I love seeing foreginers trying to deal with my accent :P

Lord TSC

On holiday in Dubai but seen it in many other countries as well, especially America. I start talking and you can see the puzzlement on their faces. It's not I have a strong accent; a slight Drogheda one, mixed with Dublin and Kildare. And they can usually understand me. More, it's that they can't locate where I'm from.

Maybe it's cause I watch so much English and American TV so I can usually take a guess where others are from. But I notice Americans especially can't figure out if I'm English or what. They get we're speaking English but don't have an English accent. Nor, I guess, do I have the "Diddly-dee" Irish one they probably associate with us...

On the upside, can usually dodge blame on any rude encounters by saying we're English :P

NTMK

Teamshadowclan wrote: »

On holiday in Dubai but seen it in many other countries as well, especially America. I start talking and you can see the puzzlement on their faces. It's not I have a strong accent; a slight Drogheda one, mixed with Dublin and Kildare. And they can usually understand me. More, it's that they can't locate where I'm from.

In fairness you'll do well to find people from outside louth that understand the Drawda accent:P or know where its from

flutterflye

Or even different parts of Ireland.

Was lost in Donegal, went into a pub, and not one person there could decipher my D4 accent, and I couldn't understand them!

jester77

flutterflye wrote: »

Or even different parts of Ireland.

Was lost in Donegal, went into a pub, and not one person there could decipher my D4 accent, and I couldn't understand them!

You sure you were not in the Gaeltacht?

Seachmall

I can't understand farmers out in the country even if they're from the same county as me.

NuMarvel

When you're abroad, you're the foreigner, not them .

_blank_

They look at you weird because of your Louth Accent.

It happens to all Louth people, you aren't alone in this.

Hasmunch

Saying tirty tree and a turd uaually gets a good laugh when abroad














(thirty three and a third)

dpe

Americans are lousy with accents. My (pretty generic) northern English accent is usually identified as Australian.

Is a Louth accent that difficult to understand? I can't say I've noticed.

Dyr

They're looking at you weird because you have a quaint draaawwda accent

FatherLen

i have a dublin accent with a twinge of kildare and some waterford colloquialisms so noone ever knows where i am from.

iamwhoiam

I had to phone a helpline in Newry lately and we both found it difficult to understand each other .,My Dublin accent and his Newry accent has us saying "Sorry ? " alot .We ended up speaking v e ry s l o w e l y and c l e a r l y.

syklops

Hasmunch wrote: »

Saying tirty tree and a turd uaually gets a good laugh when abroad


(thirty three and a third)

I love how you put it in brackets at the bottom, because few people on boards would have gotten it otherwise.

stovelid

It's less confusion than distaste, mirth and a nagging fear regarding the safety of their personal belongings.

flutterflye

jester77 wrote: »

You sure you were not in the Gaeltacht?

Don't know.
They were speaking English.... I think?!

ejmaztec

Bambi wrote: »

They're looking at you weird because you have a quaint draaawwda accent

Either that, or he walks around with his lad hanging out.

MungBean

I was in America once upon a time and I went into a deli to order myself a cheese burger with bacon. All went swimmingly until I mentioned bacon, the second I said bacon all communication broke down.

They looked at me like I was an alien and kept saying sorry?. I repeated myself 5-6 times, then said it in an american accent and still they hadnt a clue. Eventually one of them pulled out a plastic bag and said very slowly as if to a child "Bag ? You want a bag?". So I had to actually spell it out to them. B A C O N and still they looked puzzled, until all of a sudden one of them twigged it and we all had a little giggle. Until I got home and realised that in al the drama I forgot the bbq sauce.

beano345

in a shop in poland the girl working at the till did'nt know what i was saying she asked my polish mate what language i was speaking and he told her english and she says i can speak english and thats definitely not it.

http://youtu.be/hbsb3DmVgmk

mikemac

From draaawda OP?

Did you get a good deal with you bewked the holiday, hai?

