Not Understanding Accents

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I have a lot of trouble understanding certain accents: I can understand Portuguese in an American accent better than English in a Brazilian accent, and with Portuguese in a Brazilian accent I'm completely lost, which really sucks. Does any one else have extra trouble understanding accents.

Also, this is unrelated, but I also do not understand the concept of stress in speech, I have enormous trouble identify which sylabols are accented, and this problem runs in my family.

Yes, I do.
I also have trouble understanding UK accents on tv/movies and my first language is English. I can't watch the shows generally.

I'm from Michigan and have had a hard time with parts of the "Deep South" like New Orleans or Mississippi. Some places like Tennessee, Kentucky, over to the Carolinas I can follow. Or mostly Texas.

I kannot undah stand ur aksent. Speek Engrish prease!

I don't have a hard time at all.

After several years of having profs who teach in English with different foreign accents, I think I am actually above average now in understanding accented English, at least from sometimes hearing classmates complaining about profs's accents which I don't have trouble with.

However, I remember in high school, one of the only things I couldn't figure out in English class was where the stress was on the syllables (we had a class on this one day for poetry where we had to identify where the accents were stressed in general for certain words, and I remember how I left the class wondering how anyone could figure that out as it seemed awfully random). Come to think of it, the teacher of that same English class pointed out to me one day that she thought I read out loud oddly -- like my speed and understanding were top-notch, but my rhythm of reading out loud seemed incorrect (but she couldn't identify precisely how).

I think I'm a lot more skilled now, though, after watching lots of movies over the last several years as well as talking to more people (I still always prefer to stick the subtitles on when watching films, though, despite great hearing ability). I'm not entirely sure if I have a proper accent of my own, though -- whatever accent is spoken by whoever I'm talking to a bunch ends up being absorbed into mine, sometimes rather quickly (albeit subtly). Like I noticed that after talking a lot to the people that had bought our company at a job I was working at, who had southern US accents, I ended up with a faint bit of southern drawl in my accent for a while. I think in general I default sort of to the CBC radio announcer's sort of accent, which at least makes me sound educated overall.

I also found learning how to pronounce and understand spoken French (not my native language) way harder than understanding it on the page, and despite 2 and 1/2 months of French immersion camp (in 2 chunks), I'm still not sure that I can pronounce things correctly. é and -ais sound practically the same to me, and while I think I sort of got it eventually analytically, I have a hard time persuading myself there is a difference.

Well, I'm pretty good in general at hearing through accents, but sometimes get caught up in the music of them and lose track. I have to hear it a couple times before I understand the tonality of it, and then have no further problems with it. I've grown pretty alright at copying accents, as well. For me, learning an accent is like learning a song, and when listening to music I hear the tone and tamber of it more than the lyrics and melody.

For example, my Spanish is rubbish grammatically, but I can pull off an almost perfect Ecuadoran accent. Of course, the illiterate Ecuadorans I learned to speak it from had no grasp of the grammar themselves, so...

My stepfather is from Durham County, in the North of England, whereas I grew up learning English in a mixture of Iowan (crisp, honky and neutral accent, think TV news anchors) and Minnesotan (similar to Swedish accent). His family mumbles rather a lot on top of that, and listening to his mother long distance over the phone was a complete mess.

I have a hard time speaking English correctly, I have a huge accent when I have to speak. I can't speak fluently, I'd rather stick with all the correct grammar and wording, which I'm apparently unable to pull off. I try my best to learn proper pronunciation and accent, though. I understand American standard English the best (East coast?), and I also have problems with British English, especially with its accents and variants, like Cockney (although I quite like how it sounds ).

As for my native language, I struggle with understanding accents. Thankfully, people with accents I met tend to repeat things over and over again (kind of long talking, rural folks ), so eventually I have a grasp on what they are saying...

I have a good ear for accents, except for those on the phone. These days, that tends to be Indian call centres and I've all but given up on those.

Although I live on the outskirts of Glasgow, I expect most people on here would understand what I say, even those who say they don't understand British accents. I make a good attempt at speaking clearly and only use standard English when I'm speaking to a visitor (unless they've asked me to speak like a native). The way we speak here is a mixture of standard English, Glaswegian and Scots (a dialect of English, spoken in the South West of Scotland, made famous by Robert Burns, used especially by the older folk here). Add to that the accent and I can see how visitors could be mesmerised. Glaswegian TV shows have been broadcast outside Scotland with subtitles.

My Mum (who I suspect has AS) is terrible. When we are on holiday, I always have to translate what other people are saying for her. But, she's the world's worst for not making herself understood too. She tends to use a lot of Scots words. I understand what she's saying, but I tend to speak in standard English, as the school system when I was growing up drummed out any sort of dialect. But, my Mum appears to make no attempt to speak in standard English, even when we are abroad and speaking with someone whose first language isn't English. She'll say, 'Aye, the weather's fair turnt noo' or 'dork' instead of 'dark'.