I once met someone from the North of England. I went to a college in the US as an exchange student, the first international student I met was this girl from a northern town in England. We started chatting, but I couldn’t understand a thing. I felt terrible! I didn’t understand a thing of English! How I was supposed to take college classes in English if I couldn’t understand a simple conversation!

Then other students came from other countries and then I figured I just didn’t understand that particular accent.

She pronounced where as “wa” or something like that I was really confused.