Kiwi English

[transemacabre]

I'm trying to watch some of the Spartacus TV series, which is filmed in New Zealand and stars a whole buttload of Kiwi actors, and I'm totally befuddled by the dialogue. No matter how much I strain, I'm only understanding like one word out of every five. I don't understand why I don't understand Kiwi accents. I know they're speaking English, but it's like the unfamiliar vowels and rhythm throw my brain into a tizzy. Does anyone else have problems like this?

Comments

[sugar-fey.livejournal.com]

Huh, I watched a few episodes of Spartacus and I don't remember the accents sounding particularly Kiwi. I certainly didn't find them hard to understand, but then I'm Australian and the Australian and New Zealand accent is similar in many ways, so it's not a problem for me.

[demonqueen666.livejournal.com]

I've only seen one episode of Spartacus but I don't recall having any problems understanding the dialogue...on the other hand my already minimal interest in ever watching the UK version of Being Human was killed off when I was linked to a supposedly funny scene from it on Youtube and found I could barely understand a word that they were saying.

[navisx.livejournal.com]

It's mostly just a vowel substitution really, Kevin becomes Kivin, Fish becomes Fush, once you get those two down you'll be laughing. But I'm an Australian so I kind of automatically understand them, but hopefully that helps.