Native English speakers: are there any dialects or accents of English that you cannot understand?

[Roy]

Please tell me which ones. Are there any that are much more difficult to get your head round?

As a non-native English speaker / user I have a hard time to follow / fathom some Cockney, extreme Yorkshire speakers, and Afro-Americans using their slang.

[Ford]

I guess this map is relevant to this thread.

[Tooting Carmen]

I have to pay extra attention when listening to Kiwis and African-Americans.

[frankhammer]

Geordie. It may as well be a foreign language. That and some Scots dialects.

[frankhammer]

I have to pay extra attention when listening to Kiwis and African-Americans.

Kiwis squawk. New Zealanders speak English.

[Incal]

In a nutshell:

https://vt.tiktok.com/y6udAM/

[Roy]

Geordie. It may as well be a foreign language. That and some Scots dialects.

Hard to believe but this is English too! Standar Irish English accent (not that extreme though) is definitely distinctive too with it rhotic content and specific expressions. English there is definitely Irish-language flavoured and Irish language itself is not by English where it is spoken.



My cousin who studied in Stoke-on-Trent told me that no one from the UK understands them clearly, it is indeed bizarre, just checking it through youtube suggests some madness going on.

[Ouistreham]

I am not a native speaker. I never meet any difficulty when faced with somewhat special Anglospheric dialect.
Except for: GLASGOW, Scotland.
Glaswegian is the most obscure gibberish ever inflicted to mankind.

[Roy]

I am not a native speaker. I never meet any difficulty when faced with somewhat special Anglospheric dialect.
Except for: GLASGOW, Scotland.
Glaswegian is the most obscure gibberish ever inflicted to mankind.

Have you ever come across Stoke-on-Trent accent? Now this is gibberish. Fellow English people struggle to understand them.

[Creoda]

Have you ever come across Stoke-on-Trent accent? Now this is gibberish. Fellow English people struggle to understand them.

Not really. Maybe 50-100 years ago when the local dialects were still broad and strong, but rarely any more, just many words are pronounced differently and a few local expressions. My grandparents were from there, and didn't have trouble being understood.

Some old Stoke pronunciations/expressions:

Duck = friend, mate, love etc (my parents still call each other this)
Ey up duck = How are you mate
Nesh = to be soft
Father etc = pronounced Fayther/Faither
Cook, Book, Look etc = pronounced like the oo in Soon
Out, House etc = pronounced Ite, Hise etc, so Outlander is Itelander
Canna = Can't
Mither = bother
Narky = bad tempered
Horse, Worse = pronounced oss, woss etc
Snapping = Dinner
Scran = food
Right = pronounced rate
Old, Told etc - pronounced Owd, Towd etc
Fang = to Catch
Slat = to Throw
Prefixing a family member with 'Our', (pronounced are)

Also some archaic English like thee, thine, yon etc