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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pride49 · 31-35, M

Yeah. But British words like drafts, squib, git, kipper, etc. Are British slang. Through context clues they are mostly easy to understand. Otherwise all H's are silent. And the accents a bit hoity toity for me. But yeah I like Harry Potter and can listen. I always read subtitles with everything though. Never know if a character made a quieter snarky comment I don't want to miss.

ArishMell · 70-79, M

@pride49 LOL - but gently, not in ridicule!

Let me, as a British native and resident, help you!

For a start, the board game or unwanted flows of air, e.g. under doors, is spelt "draughts". However, the American spelling "draft" has crept into British English in terms like "draft report" and "drafting" ('technical drawing').

A "squib" is not slang but a type of firework - but "damp squib" [i]is [/i]colloquial for a minor failure or something not meeting expectations. (A damp firework will not go "BANG!")

"Git" is a slang insult, accusing the victim of being stupid.

"Kipper" is not slang but the culinary word for a smoked herring. It is also an old style of neck-tie.

All H's are [i]not[/i] silent. Apart from within the [i]gh, ph, sh[/i] and [i]th[/i] constructions ('thought', etc.), the H [i]is [/i]sounded except in a few accents, mainly London ones, that drop the 'H' and often the 'T'. Most of us from any other part of the country would say we live in [i]houses[/i], not "ouses"; and call field-boundary shrubs, [i]hedges[/i], not "edges".

'

I do note you ask of accent, not dialect. Local dialect words are a different matter and can even puzzle people from barely 50 miles from the speaker's home area. I had to think for a moment what is a "ginnel" when once given directions in a Northern English town, but I found it (a very narrow street), thence the shop I was seeking! That though, was 300 miles from my home.

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British accents "a bit hoity-toity"! Errr, no. Not the natural ones.

Anyway, [i]which[/i] British accents have you heard? From Ireland, Scotland, Wales, England? Of those countries, which of their regional accents? The geographical British Isles - covering the separate nation of Eire as well as those of the UK & Northern Ireland - host a vast range of regional and local accents, and dialects; and many change markedly over very small geographical ranges.

There [i]is[/i] one accent that many Britons would agree sounds "hoity-toity", but it a largely [i]artificial [/i]one created by elocution-tutors in the past: "Received Pronounciation". It is very precise enunciation combined with a cultivar of the generic Southern English voice that typically gives a soft 'r' sound in words like 'bath' and 'castle' (but not sand); but some users affect it to the point of self-parody.

RP was used by BBC announcers and presenters until perhaps the 1960s when the BBC started to let them keep their natural accents if not too strong, as you hear in archive recordings; and some people still do use it fairly naturally. A form of RP tends to be used by some operatically-trained singers in performing art-arrangements of folk-songs, giving a rather peculiarly synthetic effect.

None of the accents of London, Lancashire, Devon, Norfolk, Northumberland, the West Midlands... let alone Belfast, Glasgow, Cardiff... sound like each other, but I don't think anyone would call any of them, "hoity-toity"!