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Comment by ainiriand | Hacker News Reader

I live in Dublin and I can barely understand native Irish people either. I side with the computer.

"I live in Dublin and I can barely understand native Irish people either."

People in Dublin itself are widely regarded to have a neutral-sounding, easily understandable English. Indeed, Dubliners are conspicuously prominent in ESL teaching around the world for that reason. It is when one gets out of Dublin that accents begin to be more challenging for people accustomed only to mainstream US or UK pronunciations.

Very much depends. Some of the middle-class neighbourhoods produce a fairly neutral accent, but most dubliners speak in a very heavy accent, arguably one of the heaviest in the country.

You've clearly not been to Cork [edit..] or Kerry!

Yeah, both are pretty bad (I was born and raised in Ireland), but the north Dublin accent holds a special place in my heart for sheer badness.

Or the North!

Maybe in my particular case it is because my learning was from a USA source and I had little contact with UK/Irish/Scottish accents.

sure, i'm also in Dublin, it's sometimes (well, often. I mean, always) difficult to understand them if they talk fast ... but it's the same case if I visit UK, or I guess any english dialect.

I'm sure she could talk more slowly and clearly and computer would say yes.

Haha, I'm from and in Dublin and there are a number of culchie accents that I struggle with :). Parts of Kerry, the Islands, Northern Ireland etc.

Odd, I find Irish accents generally easier to deal with than various English and Scottish accents (with the exception the mild, internationally familiar ones). This might simply mean I haven't met anyone with really interesting Irish accents.

Also I leave the Welsh off the least, because I have always found their English easy to understand -- if sometimes amusing.

Have any Scottish folks tried this test?

I'd imagine not a single one could pass.

I once had an English flatmate (I'm Australian) who had a Scottish friend come to stay. I could nae understand a word he said, and she had to translate everything - from English to English. He could understand me fine though.

Once I was visiting an London, staying with a friend from Oz who was doing the working holiday thing. We went and visited some friends of his, a couple. The girl was a Kiwi, and that was all fine and easy to deal with.

But I could barely understand the boyfriend, let alone place his accent. When I asked my friendl later, he said the dude was also forom NZ.

I have no idea what was going on in my head that day.

Where are you from?

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