Shit, I’m a native English speaker- a Southerner at that- and it’s not always easy for me to understand. It’s definitely not the hardest accent/dialect to understand, but it’s up there.
The slang is very different. AAVE also conjugates verbs differently. It can be hard for white Americans to understand. I would say it would probably be very jarring and difficult at first but with a relatively quick learning curve.
Depends. AAVE is technically its own dialect, but unlike dialects of other languages it is mutually decipherable. Cantonese Chinese is incomprehensible to a Mandarin Chinese speaker, but a native english speaker can easily understand AAVE. They might have to ask that individual to slow down or explain certain terms, but can still get the jist. For an english dialect that isn’t easily comprehensible by native speakers you might look at Jamaican English or certain flavors of Irish
Not super well, imho. The parts you see in popular culture are watered down and slowed down. You might catch a few words and understand speakers, or by context and non verbals. If they are speaking to you you’ll understand because most or many will code switch into a more understandable dialect, but if they are speaking to each other you’ll have a much harder time.
Even native English speakers struggle with it. I was fighting for my life on this sub once when I tried to tell people what the word punk means in AAVE.
It varies a lot more than you think. A person from Richmond will sound differently than a person from Atlanta, Raleigh, or even Baltimore. Slang changes, the inflection of their accent changes(even if it is “southern”), and then you got places like Louisiana/Missouri and the bayou/creolic accents. But you go out west or up north, and it sounds even more different.
I live in a small farming community that is a good 30-minute drive from most descent size population centers.
We had a family sent down to my area from Chicago. The mother spoke with heavy use of AAVE. She was a really nice lady, but I could only make out half of what she was saying.
That was 3 years ago. Now, she sounds less like she is from Chicago and more like the rest of the podunk farmers around here.
My wife was born in Eastern Europe and was taught English by a white American. She still has trouble understanding a lot of the accents; AAVE being one of them, with Indian accents coming in right after that.
You should be more specific about regional dialects. I live in Minnesota. African American from Minnesota or Illinois Sound Totally different than African American people from the south.
It is not just specific to any race. There are stereotypes of how white people sound in Illinois and Minnesota. There are many different southern white dialects.
It’s a dialect. A dialect that’s older than what most white people speak in the US, it has it’s own very strict rules of speech and once you understand those rules it’s much easier. For example the phrase “He be”, as in “He be driving” The “be” in AAVE functions as a habitual aspect marker, indicating that an action is performed regularly or as a rule. It doesn’t mean that he currently is, it just means that he is known to do this. This is opposed to “He does” which means he is currently doing the thing.
Listening to Marshawn Lynch (former NFL player) would be a good barometer to test that. You’d probably get most of what he’s saying, but the slang can go over your head.
Even some native English speakers have difficulty with it.
I personally grew up in a very white area, with literally only 1 black person in my high school class of 120. I didn’t start really being able to somewhat easily understand AAVE until I moved to Baltimore for college. And even now, sometimes if the accent is thick enough, it is difficult for me to understand.
Its like any accent though: the more you are exposed to it, the easier it is to understand.
Not well, unless you are part of the Black community, which is, of course, the point of it. It’s the origin of a lot of American slang, but when it reaches the mainstream, it often gets dropped for something new, because that is the point of it.
A lot of people here are confused about the difference between a dialect, accent and slang. Almost all standard American English speakers would understand AAVE just fine. For the most part AAVE is a dialect that just conjugates verbs differently, and often is a way that would be more intuitive for non-native English speakers. It totally makes senses to everyone, is just breaks some rules you learn in school.
Some AAVE speakers may have an accent that is hard for others to understand, but that’s true of standard American or British English too. And some speakers may use a lot of slang, but there really aren’t any nouns in AAVE where the standard word is different from standard American English.
AAVE vary by region as much as any other American dialect.
I don’t struggle with it much because I grew up in an urban environment. Only when I’m dealing with someone from down south with a thick country accent.
I don’t think my experience can possibly account for every non-native English speaker and all the variance within AAVE, but sharing as an anecdote. I am white, born and raised in a majority black city in the southern USA. My public K-12 schools were majority black and, more often than not, my teachers were black. Ended up going to college in a rural northern state, and made many friends who were international students. I would invite them to spend breaks with me in my hometown.
