand my question. The odd thing is that there is nothing in the Boston metro area that sounds remotely like Harvard that someone from out of town would inquire about. That was my introduction to the Boston accent.
The accent they chose for America is a famous television judge called Judge Judy. She's very tough on criminals and scrutinizes everything. That's what makes her so good at solving cases of theft, certain types of assault, animal cruelty, and other sorts of non-felony cases, as that sort of thing, unless it is made into a huge celebrity case, will not be shown on television usually, as they are very sensitive topics not appropriate for mixed audiences with children present, for example.
It's hard to define what a South African English accent is. Unlike countries like France or America, that have one official language but variations of it depending on the region or state respectively, there are 12 official languages in South Africa, and then you have to take into account the different provinces.
You actually did well. Great reaction video. The number of accents in a given country really requires time (and more so now with the world so connected). The UK has well over 60 distinct accents, although some are harder to distinguish and some can be very different over short distances. The US is younger and had a lot of influences over its young life and geographic distances that equate to over 16 at least (excluding cultural accents). Australia is unique in that although it has a geographical size slightly larger than the 48 contiguous states of the US, the colony was formed with convicts from many regions in what is now the UK (then free settlers). Linguists theorise that to avoid identification and infighting, the convicts nullified their accents or at least altered them to be understood. And in free settlers and then offspring and a flat accent formed. When colonies joined by roads, even colonies separated by thousands of kilometres had independently formed the same accent. With this in mind, and being a young country, Australia has 3 primary (not including cultural) accents.
This is the best video I've seen. My accent was described as from quite a mix . Worked in a trave agency, and one day a client said you're english. I'm not exactly, but it was because I prounconced the T . Even if I speak very good French. English is a bastard language, most importantly is the meaning of the words. Again, a fabstic video. Btw, I've coined a new acronym CCS. Covid confusion syndrome. . Let's have fun . As everything has changed
Many of those accents were very subtle. I, as an English person, found many of them difficult too. The politician from Glasgow at the end was hilarious, he had a very strong accent.
This was fun, thank you. Out 22 of I got 18. I didn’t get Maltese, South African or English (Bristol) and Singaporean I picked as HongKong English so I was close but not right. I am Australian, but I have travelled in Europe and the UK - I have a lot of Scottish relatives and my mum is Scottish from the north-west islands.The Scottish accent is softer the further north you go; I had a aunt from Glasgow and after growing up with her I could understand her, my friends down here could not. When I was last in London someone thought I was Canadian! It’s all about what your brain and ear get trained to. I am certain I would not be able to pick regional French accents. A fun fact about the Australian accent - there are three. Broad, often spoken outside the cites (also you’ll hear it in lots of films); General, what most speak in the major cites, is much more neutral than Broad. And educated or cultivated, listen to Kate Blanchett or Nicole Kidman or Geoffrey Rush for examples. I grew up in working class Sydney so my accent is General (I think), but I have told I have an educated accent (travel and university education must have done that for me).
You have all my respect. Trying to figure these out is very, very, complicated. I am a native speaker from California, I couldn't even get most of these. Also, can I get subtitles on #5
First time viewer here, but I thoroughly enjoyed this video. I'm so impressed with your amazing English - I wish I could speak French as well as you speak English, and was able to differentiate regional accents. It sounds stupid, but it didn't even occur to me that French people *in France* had different accents. (I had only assumed there were different accents in various French colonies.) Of course, it probably seems obvious, but you never know what you don't know!
I missed a number of them myself especially the ones from the Caribbean Islands and Singapore. Also India has allot more accents than that one that was taped.
![BabyChiefDoit - Too Slow (feat. STAR BANDZ) [Official Music Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/zayaxws7RPg/mqdefault.jpg)
Check out my NEW Channel 😊 with the second part! ruclips.net/channel/UC7RUGlMliNKJji6EaItRF1Q
I'm a Canadian living in New Zealand. I was surprised that a bus driver here picked up that I had a "Toronto Accent with something else in there". He was mostly correct as I have an Ottawa Valley accent with Toronto influences from my University and early working days. I asked him when he visited Canada and he replied that he's never left NZ - just really likes accents.
I picked up on an Australian accent from a customer once and he looked at me in surprise, told me he was born and raised in New York but both parents were from Australia. He said no one else had ever picked up on the Australian before.
I'm Canadian in the UK and its surprising how many people actually peg me as Canadian straight away rather than just assuming American.
I would say Toronto doesn't have that distinctive an accent in the context of most of Canada. Rural Ontario vs urban there is a difference.
The kiwi accent in this vid was probably a Maori guy from Auckland. We have various different accents too 😂
@@k_airo probably not a probably haha :)
I was on a train in London with my Indian father in law who was fluent in English and a Scottish guard spoke to me in English but with a really strong accent. When he left my father in law said " I know you were answering in English but what language was that man speaking?"😄
😂
😂 😂 😂
I'm an American and if the Scottish or Welsh accent is to strong, then I have a problem understanding all of it ... although the same goes for people from India who are speaking English but also have a strong non-English accent. Going on RUclips looking for technical programming videos, some of them were speaking English very fast but their Indian accent was too strong for me to understand everything.
@@dstrong86bluecoffee My wife was Indian and I lived over there for a while so after a while I barely noticed the accent
it could be scots which is technically a different language
It was cute you felt the need for excuses, no-one expect French people to know English accents in the same way no English people can recognise French accents. I enjoyed the video.
I think it's easy to tell the difference between Québecois and Metropolitan (from France) French but it might just be due to exposure living in Canada.
You’d think it’d be easy seeing as 33% of British English is from French 😆
@@VillainousFiend as an American attempting to learn French… I can assure you it’s not.
@@str8dominican If you can’t tell the difference between Metropolitan French and Québécois, either you’re deaf or you don’t speak French
@@skybananaqueen4051 “attempting to learn” implies that I don’t know French. At least not to a level that’s useful. However, I am a fluent Spanish speaker and I can tell you that most people who learn Spanish later in life can’t differentiate between Spanish accents either. It drives me insane when a movie or show cast someone as “puerto rican” but they are clearly Colombian. Or an actor who sounds Mexican but they are using Dominican slang. Some of my friends who have a decent grasp on the language but learned it as adults don’t notice things like that at all.
