Xerxeskingofking
SOC-13
Good point
Working in a NATO environment is reminiscent of this sort of issue. A couple of different US accents, more different Brit accents, Canadians & Kiwis & Aussies, Germans & Austrians, Poles and Czechs & Slovaks, Romanians, Italians, Dutch & Danes Norwegians and the Baltic states, the Spanish and Portuguese. It gets most interesting in meetings when all the thick accents are most pronounced, when they all use the most commonly spoken language - English. Given how thick some of the accents are it's possible to imagine they're divergent dialects of Anglic.
been their, done that. form my experience, its not so much the accents that are the issue, its dialect and slang terminology that throw people, especially those who speak it as a second tongue and have learnt the classroom "formal" English but have little real experience of how native speakers actually talk.
or even just the little slang terms ("can I bum a fag off ya?" Is a fairly innocent question in England, but one that never ceases to startle Americans. for the record, its "can a mooch a cigarette form you?")