I learned two things the first time they came home with me. One, I would often have to step in and interpret AAVE into “standard” English for them until they spent enough time here to get it on their own. Two, I learned that I can code switch between “standard” English and AAVE.
Growing up in the south, pretty well. But you have to understand accents also play a big part of it as well, theres also just different venaculars based on cities and states
A family member is an ESL speaker and has been in the US for over two decades and has a very hard time with lots of accents – Black American English, African English, British, Caribbean English, etc.
My wife was born and raised in E Asia. Her academic English was excellent when she moved to the US, but her slang and casual language needed some work. After a few years here she took her ‘final exam’ of watching “The Wire” without subtitles. When she first moved here even with very fluent English she couldn’t understand it. After a few years she was able to follow (although one of the premises is that the slang of the black street dealers is so strong that even the cops from the same city cant understand them)
I am native Taiwanese Hokkien speaker. my wife is a native Norwegian speaker, and my daughter is a native Mandarin and Norwegian speaker. We currently live in a suburb of Los Angeles.
My daughter is better at it than both my and my wife, but all of us can understand 80%+ of it and can usually understand things from context, especially if there are subtitles. In real life, sometimes it can be harder when there is not enough time to parse in real time.
I grew up around English speakers, going to an American school growing up in Taiwan/Japan and a British school growing up in Germany, and our English teachers were always native speakers (Some Americans, some Englishmen, one Irish teacher.) 800s on reading/writing on the SAT, 118/120 on the TOEFL without any preparation, but my wife, who is largely fluent in Medical English but misses a lot of idiomatic nuances, can understand it better than I can. She grew up watching American media while I mostly watched Japanese media, so that might be part of it. Black American music was very popular with teenagers in Norway when she was younger.
My daughter is the least fluent in English of us, but she also has the most exposure to American media and Youtube. Even when we lived in Norway, she spoke with more of an American accent than a British accent despite the teachers having British accents, and she can understand it better than me and my wife. It’s not really a common accent where we live, with the Black Americans we know generally speaking with a typical California accent.
Anecdotally, it seems like it understanding the dialect has more to do with exposure to the accent than English fluency, which does make sense.
I depends on where they learned their English and whose accent they copied. This Korean woman owns a bakery in Houston. She married a black man and if I’m not mistaken the guy in the video is her son. She obviously learned a lot of English from her husband
It’s actually not that hard. A lot of it is context.
If you get flummoxed, go to the sites Urban Dictionary (which has some joke entries, and not all entries are AAVE), or Knowyourmeme. Buzzfeed also seems to make a serious attempt to use AAVE and other dialects, although it gets self-conscious and overdone.
If a friend uses AAVE with you, feel free to ask the meaning. If you don’t know someone, think on it before asking. Not all African Americans use AAVE, or want to tutor, and there are regional differences.
It isn’t just cultural. It is also regional. I had a coworker who was of the Gulla people. I used to understand about 10% of what he was saying. Didn’t help that he stuttered a bit too. Great guy and great worker. Melvin, I hope you are well.
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Depends on how much time they spend around black folks.
Shit, I’m a native English speaker- a Southerner at that- and it’s not always easy for me to understand. It’s definitely not the hardest accent/dialect to understand, but it’s up there.
It’s not a dialect. It’s a vernacular language. And I have no idea. I had friends from overseas not able to understand my family’s southern accent.
The slang is very different. AAVE also conjugates verbs differently. It can be hard for white Americans to understand. I would say it would probably be very jarring and difficult at first but with a relatively quick learning curve.
Depends. AAVE is technically its own dialect, but unlike dialects of other languages it is mutually decipherable. Cantonese Chinese is incomprehensible to a Mandarin Chinese speaker, but a native english speaker can easily understand AAVE. They might have to ask that individual to slow down or explain certain terms, but can still get the jist. For an english dialect that isn’t easily comprehensible by native speakers you might look at Jamaican English or certain flavors of Irish
“Shiiit, man. That honky mofo messin’ mah old lady—got to be runnin’ cold upside down his head, you know?”
