heheheheheh I have been the source of reverse culture shock today!!!! I don't know why this makes me laugh but it does. When I went to pay my rent at Bleak Towers, the Bleak Tower worker was completly undone by the expiration date on my card--done in the American style of month/day/year. Pointing at the date ( a number greater than 12--taking up the place of a month in British date style) she asked--how do you figure this expiry date then? That sort of made my day for some reason...

That, and when on the phone still trying to sort out this banking conundrum confusion, I was spelling out all of my names Olivia Bloggz. The person on the phone got frustrated, not understanding how I was pronouncing letters! I thought--well turn about is fair play, its not as if your accent is exactly crystal clear to me! I said OH, and that sounded like EWE or something to the person, who came back with EH? and AH, and I said no OH as in ORANGE..

and then it was more confusion on the I---I said EYE and the person said, UH? and I said..well, maybe, its EYE as in ICECREAM, and then to the A, I said AYYYY and the person said EYE, and I said...god knows what my name looks like--ULAEOA, I think!

yeah i found that scary when i first came over, that people didn't even understand me when i spelled things out. english being my "mother-tongue"... could it be THAT bad?

Exactly--English being my first language as well, albeit American style--how hard can it be to say the letters of the alphabet? That said, British accents have a huge variation on how vowel sounds are said...Someone on the phone asked me recently for my house number, which I heard as health number, and it took my brain a few seconds to sort through the vowel sounds to get to house number...in the meantime I had replied I had none! How I heard health as house...who knows!

But the variation on vowels----keeps my brain scrambling. People pronounce them inside out, sidewise, sometimes half swallowed, sometimes sort of run into the sounds in front or behind them, or adding consonant sounds behind and around them...like if you said Olivia and I are going to the shop...it comes out in some accents OliviaR and I ...an "r" getting thrown in between two vowel sounds where one word ends in a vowel sound and the next word starts in a vowel sound!

And then some accents sound strangely like baby talk--even when being spoken by a chav looking hoodie wearing sort --like the word "bruvver" for brother---it makes me think of a toddler learning to talk!

I remember when I lived and worked in the US for a while people were always saying to me 'Oh your English is really good!' - and I'd be thinking it's just as well seen as that's the only language I speak!!! On the other hand some Americans even thought that I was speaking a foreign language to them and would say 'Speak English please!!!' It is funny how much an accent changes the whole language... I actually had to start 'faking' an American accent after a while so people could understand me! I worked as a receptionist so had to talk on the phone a lot...

Yes, accents can change how the language is heard and used! I had people in the US asking me what language was spoken in England, before I left...I was like um......English! One thing that you hear in the US that you will never hear the inverse of in Britain is--"You are in America, speak English"--you will never hear, " You are in the UK, speak American!"

Well people in Sheffield sometimes find it difficult to understand my home counties accent, which always makes me laugh.

I once got told I sounded South African.....that was just weird (I definitely don't).

H - I know! I always get amused/annoyed when people think I'm speaking a different form of English, and can't understand me.

I always thought my home counties accent was clear - obviously not.

I should practice my diction

northerners just dont get southern accents. They either think all southern accents are posh, or when i moved to Liverpool (from south london) i mainly got told i sounded australian!

I know - I've 'been' Australian, South African, from New Zealand, and American.

Living inside the North Circular has never sounded so glamorous!

Once I was put out of a taxi in Glasgow because the driver, a native Glaswegian by the sounds of him, could not understand where I wanted to go! I was feeling very chuffed that I could understand the Glaswegian accent and make my way around with ease--only to be put out in the rain!!!

The biggest culture shock for me was English humour. Initially, because I didn't understand English well enough, later because I didn't understand the jokes. Just recently found this article, written by a Times journalist.

English humour is the sound of the bullies. The overtold story of the English underdog overcoming the big man with laughter is simply not true. The English constantly use the humour as an indiscriminate bludgeon. Jokes come one at the time and then gang up on victims, relentlessly pilloring Indians,Jews,Scots,Irish,French,Germans,Hindus,Muslim, cripples, dogs, dunkies the devil and God.
There is hardly anyone who hasn't at some point been slapped with the famous English humour. The bullying and teasing laughs pervade almost every aspect of life.

The funny thing is, I have had elocution lessons when at school. Although I don't speak as "properly" as I used to (influence from living with people who say things differently) I am probably closer to the Queens English than the average person.....

I don't know that as an American, I would rate most of the regional accents as hard to understand. There seems to be a sort "in" accent with younger people that sounds like a variant on East End London--whether the speaker has ever been close to the East End or not, or even to London.

I think the whole concept of accents is fascinating. I know that its a whole academic field unto itself, but just think of the utility of an accent. It tells the listener so much about you--where you are from, where you are not from! and in my case, easily marks me out as "not British", which saves a lot of explanation sometimes as I am trying to negotiate my way through unfamiliar terrain like getting a bank account!