NTMK

mikemac wrote: »

From draaawda OP?

Did you's get a good deal with you's bewked the holiday, hai?

FYP:pac:

mikemac

Good correction, thanks for that

Everyone in Ireland say book. Except for Louth where it changes to bewk

RachaelVO

Sure I'm from dublin and there are some dublin accents I have problems with

An exboyfriend of a friend was explaining to me that the made loads of money one year at christmas by having a tie party! I asked him to explain and he said that he had the neighbours around and sold them ties. I shrugged my shoulder and thought fair enough! Everyone is entitled to make a few bob...

It was only when I was going home that I realised he didn't mean TIE party, he actually meant TOY party, it was just the way he pronounced it.

mikemac

Shure maybe that does be the way they do be doing it

The Mad Hatter

mikemac wrote: »

Good correction, thanks for that

Everyone in Ireland say book. Except for Louth where it changes to bewk

There's also the argument whether it should sound more like buck or buke.

InTheTrees

I've been living in the usa almost 20 years.

And I've grown truely sick of the blank stare you get when you're talking to someone who has no flippping clue what you're saying.

The constant refrain of "wh...?"

The other side of it is the people that love your accent so much they dont care what you're saying they just want to listen to your voice.

Lord TSC

Meh, I never have a big problem with people understanding me (18 years of speech and drama classes means I'm pretty articu....art....good with these wordy things). It's more hilarity in seeing them try to figure out where we're from.

Case and point, was talking to an (want to say Indian) taxi driver today. Could understand us but he asked if we were American or German.

Typically the revelations of being Irish are then followed with a conversation about how cold our Irish summers are compared to their winters

katiebelle

I worked in the UK for a few years and I worked in one place where I had to ring head office a good few times a day . It took a while before I realized they were all fighting between themselves in order to be the one to take my call. Why ??? Because they loved my accent ??? They did in their hole. They were totally taking the piss out of my accent and often had me on loud speaker . They were also trying to get me to say things like " long more " ( much longer) and other such Irishism ( and limerickisims like tacckies) . The thing is my accent is a bit weird posh limerick/american as I lived in the US for a bit ( Posh Limerick is still flat as f~ck but with a twang) and not very Irish at all.

Calibos

My Dublin Northside relatives think I have a D4 accent which on the one hand I can't understand because I do not say Roysh or Dort but little do they know, I only put it on when talking to them or talking to anyone on the phone. When talking to mates or brothers I reckon I have a Braaaaaaay accent. Actually now that I think of it, my accent changes unconciously depending who I am talking to. I must have one of those tonal musical ears or something that can't help mimicing somewhat. When serving salt of the earth customers my accent is Bray, when serving posh people I seem to drift into a West Brit, when serving other nationalities I drift into a mid Atlantic because sure everyone watches American TV and can understand the flat neutral mid west yank accent.

Funny thing was we were just talking about accents a short while ago at home. There was an ad on the telly for a new BBC drama about people trafficking and yer man from that WW2 miniseries Band of Brothers is in it. I know this actor is English and is probably speaking in his own accent but because I first saw him as CL Winters in BOB with an American accent, his actual real accent sounds fake and put on . The reverse is also true. James Marsters that played the Vampire Spike in Buffy the Vampire Slayer is American who played an English Vampire. His English accent seemed real but now when he plays actual Americans and speaks in his own accent, he sounds like an Englishman putting on a fake American accent!!

But Yeah, the Louth accent....[Shudders]

Goes right through me like a nail on a blackboard.

Kevin Duffy

mikemac wrote: »

Everyone in Ireland say book. Except for Louth where it changes to bewk

Not at all - I'm from DNS and pronounced it bewk for a looooong time, I'm not d'only one either.

professore

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKpThu1JtUI

languagenerd

In France, a French woman I was talking to asked me "So what's your native language? Arabic?".

I'm from Dublin but really don't have a strong accent... But I have red hair - how the hell could I be Arabic?!