From the approachable Geordie twang to the instantly recognisable Edinburgh lilt, the UK is home to some of the most distinctive accents in the world.
Now, experts have revealed which accents are the most difficult to understand.
Researchers from the language learning service, Preply, compared short clips from TV and radio featuring famous figures with thick regional accents.
The clips were fed into automated speech–to–text systems, and the experts counted how many mistakes and misheard words were left in the transcript.
The results will come as bad news for TOWIE stars like Gemma Collins and Joey Essex, whose Essex accents were found to confuse the system the most.
‘[TOWIE] became famous for its drama, expressive delivery, and memorable catchphrases, some made up entirely, such as “reem”, “well jel”, and “muggy”,’ explained Yolanda Del Peso Ramos, spokesperson for Preply.
‘While these phrases are instantly recognisable to fans, they aren’t widely used across the UK, which can lead to confusion for unfamiliar listeners.’
In contrast, the Mancunian accent – heard on stars like Liam and Noel Gallagher – was found to be the easiest to understand.
From the approachable Geordie twang to the instantly recognisable Edinburgh lilt, the UK is home to some of the most distinctive accents in the world. Now, experts have revealed which accents are the most difficult to understand
The results will come as bad news for TOWIE stars like Gemma Collins and Joey Essex , whose Essex accents were found to confuse the system the most
Besides the unfamiliar words, the Essex accent’s unique pronunciation makes it much harder to understand, according to Preply.
People from Essex frequently use strong vowel shifts, which make words like ‘face’ and ‘price’ sound similar.
Speakers also drop their consonants, losing the ‘t’ and ‘h’ from some words, and use the ‘glottal stop’ – a type of consonant sound used in words like ‘bottle’ and ‘water’.
Ms Ramos explained: ‘These characteristics help explain why both listeners and AI tools analysing speech can struggle to accurately interpret the accent.’
Following behind Essex as the UK’s most confusing accents are Welsh and Scottish, with error rates of 4.83 per cent and 3.2 per cent, respectively.
Both of these accents are shaped by a ‘strong sense of identity’ and distinctive pronunciation patterns that aren’t found in ‘standard’ or international English.
Scottish speakers, like Lewis Capaldi and Ewan McGregor, use strongly rolled R’s, shortened vowels, and a fast delivery that non–UK English speakers find hard to follow.
Likewise, the Welsh accent uses different rhythms and vowel sounds that can be unfamiliar to people from elsewhere in the UK.
The Mancunian accent – heard on stars like Liam and Noel Gallagher (pictured) – was found to be the easiest to understand
‘These differences don’t always match standard British pronunciation, which helps explain why both listeners and AI tools struggled with accuracy,’ says Ms Ramos.
However, one surprising discovery was how well AI–powered transcription systems could understand Northern regional accents like Geordie, Mancunian, Yorkshire, and Scouse.
Mancunians like Liam and Noel Gallagher proved to be the easiest to understand, despite having been voted the UK’s ‘least sexy accent’ in a poll earlier this month.
This was closely followed by the Yorkshire accent, with Yorkshiremen like Sean Bean only giving an error rate of 2.11 per cent.
Meanwhile, Geordies, like Charlotte Crosby of Geordie Shore, only led to an error rate of 2.5 per cent.
Even the famously thick Liverpudlian Scouse accent proved fairly easy to understand, with the AI only missing 2.58 per cent of words.
The researchers also discovered that some accented speakers are easier to understand than others.
UFC star Paddy ‘The Baddy’ Pimblett proved easier to understand than most Scousers, as his clips only generated an error rate of two per cent.
People with Welsh accents, like Catherine Zeta–Jones (left), and Scottish speakers like Ewan McGregor (right), were the second and third hardest to understand
Meanwhile, Liverpool legend Cilla Black was particularly incomprehensible, with the AI mishearing 5.16 per cent of her words.
These findings come shortly after researchers from the University of Sheffield announced that they were trying to teach AI local slang.
Councils across the UK are turning to artificial intelligence to man their phones, but the systems often struggle to understand people from the Midlands and the North of England.
The researchers hope that teaching AI local slang like ‘chuck’, ‘canny’, and ‘nowt’ will ensure that automated services don’t unfairly disadvantage people with thick regional accents.