You're exactly right about the Irish accent. The accent you heard was a neutral accent that reporters/newsreaders are taught. You'll only ever that accent on TV/radio.
Should have been the "pull like a dog" interview with those rowers...
Yes as an Australian I still detected Irish but it was quite subtle.
I do know girls from South dublin who talk like that, just without the strict cadence.
One thing they got incorrect is assuming Canada has one type of accent. We actually have multiple accents as well, depending where in the country you are. The west coast sounds different from the middle which sounds different than Ontario which sounds different from Quebec which sounds different than the Maritimes (with Newfoundland having an even more unique accent) which sounds different from up north. And often the more metropolitan areas that are closer to America will sound similar to American's in that general area.
As a fellow Canadian from Ontario, I second that. The problem with much of the content on the Internet and RUclips is that it's dominated by American and British content. Other Anglosphere countries like Canada abd Australia often get overlooked.
As a western US speaker - whose mother was Canadian - so I have many Canadian relatives.
I would have placed the example used as someone who lived no further west than Winnipeg, but not from the Maritimes.
I'd be interested in hearing what Canadians think.
@@theblackbear211 I think you're right. The Canadian speaking was most likely from Ontario.
It's the same thing everywhere. The "Welsh" example in this video is just one example from hundreds. The people in my village sound different to the people in the nearest town about 4 miles away. There is no one "Welsh" accent, the same as there is no one "English" accent.
I spent a few days in Newfoundland once and took up with a girl who sounded American to me. Her mother, on the other hand, who'd been born and raised there, had a distinctly Irish lilt to her accent. And they told me that people in a different part of the island sounded French.
Once while on deployment in the US Navy, we pulled into Mombasa, and my buddies and I met some French sailors. We started buying rounds, trying to converse. The more we drank the better we understood each other! Weird!
Did the same with Australians. When we first started talking we all sounded like totally different languages to each other, than both of us speaking English. LOL
LOL.
Same thing happened to us after meeting some German exchange students "back in the day".
Only one of them could speak broken English.
None of us could speak German.
We broke out a bottle of Kentucky bourbon.
They had slipped a couple of bottles of real Jägermeister through airport customs.
( airport security really didn't exist during the 1980s)
Long story short, we all were best friends in about an hour.
My husband said the same thing about Japanese! He was stationed in Northern Japan for 18 months and would run into Japanese Air Force guys in the bars and just like you said, the more they drank the more they understood each other!! Of course there was a lot of hand gestures and finger pointing at whatever idea they were trying to get over!! Hilarious!!
Wow, same here but only Mongolians, small world eh?
Had the same experience while stationed in England. I met a group of Dutch sailors and they invited me back to their minesweeper and we drank many Heinikens!
A "typical" American accent is very different from a New York accent.
Oh... but what is a typical American accent..?????
?????????
Is that like a typical British accent.. or a typical Italian accent... or a typical German accent?? Is that typical American accent like the California accent or the Seattle accent or Kansas accent or maybe the Alabama accent or the Louisiana accent.. or north Dakota accent or the Washington accent.... or maybe the Minnesota accent with it's hard "O"'s it's cOHld outside you knOH... or maybe Missouri...
So many different accents from so many states....
Some states have more than one accent of their own...
You know not one of these states sound anything like the other right????!!!!!!
And that "new york" accent .... that one that is like from 1946 ... that Brooklyn Italian accent??? That new york accent that is mixed with Italian???
That isn't really even a full "new york" accent?????!!!!!!!!!!!!
barely anyone has that "accent" anymore.... oh well... alright....
yes it does exist.. but only a small percentage of people actually have that accent...
Oh But That Brooklyn "new york accent?????!!!!!!
It is a new york accent...
But wait...
Is it possible you meant one of these other NEW YORK ACCENTS..
What about the Queens accent?? Or maybe the Bronx accent or was it the (you know) the Long Island accent ??? Think about that.....
in Queens alone there is long Island..... which is in queens.... and long Island has their own accent!!!!!!!!
Did you know that????!!!!!
How about the Staten Island accent???? Or did you mean the upstate NY accent ...
There are so many different new york accents... so was it like maybe the Syracuse accent???? Or maybe that accent further north, upstate ny..
????? Which "New York" accent did you mean Exactly?????!!!!!!!!!!
Just curious..
@@orangie8426 ARE YOU OKAY??????
@@orangie8426 oh dear. Calm down mate
New York Jewish from the sound of it.
@@orangie8426 There are accents that are more representative of the average American accent than that one...that's the point. They are easily found even by just turning on the TV and listen to presenters talk.
A unique thing about the Australian accent. When it initially formed it was a combination of accents from across the UK leveling out. As a result, for a significant period of time, it was considered the most pure form of English. Of course, as time went on, we developed our own eccentricities.
The early Australians were sent to Australia as prisoners.
The census of 1901 showed that 98 percent of Australians had Anglo-Celtic ancestral origins, and was considered as "more British than Britain itself". ... In 1939 and 1945, still 98 percent of Australians had British/Anglo-Celtic ancestral origins. Until 1947, the vast majority of the population were of British origin.
@@aryansigrid I’m questioning your viewpoint on if those statistics were a good or bad thing. But Australia is so much more diverse today, which is great to see. My state still has the highest percentage of people with ancestors from the UK, but it’s slowly changing for the better.
I would question how much of the queen's pronunciation made it over to mix in, though, and given the socioeconomic background implied in the linguistic groups that were mixing, and the atavistic elitism of academia, I kind of think the "purest English" narrative might only have been palatable to practitioners of the "purest English."
@@sadrevolution The Queen's pronunciation is called Received pronunciation and is actually a more recently developed accent, it is generally considered to be the purest form these days.
You make an excellent point on the sheer diversity of the English language. As you say, it cannot meaningfully be said to belong to the people of the uk anymore. This video highlights the sheer diversity of its dialects, with the vast majority not being from the uk. And it’s just scratching the surface of how large and diverse it is.
Those were two different Irish accents. The first one was the "neutral" South Dublin accent common with newscasters. The second was a Donegal accent, but I can't narrow it down any further than that.
As someone who has never been to Ireland (or Europe, for that matter), I thought those were British (or at least British-influenced) accents when I heard them, since to an American they sound close to RP, or at least closer than many English accents. I think the American stereotype of an "Irish accent" is much closer to what you can hear Shay Given using in this interview: ruclips.net/video/SjzQzAR8bSc/видео.html
What would you call the kind of Irish accent he has, or a similar-sounding one?
