Do British speakers have problems understanding Jamaican speakers? [closed]

Solution 1:

Yes, even native English speakers can have trouble with strong accents that they're unfamiliar with.

In addition, Sean Paul here is speaking in a Jamaican dialect, so there are grammatical structures that would be unfamiliar, and even words that are not in a standard English dictionary.

Solution 2:

I do, but then I sometimes have difficulty in understanding people from other parts of the United Kingdom.

Solution 3:

Many Caribbean dialects can be difficult to understand for any English speaker simply because they tend to be creole languages. In Jamaica's case, it's a creole of an African dialect (from somewhere in Western Africa) and an English dialect (Irish English predominately).

Of course, Jamaica is unique as well in that it also has an entirely artificially created dialect, Iyaric, which is used by the Rastafarians and is often heard in reggae. May be what he's singing in in the video, but it can be hard to tell when they're talking fast.

There's also standard Jamaican English, which is pretty much like British English, but recently a lot of American English words (and grammar) have been working their way into it since they have closer ties to the US than to Britain now.