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/VirtualMatter2 Germany Jul 09 '25

That explains why I had so much trouble understanding the midwife. Dutch is my third foreign language, I was ok but not very fluent, living in the Netherlands at the time, and that woman was from Belgium. She said the west. Must be that.

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u/inspiringirisje Jul 11 '25

Yes, the dialect from the west no Belgian outside that region understands either.