@@philipmcniel4908 Shay Given is from Donegal. Donegal accents are one of the Ulster accents that are synonymous with Northern Ireland but as 3 of the counties of Ulster are in the Republic, not exclusive to Northern Ireland.
The Northern Irish accent in this video sounds like actor James Nesbitt who was born in Antrim but grew up in Coleraine which an hour away from where Shay Given grew up. Their accents are fairly similar but you also have to account for the natural variation in people’s speaking voice that can make them sound different.
@@Dreyno Thanks! I did notice the similarity between Shay Given's accent (which is what most Americans would try to imitate if they were asked to "imitate an Irish accent") and the Northern Irish one in this video.
I suppose it makes sense, as 1) the Irish (not Northern) accents given in this video were similar enough to British that many Americans would not hear the difference, and 2) lots and lots of US immigrants came from that part of Ireland. It does make me wonder if the Scots-Irish (a.k.a. the Ulster Scots) sounded similar to that Northern Irish accent by the time they arrived here, as they made up a huge number of the immigrants to the US in some areas, particularly Appalachia and the early American frontier.
@@philipmcniel4908 They would’ve sounded like today. They’d mostly be there a century or two by the time they emigrated to the US. They didn’t classify themselves as Ulster-Scots or Scots-Irish. Ulster-Scots became a term used widely during the troubles. Scots-Irish came about in the 1840s when Americans or Irish descent wanted to differentiate themselves from the poor, starving Irish arriving during the famine.
The Ulster accent is similar to the Scottish accent but is actually further from English or Welsh than most Irish accents. English people struggle more with an Ulster accent than a Galway accent for example. Any similarities you hear is to Scottish or a preconception that a part of Ireland that is British must sound more British than the independent part of Ireland.
@@Dreyno Actually, the similarity I heard was not the result of any such misconception, 1) because I didn't know where the accent was from until after I heard it, and 2) because the one that I thought sounded more British was actually the one from the independent part of Ireland, while the one that I thought sounded more "Irish" (based on the American stereotype) was from Northern Ireland.
#10 could easily have been Canadian too. Hockey players almost have their own "accent" and unique style of speech
They sounded like they were from southern Ontario to me. Hamilton, Kitchener etc.
They had Canadian vowels, not American ones. #18 wasn't even remotely Canadian.
As a Canadian I agree. People also forget how big Canada is and think we all have the same way of speaking. We don't. Our accents also vary from coast to coast.
Yeah the guy even mentioned someone named tanner which is such a central/southern Ontario name.
I am an anglophone Canadian who primarily watches British television and I still missed three. To deepen the shame, I guessed Canada for the American Northwest because his accent was actually that weird one all professional hockey players use when giving tv interviews.
i did as well :(
He sounded like such a hockey player!
oh i got that wrong too! same issue lol
When I was listening I literally went “this sounds like a hockey interview” LMAO
This was fun! Accents change depending on cultural differences and even individual differences so it’s no wonder they don’t always sound alike. The reason you heard some French in the Jamaican one is because there is a patois (rough speech) mixed in with the European accent and American creole going back centuries.
Years ago I was a flight attendant with a British airline. I’m Australian. I was based in Glasgow once for a week but the crew I flew with were all from Dundee. This part of Scotland has a very strong hard accent and is spoken very quickly. I couldn’t understand a word the crew said for at least three days before I finally got to understand perhaps 50% of the conversations. They also use many words that are only spoken in that part of Scotland so even many if the words were unfamiliar to me. It was quite funny.
I was on a tour bus going to Stonehenge and the two men behind me were speaking a foreign language. After quite a while I realized they were actually speaking English but with such a hard Scottish accent I could only understand about every 12th word. But there’s also a chance they were speaking Scottish with an occasional English word tossed in.
The Irish example has a very neutral accent, not many of us actually speak like her.
I have heard some people compare the Welsh accent to a slight Indian accent, and I've heard English people and Aussies get mistaken for each other
George Bernard Shaw famously said: "England and America are two countries seperated by a common language." 😊
The same could be said for North and South England! Or the US, come to think of it.
@@JimFortune I'm from the North of England and have no issues with Scottish, Geordie or Welsh, Irish accents.
I think it's because in the North our accents are similar so we can understand each other better. I don't mean similar as in accents i mean in pace, style and rhythm. We speak a lot faster then the southern accents so i guess that is why some people mishear or don't understand what was said.
What's funny to me is that most of all the MP's from the North and other parts of the UK don't even have strong accents compared to the places where they come from. I guess because they spend so much time in the south they speak more slowly and switch their accent to sound more "neutral" so that people can understand but even then the still didn't understand him.
His accent would be considered posh in Scotland.
"Is some sort of British"
I think you've offended half of the inhabitants of the North of Ireland 😂😂
Northern Irish accents, like Belfast, and Scottish accents are nearly indistinguishable for me.
to be honest that was not a great example of a northern irish accent
Well I mean Ireland is part of the British isles… 🤷♂️
@@oldbird4601 and Canada is a part of North America but if you described Canadians as having an American accent people would disagree
@@imedi one of them was from Dublin and the other was from donegal, which is in the North but not a part of northern ireland
I lived in Glasgow, I understood every single word that MP said. Simply asking about accessibility for disabled folks during the refurbishment of the building.
Trust me, this is a light Glaswegian accent, it gets faster and squish words together. Think Brad Pitt's character in "Snatch".
That MP with an antipodean background was embarrassing. As an Australian, I understood every word the Scottish MP said.
@@newbris Same! And I'm also Aussie :D It's pretty awful that the other MP couldn't understand that but we can!
I'm an American and I could understand the Scottish MP. I was shocked that the conservative MP could not.
Americans can have a difficult time understand 1 third of the words spoken by some Scottish and UK speakers. It's just nuts. I really admire people like you who can speak multiple languages and challenge yourself to actually identify different accents in a language that is not your 1st language. You did ok.
Not just Americans. I used to work with a Scott and a bunch of Indians, in South Africa - and effectively had to try and translate between them. My Indian Colleagues thought I would be able to understand him because I was white. Ha!. It was an interesting experience indeed, especially as the night wore on and his hip flask would start emptying.
