How come English speakers are incomprehensible to others?

[newbee2022]

15 hours ago, vangrop said:

I was not born in a country whose native language is English. At school we were taught classic English. Unfortunately here in Thailand I experienced that it is impossible to have a fluent conversation with a native English speaking individu. Is it their accent, their speedness, their dialect, their level of education, their idioms I would like to understand. On the contrary when conversating with any other European people I understand despite our sometimes ridicoulous accents. Can anyone explain

It could be even a matter of education and intelligence. 

[billaaa777]

In the US we use a great deal of slang that could actually mean the exact opposite of the word you heard. An example is "somebody saying that is bad". Of course you would think that what they were talking about was no good. When the exact opposite is what they were saying and "bad means really good." It is easy for us to know when bad means bad, and not good. But, I imagine it would be a nightmare for a person who English was not their first language.

[Gumballl]

15 hours ago, vangrop said:

I was not born in a country whose native language is English. At school we were taught classic English. Unfortunately here in Thailand I experienced that it is impossible to have a fluent conversation with a native English speaking individu. Is it their accent, their speedness, their dialect, their level of education, their idioms I would like to understand. On the contrary when conversating with any other European people I understand despite our sometimes ridicoulous accents. Can anyone explain

Yeah, you were schooled by a narrow-minded teacher(s), and you yourself have not ventured outside a small circle when you were raised.

 

I do not fault you. But hopefully I have answered your question, err, query.

Edited December 5, 2023 by Gumballl

[digger70]

14 hours ago, bignok said:

Aussies no accent. You should all copy Aussies.

They can try, 

But they  would have trouble to understand a ringer from a station in the mulga .

[Thingamabob]

Very simple. Many English born people speak English very badly. Poor diction, sloppy attitude, limited vocabulary. Main reason is the poor educational standard increasingly prevalent in the UK. Some time ago a bar owner in Romania said 'It's very easy to tell who the English are. They're the ones who can't speak  English properly'.

[jensmann]

15 hours ago, vangrop said:

I was not born in a country whose native language is English. At school we were taught classic English. Unfortunately here in Thailand I experienced that it is impossible to have a fluent conversation with a native English speaking individu. Is it their accent, their speedness, their dialect, their level of education, their idioms I would like to understand. On the contrary when conversating with any other European people I understand despite our sometimes ridicoulous accents. Can anyone explain

i agree with vangrop. Most uk's, coming to Thailand never learnt how to speak high english.all accent and slang. they not even try. Not Gentleman Like...

where i come from, everybody speaks the written language especially when speaking with none natives.

[simon43]

I speak RP (received pronunciation) English, which couldn't be clearer.  But as a child I also learn to speak with a strong local accent.  My parents insisted that I 'switch off' my local accent when required to allow mutual understanding.

 

When travelling in southern Thailand, I have to ask locals to 'switch off' their southern Thai accent and speak Bangkok Thai so that I can understand them.  They seem able to do this at will.

 

But ask a Brummie or Scouse or Geordie from the UK to switch off their local accent and they are totally confused!  Were they not taught the ability to switch off their unintelligible accent as a child?

[rwill]

There are a lot of Filipino english teachers in public schools here.  They can have quite an accent.  So that may be some of the reason for it.

 

I sometimes feel Thai's purposefully don't understand me when I am speaking Thai.  I know my Thai is not the greatest and I mess up tones.  But I think sometimes it is because when I speak thai they are listening for english and just hear gibberish.

Edited December 6, 2023 by rwill

[Expat68]

There is a big difference in the English accent from Newcastle to Devon to London. It reminds me when my thai wife and I (she is from NE Issaan) ventured to Bangkok together for the first time, she got in conversation with another Thai woman after she had gone I asked what they were talking about, she replied that she couldn't understand, I said but you are Thai she said yes but it is a longtime since I have been in Bangkok 

[brianthainess]

14 hours ago, GreasyFingers said:

Except that they have trouble understanding Australian.

I'm a Brit, When I first started work on an Australian Cattle station, I had absolutely no idea what someone said to me " Come over tomorrow arvo, we're aving a barbi bring along a slab" I had to ask someone else as I was to embarrassed at the time to ask the person who said it. Other phrases like,

Smoko time, a coldy and many others.

                                                                                                   

[EVENKEEL]

Always fun to mimic some words like "water" the Brits say waher. A bawhl of waher. ahahahaa 

[brianthainess]

13 hours ago, GreasyFingers said:

The Americans have bastardized the English language. A Z is a zed, not a zee. Not to mention the unmentionables of what pride and gay means in the English language, or how to spell colour. The u must have been too difficult to understand, just like a Bush said that the French do not have a word for entrepreneur.

I often worry about Americans men, they have a fanny to sit on. 

[brianthainess]

"Cor blimey yus lot dun 'arf  go on 'bowt nufin init. 

[GreasyFingers]

18 minutes ago, brianthainess said:

I'm a Brit, When I first started work on an Australian Cattle station, I had absolutely no idea what someone said to me " Come over tomorrow arvo, we're aving a barbi bring along a slab" I had to ask someone else as I was to embarrassed at the time to ask the person who said it. Other phrases like,

Smoko time, a coldy and many others.