I’m a white boy from the District of Columbia and I can actually speak it fluently
Not super well, imho. The parts you see in popular culture are watered down and slowed down. You might catch a few words and understand speakers, or by context and non verbals. If they are speaking to you you’ll understand because most or many will code switch into a more understandable dialect, but if they are speaking to each other you’ll have a much harder time.
My wife is not a native English speaker. She has a very difficult time understanding it.
My mom has a tough time understanding it and she’s been in this country for almost 30 years.
Even native English speakers struggle with it. I was fighting for my life on this sub once when I tried to tell people what the word punk means in AAVE.
Depends, but I’m from and still live in Atlanta and I’m white. I’m just around it and I assume the people who move here get used to it.
There’s always new words that come along. Just feel the vibes and use context clues.
My Koreans and Brazilians haven’t had any trouble so far. I would comment on people from other places but I don’t know enough to make any judgments.
Idk
It varies a lot more than you think. A person from Richmond will sound differently than a person from Atlanta, Raleigh, or even Baltimore. Slang changes, the inflection of their accent changes(even if it is “southern”), and then you got places like Louisiana/Missouri and the bayou/creolic accents. But you go out west or up north, and it sounds even more different.
As a native English speaker who has lived in CA, LA, and PA … I can’t even understand…
I live in a small farming community that is a good 30-minute drive from most descent size population centers.
We had a family sent down to my area from Chicago. The mother spoke with heavy use of AAVE. She was a really nice lady, but I could only make out half of what she was saying.
That was 3 years ago. Now, she sounds less like she is from Chicago and more like the rest of the podunk farmers around here.
My wife was born in Eastern Europe and was taught English by a white American. She still has trouble understanding a lot of the accents; AAVE being one of them, with Indian accents coming in right after that.
You should be more specific about regional dialects. I live in Minnesota. African American from Minnesota or Illinois Sound Totally different than African American people from the south.
It is not just specific to any race. There are stereotypes of how white people sound in Illinois and Minnesota. There are many different southern white dialects.
It’s a dialect. A dialect that’s older than what most white people speak in the US, it has it’s own very strict rules of speech and once you understand those rules it’s much easier. For example the phrase “He be”, as in “He be driving” The “be” in AAVE functions as a habitual aspect marker, indicating that an action is performed regularly or as a rule. It doesn’t mean that he currently is, it just means that he is known to do this. This is opposed to “He does” which means he is currently doing the thing.
“Oh, stewardess! I speak jive.”
I grew up in the south, I have no problems. My mother, who also grew up in the south, has to have a translator.
I understand it to a level. If I know the context and its in person I can usually guess what they mean
A lot of us native US English speakers can have a hard time understanding them in different parts of the country.
I’m native and I don’t usually understand it
Why are you asking that hear? Is there an AskABlackDude sub?
Not even native english speakers can understand AAVE well. There are misunderstanding all the time
If you’re not black, and don’t hang around black people, you won’t understand it. I’m black and have to explain things to those who don’t know.
Listening to Marshawn Lynch (former NFL player) would be a good barometer to test that. You’d probably get most of what he’s saying, but the slang can go over your head.
This isn’t a thing.
Even some native English speakers have difficulty with it.
I personally grew up in a very white area, with literally only 1 black person in my high school class of 120. I didn’t start really being able to somewhat easily understand AAVE until I moved to Baltimore for college. And even now, sometimes if the accent is thick enough, it is difficult for me to understand.
Its like any accent though: the more you are exposed to it, the easier it is to understand.
And then add in the people who simply refuse to try to understand. Sigh.
Not well, unless you are part of the Black community, which is, of course, the point of it. It’s the origin of a lot of American slang, but when it reaches the mainstream, it often gets dropped for something new, because that is the point of it.
A lot of people here are confused about the difference between a dialect, accent and slang. Almost all standard American English speakers would understand AAVE just fine. For the most part AAVE is a dialect that just conjugates verbs differently, and often is a way that would be more intuitive for non-native English speakers. It totally makes senses to everyone, is just breaks some rules you learn in school.
Some AAVE speakers may have an accent that is hard for others to understand, but that’s true of standard American or British English too. And some speakers may use a lot of slang, but there really aren’t any nouns in AAVE where the standard word is different from standard American English.