...Plenty of people have a hard time understanding UK speakers.
Watch more British TV.
I worked for many years in consulting so I work with people who have all types of accents of English; all over the United States, China, India, Russia, France, Australia, Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, yup all over the world but the accident that finally defeated me was an accent from northern England. You could’ve knocked me over with a feather when I realized that these two young lads from northern England were absolutely unintelligible to this poor old midwestern American.
This test was easy for me because I'm a scholar from the USA, I have traveled internationally, and I have been in contact with people from many parts of the English speaking world. This would be a hard test for someone for whom English is a second language.
I was raised around my grandfather, an Irish immigrant. Years later my brother went to Ireland. He spoke to my granpas nephew. Asked my Irish cousin if he was speaking Gaelic. She said nope...Queen's English. THAT is how thick the Kerry Ireland accent is😁.
Kerry, West Cork, and Donegal have incomprehensible accents. North Dublin is pretty strong too, but you can usually understand it.
@@qwertyTRiG ya Dublin is saved by how Slow they speak. Kerry its like you have to shove 500 words into the space of 250!
# 16 was Adrian Chiles who was born in Quinton, Birmingham, to an English father and Croatian mother, and moved a few miles away to Hagley, Worcestershire at the age of four. A feature of his presentations is his Birmingham accent. He also speaks Croatian, despite having a self-confessed imperfect understanding of the language's verbs, declensions, and cases.
The Essex gezzer was tele "chef" Jamie Oliver. The Northern Ireland bloke was actor James Nesbitt.
I naturally speak with an Eastern Kentucky accent (the more tired/drunk I am, the stronger my accent gets). One of my earliest jobs was as technical support for consumer printers over the phone. In training, they told us that the one accent most Americans hear as a typical American accent is from Omaha, Nebraska.
Also, when you said, "Whaaaat?" after the Southern American accent, that's how we say it, too.
I laughed when I heard number 11 because I recognised the voice! It was a famous British chef called Jamie Oliver. He has a classic Essex accent. Then I recognised some more: 16 was a tv presenter called Adrian Chiles, 19 was an actor and writer called Steven Merchant, 20 was an actor called James Nesbitt. But I got quite a lot of them wrong! It was good fun, though, thanks Marie! 👍
I laughed too when I heard #4 because I realized it was Justice Sotomayor!
He sounded like Ricky Gerveis to me.
I thought that was Kit Harrington (Jon Snow).
Number 11 was Ricky Gervais.
@@jimclark1374 There’s a similarity, but 11 is definitely the Essex accent of the British chef Jamie Oliver. Ricky Gervais is from Reading, which is quite a different accent (to a native speaker), but the tone of the voice is close to his.
I'm Canadian and I got almost all of them, though some were definitely guesses, lol. Considering this one anecdotal anglo-Canadian vs French person's result comparison, perhaps it's due to the various multicultural mixes that we grew up with in our respective regions. In other words, it's much like exposing oneself to unfamiliar forms or music, that is, one needs to develop an ear for the distinctions in accents through one shared language before it becomes second nature to recognize them or even notice them to begin with.
The Singaporean one lost me. I once worked with a guy who was Singaporean chinese, who lived in NZ for a few years, and then London. It was odd because I could detect all three accents.
I’m Australian and the one I missed was the Maltese one. I couldn’t even guess that one :) I have an advantage of knowing most British accents.
Thank you so much for this, Frenchfryyy! I absolutely adore languages and variations in the various ones. I'm a little too old to seriously try to learn a new one, but when I was four I spoke more fluent Japanese than English. When we moved back to the states, I never had any kind of opportunity to keep my Japanese fluent. I'm very proud of my son though, because he has a technology industry job that pays extremely well because he is fluent in several languages and he was hired several months before he graduated from his university!
When I was at a shop in Hawaii waiting to pick up my new glasses (I’m from Texas btw, even if you’d never know based on my accent), a woman from Australia randomly started talking to me. Her accent was very strong and all I could hear was “Good die.” After 2-3 times I finally figured out that she was saying good day and returned the gesture. We just sat in awkward silence the rest of the time though. If it were to happen now I would definitely be able to laugh it off but back then I was too embarrassed
This test was easy for me because I'm from the USA, I have traveled internationally, and I have been in contact with people from many parts of the English speaking world. This would be a hard test for someone for whom English is a second language.
I’m English and I found many of these quite difficult so I think you did pretty well. I don’t think the examples given were very typical. there are about 10 main accents in UK but many sub accents For instance London alone has at least six or seven main accents that an Expert can quickly detect. Then of course we have the problem of people who do not speak distinctly slurring their words , dropping h’s and g’s etc. either by upbringing or because they have a dental problem or other speech defect. Some people take pride in not speaking well and consider that those who do are trying to sound posh so they Can claim some form of superiority. Perhaps you have a similar thing in France. for myself in my travels in France when I was young I managed to just about distinguish North France. Paris and the south around Nice and cannes where they roll their r ‘s more. My father was pretty well spoken with a fairly bland accident (which we call received pronunciation ). but being as he came from Birmingham and thus was a Brummie He could put on a very thick accent and it was almost impossible to understand what an earth he was talking about. Many people refer to the difficulty of understanding people from Glasgow but of course well spoken Glaswegians have a very clear and distinct way of talking that you would easily understand although they would have quite a distinct Scottish accent
I guess it never occurred to me that there were so many English accents, other than American or English accents. Being able to hear only about 30% of what a normal person hears made hearing anyone hard enough. Very interesting 👍
I just noticed that you are almost up to 50k subscribers! Wow, congratulations! 🤩
Haha, fellow HoH person here who was trying to play along! I was pleasantly surprised- I got 13/22!
@@azelmamortlake4471 you did better than I did, I think I got 7, which surprised me. Good job!
I could definitely pick out the Canadian accent. Their "ou" sound is very distinctive. Their words sound round.
In Canada the eastern coast accent (aboot, sorey/sorry)is different from Toronto, and as you go more west if sounds like California. As a Canadian I got the Canadian accent wrong lol
Sounds round?
You did pretty well, actually. I can't imagine knowing ANY regional French accent! All English-speaking French accents all just sound "French" to me. I did well on this test, though, only missing Filipino and South Africa.
