11 Difficult English Accents You WON’T Understand
Looking for precise and professional language translation? Look no further! I specialize in accurately translating English to Haitian Creole, French, and Spanish.
Trust me to deliver exceptional results that capture the essence of your message. Contact me today for flawless language translations.
❓🤨❓ How good are your English listening skills? Can you figure out where these accents are from? Can you understand what they are saying? Brag in the comments and let us know!
📺 WATCH NEXT:
Why Does English Have So Many Accents? 👉🏼
✍🏼 ON THE BLOG:
Prefer reading to watching? We’ve got you covered!
67 Awesome British Slang Phrases 👉🏼
💻 CERTIFICATE OF ONLINE LANGUAGE TEACHING (CEOLT)
Interested in teaching English or another language online? Check out my premier language-teaching course 👉🏼
⬇️ GET MY FREE STORYLEARNING® KIT:
Discover how to learn any foreign language faster through the power of story with my free StoryLearning® Kit
👉🏼
📖 LEARN A LANGUAGE THROUGH THE POWER OF STORY:
Stories are the best way I have found to learn ANY language. Forget the boring textbooks and time-wasting apps and learn a language the natural, effective way with one of my story-based courses. 👉🏼
🗣 SUPERCHARGE STORIES WITH SPEAKING PRACTICE
Many StoryLearning students have found great success combining story-based learning with 1-on-1 speaking practice. We recommend LanguaTalk for finding talented tutors who can help you become more confident.
Book a free trial with a 5-star tutor here 👉🏼
📸 FOLLOW ME ON INSTAGRAM:
Get daily language tips, comics, reels, and more on Instagram (@iwillteachyoualanguage) 👉🏼
📚 RESOURCES:
Want to dive into some English stories? We’ve got just the books for you!
👉🏼
⏱ TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 – Intro
0:25 – Dialect #1
1:35 – Dialect #2
3:26 – Dialect #3
5:06 – Dialect #4
6:37 – Dialect #5
8:24 – Dialect #6
9:53 – Dialect #7
11:43 – Dialect #8
13:52 – Dialect #9
15:11 – Dialect #10
16:01 – Dialect #11
📜 SOURCES & ATTRIBUTIONS:
🎬 Video Clips:
El Dorado: Myth or Reality? | History's Greatest Mysteries (S4)
Hot Fuzz (4/10) Movie CLIP – Sea Mine (2007) HD
1976: NORTHUMBERLAND accents | Word of Mouth | Voice of the People | BBC Archive
Durham resident with a very strong accent discusses Dominic Cummings & Barnard Castle
Sam Fender teaches us Geordie slang | Radio X
Trini accent | Accent tag
I SANK my BOAT!
3 FISH 3 LURES CHALLENGE! YOU GET PRIZE IF I'M SUCCESSFUL (TRINIDAD and TOBAGO)
Accent Tag (Trini 🇹🇹) Version 2 😂
Irreplaceable Cape Flats style
'I have a Weird Accent' – Riaad Moosa Comedy
What is Afrikaaps?
Appalachian Man interview-Mountain Man
The Way People Talk in Appalachia
Singlish Presentation
Introduction to Singlish!
American Learns To Speak Jamaican Patois ft. JkissaMakeup | Donalee Curtis
Funny Jamaican Interview ,Flooding in Jamaica,Rosie tutty gran
Jamaican Rastaman talking about society !
When Two Newfoundlanders Meet In The Mainland
🇬🇾 Guyanese slangs must watch 😂
Guyana's funniest Video | Word on the Street | Ep 1 with Melissa Khan
Beautiful Guyana – Anil Azeez x Rap Anna
The Amazon Review Scandal
Scot Squad – The Bam Whisperer
The Americans Who Still Speak with West Country British English in Tangier Island, VA #tiktok
The odd accent of Tangier VA – American Tongues episode #3
100% Liberian English With the Cashier at Mcdonalds!
Liberia VS America English | Cultural Difference Liberian colloquia VS American English | NyonkourTV
GGG tells the story of Blay
Michael Blackson Speaks Liberian English (Pres. George Weah)
Advice for Learning to Speak Liberian English (Colocwa)
🖼 Images:
“Raleigh at Trinidad” by Theodor de Bry is licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons
There are some Cajuns down in Louziane, not just the French words. Many influences all spiced up! They got kicked out of Canada and kinda got stuck in them swamps. But when they speak ‘English’…it’s like Gumbo.
So interesting!
Yes! Cajun is fun to listen to.
@Ruth Tautuaa Well… Cajuns in general are fun; food, music, dance, fiddles, crawdads, especially when you add some hot sauce!
Ready to try another language? See if you can guess where these German speakers are from! 👉🏼 https://youtu.be/VxrL8La1BjM
Surely, you did not end your sentence with a PREPOSITION, Oliver? 😮
The film “Trainspotting” is set in Edinburgh, but for some reason, I knew you were going to say Glasgow.
