Do You Understand British English w/o Subtitles?

I’m just curious, but do American people or people in other English speaking countries (except for the UK) understand what the characters are saying in movies or series where they speak British English?

I’m a native Japanese who was born and raised in Japan, yet I prefer to watch anime with Japanese subtitles. I recently watched Harry Potter movies and I’m wondering if people can really understand English with a different accent than their own.

I’ve been learning rather American English in school, so I hardly understand when people speak English with a quite strong British accent... (as well as other strong accents. I can understand English with a strong samurai accent tho XD)

If you’re an English speaker and not from the UK, can you understand everything what the characters say in Harry Potter movies without subtitles?

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ArishMell · 70-79, M

The[i] accent[/i] should not matter provided it not so strong that it makes it difficult to work out the words. Dialect and slang are the greater problem, as may be terms for things that do not exist in that form in other countries.

Britain consists of four countries all speaking English, but with a huge range of national and regional accents and dialects. For example, a native Londoner sounds nothing like someone from an English Midlands town only 100 miles (about 160km) away. Sometimes even Britons from different parts of the British Isles cannot understand fellow-Britons' strong, dialect-rich accents!

Dialect and slang words should be correct for the characters and story but I can understand viewers from other, even English-speaking, countries being puzzled by them.

It works the other way too. I do not watch many films but sometimes hear clips from them, and many Americans anyway, on the radio here in England; and many of them are very hard to understand. The films clips are worse because their sound quality is poor, with loud background sounds and slurred, mumbled speech in thick accents.

It must be hard to write sub-titles that are clear to everyone but do not spoil the characters' speech or miss subtle points.