The white South african accent is pretty close to the British accent so that's understandable
I'm South African and even I had to think twice on the SA one. I think the person in the clip might be an SA expat who has modified her accent to suit her new home? (I do it too when I'm overseas, sometimes certain inflections just don't work when abroad so one adapts remarkably quickly)
As a native English speaker, born and bred in the UK, I can sympathize with your difficult in picking out the different accents. In general, I'd say nearly all the clips were too short and some were not very good examples. Both the Irish and Northern Irish accents were fairly mild examples of their particular accents and the Geordie example had very few of the distinctive vowel sounds typical of that accent until perhaps near the very end. I also doubt whether anyone who's not from Malta and who's never been there would recognize the accent, it's not like it's an accent that's heard very often on the world stage.
This was an exceptionally fun video, Marie! I've been all over Ireland and their regional accents can vary wildly in my opinion. Given enough time you're able to quickly identify what area people are likely from after a few seconds of speaking with them. It's actually kind of cool. My personal favorites are Donegal and Galway. (I'm sure it's similar to varying areas of France and Germany, but I don't speak either language fluently enough to quickly decipher.)
Take very good care. Here's to hoping the week treats you kindly!
I met someone from County Kerry in Australia. He'd been trying to ask me something for a couple of minutes before I realised he was speaking English.
Some of these accents were difficult just in the samples used. Most of the accents were mild. I wouldn't feel too bad about it haha.
The Indian accent was quite strong. I never heard anyone confuse an Indian accent for a European one. :D
Great video. Really interesting to hear your reasons for guessing your answers. The difference in English accents around the world is truly enormous and must be so overwhelming for learners of English.
There are literally scores of accents in Ireland. The one you heard there was a very middle class / south Dublin accent, the stock accent of the Irish media and establishment.. a universe away from a working class north Dublin accent or a deep rural accent from Kerry or Armagh etc.
I just stumbled upon this video and I want to say thank you for wanting to learn the standard "American" accent. Thank you so much and I appreciate your hard work!!
Well done. This was a lot of fun. I imagine everyone learned something here.
I just discovered your channel today, but I too find the difference in regional dialect fascinating.
Loved it! I had to laugh at the "Canadian" accent. Canada is like other big English speaking countries since you encounter different accents in different Provinces. A Newfoundland - in fact most accents down east as they like to say - are quite different from native speakers in Toronto (where I grew up) or even Western Ontario going in the other direction.
It couldn't have been Canadian, they didn't say aboot, they said abowt. LOL!
@@aliwantizu Not funny.
Yeah, clearly make by someone from England, where every town has it's own supposed accent that I can't really tell the difference. Yet all of Canada is one and the US is like only four.
@@terryomalley1974 - I'm only half Canadian, but that particular idiocy offends me. The whole "aboot" thing is from South Park needing a ridiculous accent for the Canadian characters, and now it's the first thing most Americans think of when Canada is mentioned. It's like believing that all Americans talk like Yosemite Sam and walk around firing their six-shooters in the air because they saw it on Bugs Bunny cartoons. It's embarrassing to know that we've become so ignorant of the world.
@@hamletksquid2702 Agreed. People like stereotypes, no matter how off-base they are, because they simplify complex things.
Bruh, she stood still for few seconds that I thought my screen froze
This was very interesting. I have lived all up and down the east coast of the USA. I only got 3 right as well.
They should have brought up the State of Maine. I stopped and asked for directions there and was more confused when I walked away.
I got Australian, Californian, NY, American Southern, Indian, Midwestern US (which is my region), Scottish, Jamaican, Canadian, Welsh and a few others. I am a native English speaker from Central Ohio USA. These were tough. The differences for the most part are VERY subtle and might come down to a single word in a paragraph.
I got so many wrong! Even Parliament couldn't understand the much too fast talking Scottish fellow so now I don't feel so bad. Fun video! :0) 🐺
The Parliamentarian stated because of his "antipodean background" he was having difficulty, so he was born in OZ or NZ and has spent some time in UK -I'm Aussie and didn't understand the Scottish guy either!
I understood the Scot perfectly well. They were being obtuse purely because he's an SNP member. The behaviour of that backbencher to him was quite obnoxious.
That was a fascinating listen into quite wide ranging types of different accents. I got quite a few correct, but I should because I’m an American who’s traveled a bit, and I enjoy British television here on RUclips! And yes Marie, the ones I struggled with one of the more remote English accents. Most of the American accents were quite easy for me. But I also struggled with Maltese, South Africa and Singapore. The Scottish accent particularly The Glaswegian accent I knew right away. Because one of my favorite stand-up comedians is a man memes Billy Connelly! You should check him out, he’s very funny‼️😂🤣🤪
Like you, I'm an American who's lived in England (Suffolk and London) a little, and who enjoys British TV. Also like you, I got all of them except So. Africa, Malta, and Singapore! I even managed to correctly name many of the areas of Britain and Ireland (London, Essex, Northern Ireland, etc.), and guessed "north England" for the Geordi, and "James May" for the Bristol accent. :D
RUclipsr Diane Jennings talks about various Irish accents.
UK RUclipsr Simon Roper goes into great depth about the changes in English over time. I'm convinced he knows more about the subject than most professors of linguistics.
Erik Singer has a multi-part series on the Wired RUclips channel regarding the huge number of accents within the United States. Even living in the US my entire life, I did not know there were that many regional accents in the USA.
Simon Roper knows more about EVERYTHING than anyone else. (Yes, I know, good researchers & writers, but the guy is so engaging!!)
What's Simon Roper's channel called?
@@terryomalley1974, Simon Roper
@@terryomalley1974 it’s called “Simon Roper”. But, while looking it up, I realised that I was thinking of Simon WHISTLER, 😂 He has several channels, including “Mega Projects” and “Today I Found Out”, which are really good 👍
Simon Roper's channel is one of those ones that *shouldn't* be interesting - like a 1970s late night Open University show on BBC2 (perhaps only UK viewers at least a certain age will get that reference). But it's absolutely fascinating stuff. The one he does where he shows the changes in the London accent from 1346 every 60 years until the present day is so cool! Can barely understand a word of 14th century English!
Thank you for posting this great and fun video. I got a lot of then though others were beyond me. I thought that in some case, as with Scottish, the particular speakers were not that typical. It was impressive that you gave this a go.
