British Accents Ranked from Easiest to Hardest (+ Free PDF & Quiz)

Ranking 10 British / UK accents from easiest to most difficult. I sent 10 clips of celebrities with distinctive English accents to my students in a survey. 📝 GET THE FREE LESSON PDF here 👉🏼 FREE PDF: bit.ly/10AccentsPDF 📊 FIND OUT YOUR ENGLISH LEVEL! Take my level test here 👉🏼 bit.ly/EnglishLevelTest12 👩🏼‍🏫 JOIN MY ONLINE ENGLISH COURSES: englishwithlucy.teachable.com/courses - We have launched our B1 and B2 Complete English Pr

I think we need to hear people from the streets rather than celebrities who train to speak clearly. The difficulty goes up exponentially in this case.

I once had to interpret between a Cornish waitress, and an American couple, in a cafe. They were ordering tea and scones, when the waitress said "Zalroytjawunanthnelsethenm'lovelies." The look of panic on their faces was a picture, so I leaned over and said, "That's alright, do you want anything else, then, my lovelies."

I’m an American, originally from New York City. When vacationing in rural Scotland, my family and I stayed with a couple from Kleish, Kinross. The wife’s accent was so thick, when I asked my English brother in law to translate, he said in his perfect University English “I have no idea what she is saying!”.

I am English from Kent . Back in 1989 I had my real first encounter with a group of Scots -from different parts of the country - having a joint meeting . I was there to take notes . When the meeting was finished I was asked by the meeting chair -who was from Edinburgh - to summarize the meeting , I said that aside from him I did not understand a word !! I was never asked to join the group meetings again . This is no joke …. I Understood nothing !

I have to say, one of my favourite things about the Harry Potter film series is the vast range of different accents. I feel each character speaks in a different way and it is so fascinating to listen to!

It was funny watching Frankie as a Glaswegian and thinking how well spoken he was! 🤣 pick someone on the street and you’ll really be in trouble

as a German it is so much fun trying to understand the many british accents, I love the scottish ones and listening to commedians as Billy Conolly, Sarah Millican and alike frequently helped a great deal to enjoy.

As an Aussie, we got a show here called "All Creatures Great and Small". The thing I loved was the great variation in age of the people, and how different the age groups spoke. I absolutely adored the Yorkshire accent as a result. Particularly the old guy in the show that still used Ye, thee, and Thou, Mr 'errioott! If I come back after I'm gone I want to come back as a wee Yorkshire boy!

Honestly, all of them speak quite clear. It is totally different in reality.

I love listening to people speak with different accents, particularly accents from the UK. I grew up in the Appalachian mountain region of Virginia. My mother always corrected my English, which helped later on when I moved away. One of my professors called me a "code-switcher", meaning that I will almost unconciously change my own speaking to match that of my surroundings. Later, when I was married and went back to where I grew up, I often had to serve as interpreter, because my wife could not understand what people in that area were saying. I also studied Russian and picked up a Muscovite accent, because all of my instructors were from Moscow.

I’ve lived in Liverpool for 1 year and I before getting there I did know NOTHING about the scouse accent. The minute I tried to communicate with people on the streets or restaurants it blew my mind because I could NOT understand a single word. As weeks went by, I became more and more familiar to the sounds, the distinctive /j/ sound in words like back or chicken when it comes to the letter “k”, and also to the melody of this accent. Anyways, I’m an English Philologyst and it was such a challenge to survive 1 year in Liverpool.

You chose the best pronounced examples of each, hardly a challenge there!

I am Hungarian and I learned English in school and cartoon network when I was a kid, so I had some "posh English" and kind of US accent mixed with my Hungarian pronunciation. Must be funny to hear me for a native English speaker. Then I moved to a small town close to Liverpool and started to work in a warehouse with English co-workers (I was the only foreign there)...it took me literally 7-8 months to understand like the 80% of what they saying. 😅 From that point it was much easier to understand any native accents. Later I moved to Manchester, that took some time to get used to their accent too, but it was way faster. I love Scottis accent and I like the sound of Irish but for me maybe that's the hardest to understand. Thank you for the interesting video I really enjoyed it.❤

The ability of British, Scottish and Irish actors to speak specific regional dialects in the United States always amazes me. I watched The Wire, set in Baltimore, without realizing Idris Elba and Dominic West were British until I later heard them in interviews speaking in their normal accents. Kate Winslet is another one. She spoke in a very specific regional dialect in her recent HBO Max series Mare of Easttown. The attention to detail of these actors and their dialect coaches is remarkable.

When I was giving Customer Service telephone training, I told to all my students, who were from all over the world, that, "EVERYONE has an accent that SOMEONE finds difficult to understand." I would stress to them that clear diction, pronunciation and slower-than-seemed-normal pacing were the keys. Also, repeating oneself as if the subject had never been mentioned before. Plenty of my very sharp, clever foreign-born Customer Service Representatives would throw their accents under the bus to make it easier to get callers to clarify their questions and also to repeat what they had just told a caller. Instead of getting complaints about people not being able to understand our foreign-born CSRs, people would call and ask for them specifically. "Oh, I have to speak to X (who had a very heavy accent)! S/He's the only one who understands me." As part of my job, I would have to "monitor calls for quality assurance." Many of my CSRs had accents, but they also had very warm, sympathetic telephone manners, (which were often at odds with their office personalities). I was so proud of them all!

When I spent 6 months traveling throughout the UK, I was often at a loss to understand some of the accents. But some local ALWAYS stepped in to help. So much for Brit's being cold/standoffish. My biggest challenge? Liverpool. I still have no idea what was said or how I made it through an entire week. I couldn't understand the kind strangers who tried to help either. One of the best trips I've ever had.

Coolest thing is that the UK has so many accents in such a small country.

I am a native Spanish speaker living in the USA, I've always been passionate about the British Accent, So Beautiful!

I remember watching a Big Country interview in the 80s and they used subtitles because their Scottish accents were so hard to understand.