I live in Canada, and consider myself somewhat of an anglophile who loves British tv. I pretty much understand what they are saying. Sometimes when they speak too fast I don't catch everything, but I tend to get the gist.
"Queens Conquer"
American that loves the show. I do have to go back to listen more carefully when the dialogue is spoken really fast, but not that often. I cut my teeth on UK television with Taggart, so getting the Yorkshire "ear" just takes a bit of fine tuning.
shareI'm an American (who lived in Harrogate as a child) and I watch it with subtitles. Those Yorkshire accents...
shareFrom California: generally no problem understanding the accents, although little Ryan had me hitting rewind a few times. Slang is the real problem, since every country has its own. When I don't understand a word, I just assume that it's probably an insult. Great show with uniformly excellent performances.
shareI'm American and I understand it. I love it actually. :)
shareI'm American and didn't have a problem understanding any of the characters, but I watch a lot of British shows. I was surprised that the characters leave out "the" in a lot of sentences where someone from London, say would uses them. Like "No one comes here during week."
shareThey are saying "the", but it gets shortened to "t". It's almost imperceptible.
So if someone from Yorkshire/Lancashire were saying "I'm going to the town", it would come out as "I'm going to't town". Or, in your example, they say "No one comes here durin't week".
If there aren't any skeletons in a man's closet, there's probably a Bertha in his attic.
Thanks for that. The subtitles on Netflix have "the" but I certainly couldn't hear it. Thanks.
shareI love British dramas, and understand most of the dialogue. The boy, Ryan, is the only character whose accent I can't get around!
This is one of the best descriptions of the Yorkshire accent that I've ever heard yet:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jzAD2GLfaNU
I'm Canadian and I felt like I was understanding but definitely noticing the different expressions and way of saying things. I am sure some expressions fly over my head but not where I would notice or feel like I missed the point.
shareDo you mean do people understand what they are actually saying, or do you mean do people understand the concepts such as the socio-economic situations unique to that specific geographic location?
shareI listen to many British and UK based podcasts, so it's not so bad - even using some terms like knackered, having a go, ya rek, legging it, etc over here.
They really, really push the tea use, though.
Im from Mississippi and I understand it perfectly. But then I am constantly watching UK programming all my life due to my family coming from Suffolk and Hertfordshire.
Odd thing is, and it may seem hard to believe, but most Southern states in America still have a strong influence from the British colonial period. Like and almost symbiotic relationship to our tea......... LMAO
What you call tea is actually liquid sugar :-)
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