You stuck at it it! Good for you Marie. You might think you couldn't pick up on the little subtleties of the various British accents, but I bet YOU can "instinctively" tell apart the different French accents - northerners, southerners, westerners, etc. It's just the same for a native English speaker. And I imagine someone learning French would struggle to pick up on the different French accents that would seem so obvious to you.
#4 was Judge Judy; she's got a pretty distinctive voice that I was pretty sure I recognized with a couple seconds, and the content of what she was saying confirmed it. These are pretty easy as a native English speaker who's been exposed to these different accents, but obviously it's a whole different ball game if you're not a native speaker. All the countries with native English speakers have many different accents depending on the exact region. She got fooled by the first Irish one because she was in a different region of Ireland, obviously.
I knew that voice sounded familiar. I thought it was Judge Judy right away, too.
I’m not surprised you struggled with the British accents. There are loads of them. When I started work I met with lots of accents I’d never heard from England and Scotland. The Irish accent you reacted to was a very soft one and there are plenty of different ones there too. Even different parts of Dublin have very different accents.
The same is true in France, There are a number of distinct accents in and around Paris.
I would say that those Irish accents were from news programs. They soften it a lot for television so the whole country can understand. Kinda like RP English in the UK up until the last few decades.
@@thomasgavin6957 Yes!
Great video Marie. I had a hard time and I've been to most of those places 🙃 would love to see more like this
.....Oh, and when I went to my son's graduation from his university, I sort of got into a conversation with a young chef from Scotland, and I couldn't understand a word he said! I felt like the gentleman who said that the response should be in writing! There are many different accents in just about every country! You know California always sends love!!
Travelling in Scotland, I had great difficulty communicating with a young male sales assistant in Inverness. We were both speaking English, but I had trouble with his accent, and he with mine. I am Australian, and he was French, a student from Paris on a working holiday. I think what threw me off was the fact that he was wearing a kilt.
I surprised myself. Got the American, English, Irish, Indian and Australian. But then in America we have all these fine folks living here. And Canadian. Great show 🗽
I once knew a guy from Nigeria who thought he spoke perfectly good English. He had been speaking English his whole life and spoke very fast. I met him when he came to America to go to college. He was a nice guy and liked to laugh but I rarely understood a word he said.
All the accents from what used to be referred to as Black Africa are hard to understand. I went to grad school with a couple of fellas from Ghana, a former British colony. Very nice guys, but virtually impossible to understand.
Got most of these. I have a tough time telling the Canadian/American accent apart, though. They sound very similar to me.
Greetings from Scotland! This was great fun Marie! I played this along too, here's my results (I been alive 67 years and travelled a lot though!) It would have been very different if I had to guess where different French accents came from, especially as it is spoken in so many different countries? OK, here we go -
#1 - Southern Ireland. You must have been in Northern Ireland? North & South Ireland each have very distinct accents, that was a Republic of Ireland (or Éire) accent.
#2 - India - You weren't that wrong actually Marie! Depends where in England you go, this could well be the predominant accent due to a high instance of Indian population in some areas?
#3 - Well done spotting the London accent!
#4 - NY has also a very distinct accent, I knew you'd get that one! :)
#5 - You spotted a Welsh accent (where I was born!) - well done you, I'm impressed!
#6 - Jamaican can be tricky because a lot of island accents in that group sound similar.
#7 - Californians have a kinda well spoken surfer accent (if that makes sense?
#8 - Geordie (Newcastle area in N. England) is easy because it's just an hour or so south of the Scottish border!
#9 - I had no idea!
#10 America but I wasn't sure where in the North.
#11 Essex, but that was because I recognised the person speaking as TV Chef Jamie Oliver!
#12 Australian, but I have difficulty between OZ and NZ accents, so it was a lucky guess!
#13 I had no idea if it was S. Africa or Zimbabwe! So I didn't decide! :)
#14 Filipino. A lot of Filipinos in the UK and I listen to several Filipino reaction videos on RUclips every day!
#15 Scottish. If I got that wrong after living here for 47 years................... :)
#16 Brummie or Birmingham. A very distinctive accent in England.
#17 Southern America has quite a distinct drawl.
#18 Canadian - I amazed myself because I usually get it mixed up with the US accents!
#19 I guessed West Country which Bristol is at the top of, so close enough! :)
#20 N. Ireland - do you see the difference Marie? Sometimes it's even stronger than that though.
#21 New Zealand but only because I was lucky guessing OZ at #11 :)
#22 No idea it was Maltese! I thought it may have been a central African accent! :)
I only got 3 wrong! Damn! I'm really surprised! I swear I did that honestly Marie! What I want to know now is - can I get a well paid job with such a random skill!!!!! 😂😂😂
I knew it, with a name like Howells you had to be Welsh! The Welsh accent I think was from around Machynlleth, probably a hill farmer. The Scottish accent, I think would be on the West Coast or maybe the Hebrides (possibly similar to the hill farmer with English as a second language). Not sure why the Republic of Ireland, Wales & Scotland only had one accent shown for each though - Dublin alone has more than one.
@@jinxvrs Hell. Don't complain. Canada, the second largest country in the whole world with several regional accent variations only got one accent example.
Of course, a RUclips blogger, you seem to have the interest. Alabama here.
@@jinxvrs Well spotted Stephen! My name should be Howell without the 's'. My Great Grandfather got drunk after my Grandad's birth and went to register the birth, put on an 'S' by accident and it stuck ever since! Apparently my Great Grandfather was one of the wealthy Howell family members of "Howell's Garages" in Bath. As a "black sheep" drunkard he was thrown out of the family and ended up with nothing. My life story............. 🤣🤣
A sure-fire way of distinguishing an Oz from a NZ accent is to listen for the ‘e’ sound in the speaker. A NZ person would pronounce it as ‘i’.
So, for instance ‘let’s go and check out the eggs’ becomes ‘lit’s go and chick out the iggs.’
Even as a native English speaker - who has heard a lot of those accents spoken, and is pretty good with discerning accents - this was tough.
A number of them were using conversations with some of the key "tell" words. - for example, the Canadian said "about" more than once...
if you listen closely, it is very recognizable.
The Accents within England... you might as well ask an English speaker to identify the regional accents of France.
Fun video.
