Most incomprehensible English accent?

[Mathilda]

Ye cannae whack Glaswegian.

Geordie comes close.

Completely agree with this.

One of the funniest days of (regarding thick accents) was when I had to translate a cockney to an english-as-a-first language South African.
Yeah, some of the deepest working class cockneys can be terrible as well.

 

[nonconformist]

From the ones i experienced firsthand, it has to be Scottish.
However the accent used in Snatch is far worse. Took me 4 or 5 sittings to finally understand most of the dialouge.

Deliberate, if you're thinking of Mickey.
Even seasoned Englishmen can't fathom what he says.

 

[LLXerxes]

Scottish maybe? Or whatever the crossbowman in the Stronghold games speaks, I can never tell.

Inside the US? Boston. Definately. Just don't tell GA

 

[Swiss Bezerker]

tenjooberrymuds

 

[Desmond Hawkins]

Scottish, definitely. I have seen enough Scottish movies that needed English subtitles to make this judgement.

 

[A'AbarachAmadan]

West Virginia rural mountains.

 

[BCLG100]

Essex .

brummie is bad

 

[CaptainF]

Native Chinese speakers when talking in english are very hard to understand.

 

[downtown]

West Virginia rural mountains.

Bingo. They turn entire sentances into one big grunt. Cant understand 'em

 

[MjM]

I understand Scots easy, as my Dad's side is Scottish. Us SoCal folks kinda sound a tad like Southerners, so thats not bad. Im gonna have to go with Boston.

 

[kingjoshi]

@Phlegmak: You have lived with it that you understand it. My sister could not understand half of country songs but she has trouble with many accents.
----
I watched a Scottish film recently (Molvern Callar) which I didn't know was Scottish (thought English). But some of the dialogue in the bar was almost impossible to understand. Sounded like a mix of Irish/Scottish and almost like another language.

Another difficult one for me is Chinese accent. Having a professor talk where you have to ask him to repeat often is annoying.

Some rap (Bone Thugs and Harmony) is incredibly difficult to understand.

But I'm pretty good with understanding accents, so it's usually not a problem for me.

 

[classical_hero]

I have trouble understanding thick Eastern European accents. It is how they speak in there native tongues that makes speaking in Englih hard o understand. Often many rural English accents are hard to understand. Aslo many Scottish accents are hard to understand, but thanks to Willy, more people are getting the gist of it.

 

[Heretic_Cata]

I have trouble understanding thick Eastern European accents. It is how they speak in there native tongues that makes speaking in Englih hard o understand.

That's true, but i always speak nicely, i can change my accent to american and british ... And romanian is sorta different from the rest around here ...it's a latin language.

 

[atreas]

As for the English native speakers, I bet it is MY accent (it's terrible).

For me, in all my (many) travels I had only once found myself in a position not to understand anything that was told to me. It was in Dublin, when a taxi driver was talking to me. It took me a while to realize that every "u" was pronounced exactly as it is written (a well known word with 4 letters, starting with f and ending in ck, really helped).

But I haven't been in Scotland, and I have heard it's much more difficult there.

 

[Truronian]

Proper Cornish speakers are pretty incomprehensible, even to natives!

My step-dad is a Scot though, and I have to agree with the consensus...

 

[Dann]

Native Chinese speakers when talking in english are very hard to understand.

My own spoken English carries a bit of a Filipino accent. The odd thing is Westerners understand me better while the locals struggle. Meanwhile I'm also struggling trying to understand THEM. Usually after about two minutes I give up and switch to Mandarin. Easier that way. For all of us.

 

[Pasi Nurminen]

My own spoken English carries a bit of a Filipino accent. The odd thing is Westerners understand me better while the locals struggle. Meanwhile I'm also struggling trying to understand THEM. Usually after about two minutes I give up and switch to Mandarin. Easier that way. For all of us.

A bit off topic, Dann, but did you need to get a permit to live in Shenzen or were you born there? Do they require permits for people to enter or live in Shenzen as I've read? Just curious.

 

[Raisin Bran]

From what I heard .... the worst accent I heard is in the show Coronation street .... east-enders I think.

IRL the worst I got was a trucker from Texas ...... poor guy had 3 teeth left in his mouth plus his texan accent was the worst I ever Heard!

 

[classical_hero]

From what I heard .... the worst accent I heard is in the show Coronation street .... east-enders I think.

They are just poor shows full stop, but they do have some hotties in them though.

 

[Phlegmak]

Bingo. They turn entire sentances into one big grunt. Cant understand 'em

I live nearby there. I'm going to have to check it out.