                                                                                                   

Wait till we get to the rhyming slang, china plate.

[brianthainess]

1 minute ago, GreasyFingers said:

Wait till we get to the rhyming slang, china plate.

Garden gate? 

[radiochaser]

17 hours ago, pub2022 said:

How come english native speakers do not know how to properly use it's/its and there/their?

Don't forget "they're"!  

Where's my hat?   I'll leave now. 

[jacko45k]

3 hours ago, newbee2022 said:

It could be even a matter of education and intelligence. 

No, more about the phenomenal variety and profusion of strong accents.... a 2 mile trip down the road can put you among a new accent. Well educated,  may well drift more towards a BBC/King's English.

[radiochaser]

I used to work in a government call center here in the U.S. of A..   With my exposure to so many people around the world, I can understand a lot of people who speak English, no matter what countries accent they have.   So, I had many calls to the call center transferred to me, because the employee could not understand the accent of the person speaking English with them. 

How ever, there was that one guy that was transferred to me.   His call was transferred to me and the employee told me, I don't know what language this guy is speaking!   It took me a few seconds before I realized, he was speaking English.   He had a very strong Appalachian Mountain resident accent.   I managed to make it through the call and the man was satisfied with my help, but I had difficulty understanding what he was saying.

I suspect that he lived in an area of the Appalachian Mountains that were once only accessible by horse, or foot, with no roads for anything else. 

I, during my young childhood days, used many of the same words that are in the video and text of the link below.   

 

" In fact, some say that the speech of the southern mountaineers is “pure Elizabethan English” just as Shakespeare would have spoken it. "

https://daily.jstor.org/the-legendary-language-of-the-appalachian-holler/

Edited December 6, 2023 by radiochaser

[cracker1]

I also was brought up in an English speaking country and have difficulty understanding some people born in the UK.

It seams that each County speaks a different dialect or has a different accent ?

I find the same when watching some English TV programs. Some I just can not understand, and I delete them.

[VocalNeal]

18 hours ago, pub2022 said:

How come english native speakers do not know how to properly use it's/its and there/their?

 

Because that is written English not spoken English. In spoken English theirs no difference.🤔

[Kwaibill]

18 hours ago, pub2022 said:

How come english native speakers do not know how to properly use it's/its and there/their?

“Some” may not. In reference to spoken language vs written it is a moot distinction.

[Doctor Tom]

3 hours ago, simon43 said:

But ask a Brummie or Scouse or Geordie from the UK to switch off their local accent and they are totally confused!  Were they not taught the ability to switch off their unintelligible accent as a child?

Those of us who are educated, speak clear, correct, King's English, regardless of a regional accent. My accent is clearly Northern England; I have no problem being understood, even in an international forum and I have no problem here In Thailand. It all comes down to education and being exposed to experiences and situations, where clear, unambiguous language skills are essential. Very, very, few English teachers in Thailand meet this criteria and I would suggest next to none outside the International Private Schools. 

[Doctor Tom]

4 minutes ago, VocalNeal said:

 

Because that is written English not spoken English. In spoken English theirs no difference.🤔

There is a difference in spoken English and it is shown in context and sentence construction.  Diction shows the difference.  A contraction is just that. If it does not aid understanding, then do not use contractions.   

[VocalNeal]

6 minutes ago, Kwaibill said:

“Some” may not. In reference to spoken language vs written it is a moot distinction.

 

How can it be moot? They all sound the same.

[VocalNeal]

 

[VocalNeal]

4 hours ago, billaaa777 said:

In the US we use a great deal of slang that could actually mean the exact opposite of the word you heard. An example is "somebody saying that is bad". Of course you would think that what they were talking about was no good. When the exact opposite is what they were saying and "bad means really good." It is easy for us to know when bad means bad, and not good. But, I imagine it would be a nightmare for a person who English was not their first language.

 

Is that a load of ballocks or the dog's ballocks?

[VocalNeal]

16 minutes ago, Doctor Tom said:

There is a difference in spoken English and it is shown in context and sentence construction.  Diction shows the difference.  A contraction is just that. If it does not aid understanding, then do not use contractions.   

 

But pronunciation is the same in both instances. So the observation that some

do not know the difference is only relevant to written English not in spoken English, which is the subject of this thread.

Edited December 6, 2023 by VocalNeal

[Doctor Tom]

21 minutes ago, VocalNeal said:

 

But pronunciation is the same in both instances. So the observation that some

do not know the difference is only relevant to written English not in spoken English, which is the subject of this thread.

And there you have the problem in a nutshell.  They are not the same, never are the same, and should not be presented as interchangeable, even in speech.  When discussing English with my Thai g/f, we often discuss such twin words in detail.  She knows that your and you're are not the same, due to the context of the sentence.  That's why, to effectively teach any language, you need to be able to both speak and read it. Phonetics is not the art of teaching or learning a language, it's merely a part of the process. 

Edited December 6, 2023 by Doctor Tom

[VocalNeal]

Agreed but this topic is about spoken English.  

[Georgealbert]

Belgium is at no 7.

 

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/20-non-english-speaking-countries-180921287.html