English Accents

Last week, I've watched my NCIS DVDs again--for the first time since I've been in the States. Before my travels, I needed subtitles to understand most of the characters/actors. Actually, Ducky was the only one I understood without any problems. Both character and actor are Scot, you know, not American. By now, I am finally able to watch them without subtitles.

This reminded me of some other occasions when I noticed that English is not just English. But first some words to my English basis. In Germany, English course books for schools teach British English (apart from one year where we learn some American vocabulary and some of the major differences between British and American English). Therefore, our teachers taught us a British accent. Furthermore, I had a Scot as English teacher for one year in my sixth year of English lessons, a remarkable woman who probably taught me more than all my other English teachers together. Even the first books I read in English were British (Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings). So, my inclination towards British English was set.

I remember watching some DVDs in English together with a friend who had been on an American high school in Berlin. The first DVD, he told me, 'Heh, you won't need subtitles; they're all pretty easy to understand.' Well, I asked him to turn on the subtitles only minutes after the film started because I had a hard time understanding the gist of the story, let alone the details. All right, before we started the next DVD, he said, 'I better leave the subtitles on; Hugh Grant speaks really fast and is damn hard to understand.' Sigh...I turned the subtitles off. Hugh Grant indeed spoke fast, but he's British. I understood him just fine. The next DVD we watched didn't have subtitles. Most of the characters' voices were American, but one or two of them had Scottish voices. It was really funny, though. My friend had to tell me what was going on most part of the film, except when the Scottish characters spoke. Then, he turned to me and asked for "translation".

However, British English isn't just British English, either. Yes, I definitely understood British accents in general far better than any American accents, but that didn't mean I had no problems at all...there was one Englishman, a client of the company I was working for then, whom I didn't understand at all...one of our English salesmen had told me to call that client and find out what he had wanted earlier--after about a minute or so, I apologised and handed the phone to my colleague. No chance. After the call, my colleague grinned at me and said, 'Well, that guy actually only lives about an hour away from me...' Granted, my colleague's accent was a bit harder to understand than most, and my other German colleagues had complained about it, but I understood him ok...

I still know quite well which of the people I met on the train were the hardest to understand for me. One Hawaiian guy and another young man from New Zealand...compared to them, the characters from NCIS are easy...