There's a great kids' book called Millions, written by Frank Boyce. It's about two young British boys who found a bag of money and had to figure out whether to spend it, how, and on what. Eventually it was made into a movie, and my library purchased it. So I decided to bring it home on Friday and watch it.
All good so far. In the opening conversation between the boy and his dad, I understood exactly 0% of what they said. Curt didn't fare any better. The boy's voice is kinda high, and he mumbles a little. Maybe that's why we missed it. We re-wound it and watched the scene again. Nope. Nothing. This movie takes place in Northern England and is about a low-income family, and their accent is absolutely unintelligible to us. There seems to be a lack of consonants in their speech. We finally resorted to subtitles. I'm so ashamed. We had to watch an ENGLISH movie with subtitles!
Also this weekend, there was the national spelling bee going on in Washington DC. Curiously, a New Zealand girl had qualified to compete, and it was a big news story around the country. I didn't even realise that the American spelling bee allowed kids from other English-speaking countries, but I guess they do. It seems like it would be a bit of a disadvantage for her because there are so many things spelled differently (like manoeuvre and kerb) that she had to learn. There are also words that sound significantly different (like furor in US = furore in NZ which has 3 syllables fyur-OR-ee). And she has to be able to understand the word that the judges are saying. 
That actually turned out to be easier than the judges being able to understand what SHE was saying. The Kiwi girl made it beyond the preliminary rounds and into the televised finals, where the judges constantly struggled to understand her. For instance, they couldn't tell if she was spelling a word with a G or a J. G/GEE in NZ sounds a lot like J/JAY because E sounds like A. The judges kept asking her to repeat it. She'd say JAIE - or something like that - and they were stumped. Finally, they asked her to give them another word that starts with the same letter. She said giraffe. Ah hah! She was spelling with a G after all. The New Zealand news was having great fun with the judges' ignorance. They interviewed Kiwi schoolmates who all agreed she'd clearly said JAIE and why couldn't the judges get it?
The third incident happened at my school (which is named Diocesan School, but often called Dio for short). One of the teachers came in to the library to do some photocopying and struck up a conversation with us:
Teacher: Do you have a Dio beer in the library?
Lara, a fellow librarian answers: Nah.
Teacher: I have one beer, but I need about 4.
(I look puzzled)
Lara: Where'd you get yours?
Teacher: A parent of a student gave it to me.
(I'm still looking puzzled)
Teacher: I was going to be teaching a unit on storytelling, and thought it might be fun to use Dio beer.
(I'm extremely puzzled)
Lara: I think there's one downstairs in the office, though.
Teacher: Yeah. Theirs is all dressed up in school colours.
(I am beyond puzzled now)
Teacher: Remember when they were taking pictures of the beer and emailing to everyone?
Lara: People who dress up their beer must be sick.
Teacher: You sure have a funny look on your face, Megan.
Me: I'm still trying to figure out what this conversation is about. Usually if I listen long enough, I can use the context to fill in the blanks. But I'm lost. Are you talking about Dio beer???
Teacher and Lara, laughing hysterically: No, a Dio BEAR! You know, a stuffed teddy bear with the school insignia!
As you can tell, I'm still not quite fluent in Kiwi. But I did have a small success recently: I commented on the lovely scones that we had for morning tea, and Lucy said I pronounced it exactly right! (I've only been practising every Monday morning tea for the last 10 months!) Scone in Kiwi is pronounced about halfway between SCUHN and SCONN. And I did it right. Once.