As someone who grew up in the Midwest (aka North Central US) and living in the South, I had no trouble with those two accents. But the NY and California examples did not seem typical to me. The Canadian accent was barely distinguishable from the North Central US accent and less distinct than most Canadians I have known and most Canadians I have watched on RUclips.
I knew the New York accent (my guess was actually New Jersey, but i'd call that close enough). The California was tougher but only because it's so common on TV shows in the US so it's a little less distinct, but the subject matter sounded Californian so I guessed right. There are definitely more stereotypical Californian accents than what they had here though. Bill and Ted is a good example of that...same with Spicoli from Fast Times at Ridgemont High. For women that stereotype would be more 80's valley girl.
The Ontario Canadian accent (I have one) isn't all that different than the upper Midwest (Minnesota, Wisconsin, North Dakota).
@@terryomalley1974 I agree. The Canadians I have met from Ontario are harder to distinguish than those from Alberta and Saskatchewan. The most distinguishable difference is the pronunciation of "about" and words that rhyme with it. That seems to come more strongly with people from Alberta and Saskatchewan.
It didn't help the North Central speaker was a hockey coach talking about hockey, either, so given the prevalence of Canadians in hockey in teams in both countries, his accent could have been Canadianized to an extent. I placed him as rural Canadian.
Most urban English Canadians from Montréal westwards have a very similar accent, and more so still if they've attended university. Effectively all of our politicians, business and academic leaders sound pretty much the same.
Since it's not the accent of a native speaker it wasn't in the list (Filipino aside?), but a French Canadian would have been interesting for her to hear since Quebeckers speak English with a very different accent than do Frenchmen. The other notable subset of English Canadian accents are those of indigenous Canadians, many of whom are unilingual 'native' English speakers but they often have the cadence, syllable breaking and pronunciations of a second language speaker. In that sense, it's the Canadian equivalent of the Welsh accent.
@@davidjames4915 Indeed, I can tell the difference between Quebecois and French in both English and French. The accents are very different.
This is a fun video Marie, thanks for posting!
Canada has a a lot of different accents btw.
I worked with a man from Scotland a few years ago and it took me a solid couple weeks before I could understand and comprehend what he was saying to me 😂 I recently found out that he passed away but long story short, I’ll never forget that man! Repose en paix mon frère ❤️
I didn't do very good. I got the southern United States. Maybe because I'm from Tennessee 😆. I really like your videos.
This was a tough lineup of accents. Good for you trying it and posting the video.
My cousin from Texas has such a strong accent that we joke that she says "dog" with three syllables!
Actually sounds more like: daoowg.
I'm curious how your cousin from Texas would say the phrase: ''Have you got the bail? Well, ring the bell!''
well done for getting the welsh one because it’s actually a north wales accent which isn’t normally as documented on these types of videos. south wales accents are much more common, to the point where some people think it’s the only welsh accent that exists🤦♀️
Like many Glaswegians, the Scottish MP spoke very fast, as well as with a strong accent. That made it harder than ever. Most British people would probably cite the Glasgow accent as the hardest one to understand. We all have horror stories of being accosted by friendly, drunk Glaswegians and not being able to understand a word they’re saying!
I actually found him pretty easy to understand
@@ihatebofa6 That's a she.
I thought that was the Scottish Prime Minister
I understood him perfectly (as a Welshman). I put that down to growing up hearing Billy Connolly...
Well, I’m just so impressed by the people that understood him. Well done! Give yourselves a pat on the back.
Good to see you back on! Was getting worried something happened to you! Take CARE our # 1 French Fry!!👍🏽😜🐑👻👻👻👻👻
I'm an American native English speaker. I found some of these very easy, and some almost impossible. I recognized the American accents, and also the Indian, Jamaican, Canadian, and Scottish accents with no trouble. I also recognized the Irish accents, but didn't know what region they were from. Same with most of the British accents. Some of these accents were new to me. I don't think I've ever met anyone from Malta or Singapore.
I think the voice in number 4 is Judge Judy, a former judge who has had a courtroom TV show for years.
Youre probly right about #4. One of the worst jew from new york accents Ive ever heard lol
@george pal Actually this is almost certainly Hispanic Catholic Sonia Sotomayor, the Supreme Court leftist who channels the spirit of the times to interpret the living document Constitution and so would have voted to uphold slavery and Jim Crow segregation had she been around earlier.
I think you could be right about Judge Judy, I recognised the voice too, but couldn't put a name to it. There were a few other famous voices there too.
I knew the Singaporean accent due to my exposure to televangelist Joseph Prince.
I got one out of all of them. So many of them sound practically alike.
That was fun. There are more accents in America some people I can’t understand very well because it’s so different sounding. 😎
I could understand you way better than the the guys debating in the chamber. You English is really good now. You have ìmproved since I started watching you. Your doing great.!
Your French English accent is a lot more understandable than the Scottish English accent.
I like the way the Aussies and Kiwis pronounce the word "so".
As an Australian who speaks some French I still find her accent harder than the Scottish MP. I understood him without issue.
This is the very hardest test of this kind that I've come across on RUclips. I'm British and I found them a bit difficult.
Don't feel bad as a Canadian speaker of English I only got 7 right. I doubt many people would get the majority of them right.
I'm American (central) and I worked with some South African guys last summer. Even though we both spoke English I only understood about half of what they said and they rarely understood me.
I’m an American. So I got all the American accents correct. Except I said the Canadian accent was a Midwestern United States accent. To be fair, Canada is the second largest country in the world. I think it spends five time zones. So there are a lot more than just one Canadian accents.
I thought the Canadian accent was actually Wisconsin or Minnesota lol
@@2dg3 As a Canadian from Southern Ontario, I can attest that they're not much different.
@@terryomalley1974 Really? The Newfie accent is very different from a BC accent.
6 time zones: Newfoundland, Altantic, Eastern, Central, Mountain, Pacific. :)
@@tifpo33 I've never really noticed a uniquely BC accent, to be honest. To me, ppl in Vancouver sound the same as people in Calgary, Winnipeg, or Toronto. I'll give you the Newfie accent, though. Very distinct, more Irish sounding than mainstream Canadian.
What a fun video !
I've always loved different accents from all countries.
And the USA and the UK may be the hardest for new English language students to understand.
