Strongest Accent In Your Country

[nudge+]

21 minutes ago, Spike said:

Don’t Austrians and Bavarians sound similar? Anyway I recall an anecdote that a German production company wouldn’t let Schwarzenegger dub his own film because they claimed he sounded like ‘an Austrian farmer’

Pretty similar, depending on the region, but both Bairisch and Austrian German have several regional dialects of their own that sound quite different from each other too!

[Tommy]

Austrians also have some completely different words for some things. 

[SchalkeUK]

When I was a kid I grew up with an accent similar to David's (Kes) but after joining the BBC in 1955 I was 'groomed' to sit with headphones on in front of a microphone and lose the accent - once it had been controlled I was given the job and ended up doing anything from Top 20 to reading the NEWS in a 'posh' BBC accent.  These days - after spending lots of time in Tommy's part of the world I find that if I use my German on holiday, the real Germans seem to think I am from the Ruhr rather than England - ne! (that seems to be a giveaway bit at the end of the sentence)  I still find the Scottish accent - particularly Glaswegian or Saltcoats area hard to follow as they always seem to want to change all the vowels in the words (24 hours makes a dee there!) Ms Sturgeon can be particularly hard to follow.  My time in Beziers in the south of France taught me that they cannot understand anyone from Calais and when my friend from there was elected to represent them in Paris he often came home having been ignored - not due to speaking rubbish, but they simply couldn't understand him. My favourite pastime as a kid was chucking maccas.  Nowadays it is sometimes used after throwing away a McGarbage burger but then we simply threw stones at each other.  The Welsh are passionate about holding on to their language as are many in the South of Germany and Austria as it sometimes seems like another land.  When Ivan Rakitic came to the Ruhr from Switzerland he and I spent time trying to sort out the difference between his and Manuel's version of German, but respecting each other's weird sounds helped not only to sort out what was meant, but for future interviews - German, Spanish and English for him was a big help as it was for all the kids.  When Mesut was asked why he was spending time in English Conversation classes his response was to the effect that he wanted to be a footballer and play in England (although Bennie Howedes suggested he learned German first!!). His recent interviews have  made it all worthwhile so embrace the differences.  Smile at the pronunciation if you wish, but accept that if they sound strange to you, your voice may be just as strange to them.  Interesting to read the different responses above - only sorry I can't actually hear them.

One final thought - our get together in Duisburg with Tommy, livabird, Relling, Jessie and others had no problems.  English with a German Accent, German with a Polish or Norwegian accent and Thea's strong South east accent all made for a great visit and all understood each other so accents are no real problem using that as an example - even Jesse's Dutch was single rather than double..........

[Pyfish+]

2 hours ago, The Artful Dodger said:

I remember hearing myself on camera when I was a kid and I used to have broad Hull accent (different from Kez's south Yorkshire twang) but it's pretty much gone now.

Grimsby doesn't have a massively strong accent but I lost mine when I moved to Sunderland for Uni. Came back with a weird hybrid but now I think I'm back to a softer more well-spoken variant of the Grimsby accent.

[Guest]

My accent is weird. I have fluent-native spanish but when I speak I have a gringo tone. When I speak English though, you can tell I came from South America. Just things of living between Peru and Canada really.

[The Artful Dodger]

4 hours ago, Spike said:

Why’d it change? That is pretty unusual.

Various reasons. I moved out of Hull around 11 when my parents split up, although I was still in the area I was surrounded by people with softer accents. My Father's side of the family are all southern so I had a mix of influences on me too, then I moved to Liverpool aged 18. Though I can't bear listening to my own voice, I probably have a fairly bland, generic northern accent now.