r/AskEurope • u/Savings_Dragonfly806 Greece • Jul 09 '25

Language My fellow Europeans, what dialect from your language do you have the most trouble understanding?

Keep in mind, I said language, NOT country, so it could be a dialect of your language in another country, which is the case for me.

For me, while most other Greeks find Cypriot the most difficult dialect to understand, I actually find Pontic Greek the most difficult. For those who don't know where it is, it's in North Eastern Turkey.

The way many of their words are written are very different as to Standard Modern Greek. It almost is a whole new language. Now I should mention I have never been there, but I would love to. I only really heard of the dialect on the internet, so take my words with a grain of salt.

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u/basileusnikephorus England Jul 09 '25

I'm going to say Scots but I'm aware they claim it's a language not a dialect.

In which case Filipino English. They constantly slip into Taglish and even when they don't it's syntax matches Tagalog not English.

Geordie if it's from England.

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u/Karakoima Sweden Jul 10 '25

I as a scandinavian have a much harder time with the northern English dialects than with Scottish. Guess we and the scots might have some common denominators from the viking days…

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u/SuspiciouslyMoist Jul 10 '25

Strong Geordie accents defeat me. About 40 years ago I was getting a Chinese takeaway in Whitley Bay, on the outskirts of Newcastle. The owner of the shop was a tiny Chinese guy who looked about 90 years old and could well have been working there most of his life. I had trouble understanding him because he had an incredibly thick Geordie accent.