Appalachian English is such a comforting sound to me. My family lost it a few generations back when they moved to the cities for work, but I’m certain our ancestors all spoke that way.
Incidentally, most folks from the region say “App-uh-LATCH-an” not “App-uh-LAY-shun.” I often hear the joke, “If I hear you say Appalaysha, I’ll throw an apple atcha!”
Yep, lived there for almost a decade and you’re right.
I’m not from here, but I’ve lived in western North Carolina for about nine years. I recognized Appalachian as being spoken somewhere in eastern North America, though I wasn’t sure if it’s in the mountains, the Outer Banks, or what.
From Chicago moved down to Kentucky and I love it here. Everyone’s so laid back and chill. The good old country life. Been here 10 years now and I got a little twang now and I love it 😂. So yes you’re right it’s pronounced App-uh-la-chen lol
I got Appa-LATCH-an immediately, as that’s where I’m from originally (and my family still lives there). I’ve lost most of it myself, but it’s like music to my ears now!
Next time, Olly should do the Hoi Toiders of the Outer Banks.
And EOSborne, thank you! Every time he said “appa-lay-sha”, it was like finger nails on a chalk board!
There really is no such thing as “the British accent”. Only British accents, plural. Some of them differ so much from each other that it’s hard to believe they come from the same island. The idea a lot of people have in their heads of “the British” accent does exist, but it’s far from universal. Just seems to be what has caught on in the media.
Such an awesome video Olly 👍🏻 entertaining, informative and well edited. My personal favorite accent is Jamaican.
Fun! I am from the western USA. I grew up speaking standard English. I knew the Appalachian English instantly. Here it is referred to as ‘southern’ or ‘hillbilly’ English. I understood everything that was said.
I didn’t know about NewFoundland English but I did understand almost everything in the video clip.
The other English video clips I had to listen carefully to understand about half of the words. 🙂
Great video, fun fact we still have the saying ‘my stomach thinks my throats cut’ in Scotland to mean we’re hungry (just I’m from just southwest of Glasgow). It is fascinating how some words cross languages we don’t immediately think of as being similar in modern times, I’d love to learn Norwegian due to the similar words to Scots
I have a friend from the Caribbean. He spoke his dialect with his family and speak normally with people. He still spoke English but it was hard to follow but in a instant he could speak English I understood . And their culture is so cool
The excitement I felt when #2 was revealed as Trinidad since I had it in my head the whole time 😍😍😍😂😂
I was born in Europe and live there now, but went to school in Cape Town and I am proud that I understood every word of the Cape Flats accent! Reminds me of my childhood.
Every Canadian recognized the Newfies. They do tone it down when they talk to the rest of us but it’s still pretty distinctive. BTW the emphasis is on LAND in both Newfoundland and Newfoundlander.
Non – Canadians tend to pronounce it and “-Lund”, too, instead the typical pronunciation of “Land”.
really only picked up the SA and Appalachian ones, but being from NC made the latter easy to identify. On the opposite side of the state, the Ocracoke (high tider) accent is another gem.
My Grandpa spoke with a deep Appalachian accent. That was perfect like listening to one of his stories right there.
I was not expecting to see Trinidad on this list. I grew up with this and the Jamaican accent and I never fully appreciated that most people can’t understand what is being said. I got every Carib accent. The Liberian accent sounds like the Belter accent in The Expanse.
Two I wish you had covered: Cajun English with it’s French grammer and sentence structures, and Hispanic-American Spanglish.
I’m from Appalachia. I hated my accent so much growing up. I was ashamed of it, and would get made fun of when visiting anywhere. I did my best to lose it and I mostly have. I wish I’d known then that it was nothing to be ashamed of and the people mocking me were ignorant.
I live in Vancouver Canada. I only got the Newfoundland accent. My wife is from Cape Breton – northern Nova Scotia. Their accents can be challenging too.
I live on the west coast of the US and worked with refugees and immigrants from around the world for over 25 years. Hands down the hardest to understand were the Liberians. I’d hear Americans pleading with them to speak English and see the frustrated looks on the Liberians faces. It was funny and sad. You’ve probably seen this clip from Saturday Night LIve, but I’m including it here in case you haven’t. It’s one of my favorites: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGRcJQ9tMbY
This is a fascinating video Olly. Can you recommend any books about this topic? I’d love to read more about English pidgins, dialects and creoles and how they developed.
I’m from Manchester, I was geographically close but not spot on with some of these, so for example the Northumbrian one I knew was broadly somewhere in North East England. I knew Trinidadian was from the Caribbean, and I got Jamaican quite quickly. But I got Glaswegian spot on straight away without any difficulty.