( Regional accents are almost like different countries in both nations)
But you speak better English than most ... in both the USA & the UK.
My wife, an American, worked as a language immersion teacher in France when she was younger. Apparently they did not respect her much at the school she worked at because she did not speak "real" (aka British) English 🤣
I love how they used steve merchant talking about karl pilkington for the bristol one lol
The best accent ever is yours. It's always melted my heart. Hugs from Idaho...
It is lovely, I agree.
You did well! It's not easy even for native speakers!
Like many have said there are many different english accents in Canada. I can think of 4 just in the province of Ontario. The northern Ontario accent with snippets of french pronunciation; the Ottawa valley accent that is Irish sounding; the central accent typical of Torontonians that sounds like the Californian example and; the southwestern Ontario accent that sounds like midwestern U.S..
As a Southwestern Ontarian, I agree 100%. But, as usual, most content that focuses on the Englanguage concentrates on the US and the UL, while Canada, Australia, etc., get overlooked or generalized about.
I got 4 right... I live in New Mexico the State next door to Texas and to us their accent is very distinct and different from ours; would be like 2 entirely different countries with very different spellings, foods, dialects, etc. (New Mexico: Chile, Texas: Chili). Foods: NM: Posole, mutton, Chaqueweh, Huevos Rancheros, Sopapillas, Bunuelos, Navajo Tacos, Christmas Chile; Texas: Chili ConCarne, Gorditos, Fish Tacos, Shrimp, Lone Star Beer, Menudo.
My accent story: I grew up in Oregon, so I speak with a Pacific Northwest accent. It's fairly close to the Midlands accent, considered the most neutral American accent.
When I went to college in the Boston area, I wanted to confirm if the train was heading toward Harvard Square. The local I asked didn't understand me the first two times I asked, "Is this the train to Harvard?" I then asked, "Is this the train to Hah-vahd?" Only then did he understand my question. The odd thing is that there is nothing in the Boston metro area that sounds remotely like Harvard that someone from out of town would inquire about.
That was my introduction to the Boston accent.
Embrace it
Pahk ya cah in Hah-vahd yahd
@@BlueDebut, can't. You ahnt allowed to pahk in the yahd anymoe-ah.
@@MichaelScheele Then go lookit those wicked smaht kids buildin robuts over dere at MIT.
@@UFBMusic, don't need to. I am a graduate of MIT.
The accent they chose for America is a famous television judge called Judge Judy. She's very tough on criminals and scrutinizes everything. That's what makes her so good at solving cases of theft, certain types of assault, animal cruelty, and other sorts of non-felony cases, as that sort of thing, unless it is made into a huge celebrity case, will not be shown on television usually, as they are very sensitive topics not appropriate for mixed audiences with children present, for example.
It's hard to define what a South African English accent is. Unlike countries like France or America, that have one official language but variations of it depending on the region or state respectively, there are 12 official languages in South Africa, and then you have to take into account the different provinces.
One of the reasons no one can ever recognise us it seems, lol.
You actually did well. Great reaction video.
The number of accents in a given country really requires time (and more so now with the world so connected).
The UK has well over 60 distinct accents, although some are harder to distinguish and some can be very different over short distances.
The US is younger and had a lot of influences over its young life and geographic distances that equate to over 16 at least (excluding cultural accents).
Australia is unique in that although it has a geographical size slightly larger than the 48 contiguous states of the US, the colony was formed with convicts from many regions in what is now the UK (then free settlers). Linguists theorise that to avoid identification and infighting, the convicts nullified their accents or at least altered them to be understood. And in free settlers and then offspring and a flat accent formed. When colonies joined by roads, even colonies separated by thousands of kilometres had independently formed the same accent.
With this in mind, and being a young country, Australia has 3 primary (not including cultural) accents.
This is the best video I've seen. My accent was described as from quite a mix . Worked in a trave agency, and one day a client said you're english. I'm not exactly, but it was because I prounconced the T . Even if I speak very good French. English is a bastard language, most importantly is the meaning of the words. Again, a fabstic video.
Btw, I've coined a new acronym CCS. Covid confusion syndrome. . Let's have fun . As everything has changed
Salut Marie! J'suis hâte pour cette réaction!
Many of those accents were very subtle. I, as an English person, found many of them difficult too. The politician from Glasgow at the end was hilarious, he had a very strong accent.
This was fun, thank you. Out 22 of I got 18. I didn’t get Maltese, South African or English (Bristol) and Singaporean I picked as HongKong English so I was close but not right.
I am Australian, but I have travelled in Europe and the UK - I have a lot of Scottish relatives and my mum is Scottish from the north-west islands.The Scottish accent is softer the further north you go; I had a aunt from Glasgow and after growing up with her I could understand her, my friends down here could not. When I was last in London someone thought I was Canadian! It’s all about what your brain and ear get trained to. I am certain I would not be able to pick regional French accents.
A fun fact about the Australian accent - there are three. Broad, often spoken outside the cites (also you’ll hear it in lots of films); General, what most speak in the major cites, is much more neutral than Broad. And educated or cultivated, listen to Kate Blanchett or Nicole Kidman or Geoffrey Rush for examples. I grew up in working class Sydney so my accent is General (I think), but I have told I have an educated accent (travel and university education must have done that for me).
You are so much fun!
I've communicated in nothing but English since late 1947, and got fewer than 50% correct!
I loved this video. I had a good laugh because I was in the same boat you were !!!! Don’t feel bad . This was good fun!!!! 😎👍👍👍👍
Ireland has dozens of accents. The accent used here was very neutral. I wasn't even certain at first.
You have all my respect. Trying to figure these out is very, very, complicated. I am a native speaker from California, I couldn't even get most of these.
Also, can I get subtitles on #5
I got more than I expected, thanks for sharing!
First time viewer here, but I thoroughly enjoyed this video. I'm so impressed with your amazing English - I wish I could speak French as well as you speak English, and was able to differentiate regional accents. It sounds stupid, but it didn't even occur to me that French people *in France* had different accents. (I had only assumed there were different accents in various French colonies.) Of course, it probably seems obvious, but you never know what you don't know!
A Glaswegian "R" is larger than life and can wipe out all the other letters in the words...
I missed a number of them myself especially the ones from the Caribbean Islands and Singapore. Also India has allot more accents than that one that was taped.