I, Daniel Blake
We have just seen the film " I, Daniel Bloke" If someone has seen it or the trailer. What kind of dialect(s) do the actors speak? In one part of the movie, a woman asks the main actress where she is from because of her accent.
I tried my best to understand but I succumbed to reading the subtitles. Why on earth do they teach us that British English is the one that the queen speaks? Can Americans understand British accents (yes, plural) ?
My last question is
Can British people understand other British people with other accents? The movie made me thinks so. j
The movie is very sad and also very human but showing a lot of red tape and the difficulties older people have with computers and the like.
6 Answers
I haven't seen the film yet, but it has made an impact in the UK.The director is a left wing firebrand who always makes films with a conscience. You may have seen Tierra y Libertad which is about a man from Liverpool who goes to fight in the Spanish Civil War. His first famous film was made for TV called Cathy Come home about a family who were made homeless. with us all being exposed to different accents on TV and film many regional accents and dialects are weakening. His films tend to deal with close knit communities who
all speak in a similar way. Some of the accents or dialects can be difficult for native speakers not from that area. The latest film is based in Newcastle which is in the North East of England. It used to be an area of ship building and mining. The people from Newcastle are called Geordies ( though their football team has a manager from Madrid). Call centres recognise the accents as friendly, but a strong accent will use dialect words some of which I may not know. The main female lead has moved from London. I would say she has a South London accent. I know people from the area. My own father was brought up there so I have no problem with the accent and don't think it is played with a particularly strong accent. There is a soap opera that has been on the BBC for many years based in London and another based in Manchester (North West) so I think most people nowadays with TV and music are used to a range of accents. Some strong Scouse (Liverpool) accents and Glaswegian (Glasgow) can be tricky. Look up Billy Connelly he now lives in the USA with an Australian wife, but he used to be difficult.
If someone's pronunciation is different to what you are used to, you can be stumped. However, if you listen for a while you will usually get the meaning from context. However, I am impressed that you considered the film without any subtitles. I believe some parts of his films have been subtitled for English speaking audiences outside the UK.
Having said that, I remember seeing a YouTube video of two Australians being interviewed and the strength of their accents and the amount of dialect words made it like a foreign language. In the UK we are used to Australian accents due to family connections, music and TV.
Edit. Having seen Patches post have a listen to this version of Blaydon Races sung by Newcastle football fans. The words on screen are written the way they would be pronounced locally. However I remember singing the song at school and we were in the south of England. The Animals pop group also have Geordie accents
Blaydon races]1
I will try tomorrow putting the link in properly.
As Patch says in the UK with different accents the vowels change but the consonants stay the same
Wow! What a topic! I just watched the trailer and understood everything. (I am married to a Brit, though. 
)
There are some things I'd like to point out that many Americans do not know. England and English (not the language but the descriptive adjective) are not the same things as Britain and British. The United Kingdom of Great Britain (Britain or the U.K. for short) is comprised of England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland. The British Isles is a descriptive term which includes all of the above plus the Republic of Ireland (southern Ireland), but there's no country or political entity called the British Isles.
If you are British, you could be from England, Wales, Scotland, or Northern Ireland. Brits (British people) many times refer to themselves by which part of the U.K they are from. My wife is Scottish - you can call her "British" but don't EVER call her "English." Of course, some Brits are Irish, some are Welsh, and some of course are English.
Within each of the 4 parts of the U.K., the accents can vary greatly by region, as stated by others already. As you move northwards in England to where England meets Scotland (called "the Borders"), there is a similarity in accents between the English and the Scots in that area.
Within Scotland there are regional differences as well. I believe most Americans would understand an Edinburgh accent, but the Glasgow accent can be very difficult.
And again, the Northern Ireland accent is also different from southern Ireland. When I was meeting my wife's family for the first time, she had an aunt and uncle who lived in Cork (southern part of Ireland). I was just getting accustomed to the different Scots accents when we went to visit Aunt Janet and Uncle Dick. Uncle Dick had been born and raised in that part of Ireland, was well educated, and he was very easy to understand, but some of the Irish accents were hard for me to pick up.
One day, we were walking along a beach in Ireland. We crossed paths with an Irish fisherman coming out of the surf, and Uncle Dick asked him how he did. The fisherman said something, not one word of which did I understand. Uncle Dick replied, "Very good, very good" and we walked on. I asked Uncle Dick what the man had said, and he told me "I have no idea." So from that point on, I never felt bad about not understanding some accents.
As a final note, my wife worked for the BBC for many years. They knocked the Scots brogue out of her, and when I first met her, she spoke the "received pronunciation," which all on-air BBC presenters had to do at the time. Now the BBC allows, even embraces, regional accents of its presenters.
Sorry for the length of the post. I hope you find it initeresting.
Cheers! Winkfish
Hi Polenta,
I just watched the trailer and I could understand it without any difficulty. I am from the Chicago area in the Midwestern United States. In general, people from the US can understand British English because our TVs receive BBC and we also have exposure to many British TV series.
Now, if you talk about understanding people in certain parts of Scotland, well, that is an entirely different thing all together!
I haven't seen the film but I just watched the trailer. The main character has what we call a "Geordie" accent - from Newcastle in the north east of England. It's one of the hardest to accents to understand. I understand it no problem and probably all Brits will too but it may take a while to "tune-in"
Listen to 0:53 he says "I'm just ganning round in circles" (to gan = to go). The rising intonation in "circles" is typically Geordie
To be honest I only ever hear the "Queen's" English in movies. No one actually speaks like that unless they have been taught to. Each region of the country has its own pronunciation patterns (typically the vowels change radically, especially between the north and the south). As far as I know the Geordie accent/dialect is heavily influenced by Danish ("gan" for example) due to the Viking invasions. I could be wrong about this though.
I would be surprised if people from the USA could understand the movie without subtitles.
Let's see what our north American friends say
I watched the trailer once and I understood about 70% of the English. I am a native Midwest American English speaker. It’s definitely British English as opposed to that spoken in Canada or Australia. And I’m pretty certain that it is not Irish or Scottish (¿Scot?). It looks like a good movie, by the way.
One’s accent and vocabulary has all to do with where he/she lives and national heritage. Social standing also has its place. I can understand a Canadian, for example, much better than I can under someone from the deep south of the USA. Of course, I’m not far from the US/Canadian border. Here’s a link to an entertaining video of different US American accents.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-en-iDeZEE
I watched the trailer. In my observation, they have a Midland or northern English accent.
Received Pronunciation, or RP for short, is the Imperial English spoken by the Queen of England. Received Pronunciation is also associated to these names: Standard English, the Queen's English, Oxford English, and BBC English. In London, there are 3 accents: Received Pronunciation, Estuary & Cockney.
Estuary English is a dialect or accent associated with South East England, especially the area along the River Thames and its estuary, centring around London. It's the accent of these people: working-class, commerce (business) & the young (youth).
Cockney is known for rhyming words or slangs. Also, this accent is associated with the lower-class.
English in northern England have two regional accents: Midland & northern English. They pronounce the "a" short like trap in the Midlands & northern England. In southern England, bath is pronounced with a long "ah".
People in the States can understand British accents, if they have exposure to British culture & media. Due to the internet, people would be able to comprehend with accent patterns of British/American English, vice versa.
British people can comprehend with regional accents in the United Kingdom because English is the official language.