AAVE vary by region as much as any other American dialect.
I don’t struggle with it much because I grew up in an urban environment. Only when I’m dealing with someone from down south with a thick country accent.
I don’t think my experience can possibly account for every non-native English speaker and all the variance within AAVE, but sharing as an anecdote. I am white, born and raised in a majority black city in the southern USA. My public K-12 schools were majority black and, more often than not, my teachers were black. Ended up going to college in a rural northern state, and made many friends who were international students. I would invite them to spend breaks with me in my hometown.
I learned two things the first time they came home with me. One, I would often have to step in and interpret AAVE into “standard” English for them until they spent enough time here to get it on their own. Two, I learned that I can code switch between “standard” English and AAVE.
Growing up in the south, pretty well. But you have to understand accents also play a big part of it as well, theres also just different venaculars based on cities and states
A family member is an ESL speaker and has been in the US for over two decades and has a very hard time with lots of accents – Black American English, African English, British, Caribbean English, etc.
I am a native English speaker and sometimes have some difficulty with it.
The black folks I usually hang out with just don’t talk like that and I don’t really listen to hip hop at all, so I just have no exposure to it.
My wife was born and raised in E Asia. Her academic English was excellent when she moved to the US, but her slang and casual language needed some work. After a few years here she took her ‘final exam’ of watching “The Wire” without subtitles. When she first moved here even with very fluent English she couldn’t understand it. After a few years she was able to follow (although one of the premises is that the slang of the black street dealers is so strong that even the cops from the same city cant understand them)
Y’all use AAVE all the time, you just think it’s internet speak. Granted, it’s hand me down AAVE from 10 years ago.
Really depends on where they are from. Memphis accent can be tough but then you got people talking like Xavier Legette as well.
My brother told me once that learning Latin before another romance language is like learning Victorian English before learning AAVE.
I am native Taiwanese Hokkien speaker. my wife is a native Norwegian speaker, and my daughter is a native Mandarin and Norwegian speaker. We currently live in a suburb of Los Angeles.
My daughter is better at it than both my and my wife, but all of us can understand 80%+ of it and can usually understand things from context, especially if there are subtitles. In real life, sometimes it can be harder when there is not enough time to parse in real time.
I grew up around English speakers, going to an American school growing up in Taiwan/Japan and a British school growing up in Germany, and our English teachers were always native speakers (Some Americans, some Englishmen, one Irish teacher.) 800s on reading/writing on the SAT, 118/120 on the TOEFL without any preparation, but my wife, who is largely fluent in Medical English but misses a lot of idiomatic nuances, can understand it better than I can. She grew up watching American media while I mostly watched Japanese media, so that might be part of it. Black American music was very popular with teenagers in Norway when she was younger.
My daughter is the least fluent in English of us, but she also has the most exposure to American media and Youtube. Even when we lived in Norway, she spoke with more of an American accent than a British accent despite the teachers having British accents, and she can understand it better than me and my wife. It’s not really a common accent where we live, with the Black Americans we know generally speaking with a typical California accent.
Anecdotally, it seems like it understanding the dialect has more to do with exposure to the accent than English fluency, which does make sense.
I depends on where they learned their English and whose accent they copied. This Korean woman owns a bakery in Houston. She married a black man and if I’m not mistaken the guy in the video is her son. She obviously learned a lot of English from her husband
It’s actually not that hard. A lot of it is context.
If you get flummoxed, go to the sites Urban Dictionary (which has some joke entries, and not all entries are AAVE), or Knowyourmeme. Buzzfeed also seems to make a serious attempt to use AAVE and other dialects, although it gets self-conscious and overdone.
If a friend uses AAVE with you, feel free to ask the meaning. If you don’t know someone, think on it before asking. Not all African Americans use AAVE, or want to tutor, and there are regional differences.
Many use specific syntax to throw off native speakers so non-natives are even less equipped.
When my ex moved from Nebraska to Louisiana I had to translate for him and he was a native English speaker.
It isn’t just cultural. It is also regional. I had a coworker who was of the Gulla people. I used to understand about 10% of what he was saying. Didn’t help that he stuttered a bit too. Great guy and great worker. Melvin, I hope you are well.