World Maritime English Accents

The importance of successful English communication for safety at sea cannot be overestimated. The purpose of this page is to prepare future seafarers for a wide variety of English pronunciation encountered over the radio. The English that deck officers listen to on the bridge seldom comes from native speakers who speak perfect "textbook" English such as Received Pronunciation (RP).  In reality, they are often required to understand English messages spoken with foreign accents. This may require some familiarization even for native speakers, and is indeed a challenging task for non-native learners of English. To provide a "real" spoken Maritime English data base for prospective seafarers, 7 messages taken from the Standard Maritime Communication  Phrases (SMCP) were chosen and recorded by various speakers, including Dr. Peter Trenkner, who prepared the SMCP. By going through these samples, you can join a World Maritime English Tour without actually going to sea.

When you join this tour, you will realize that messages spoken fast can be difficult to understand, especially when they are heavily accented. If you are a non-native speaker, you will find the samples from your own countrymen or countrywomen are the easiest to understand, and messages by native speakers are much more difficult, often too FAST.  The following is an important message for every prospective seafarer, native and non-native speakers alike.

OVER THE RADIO

REDUCE YOUR MOUTH SPEED TO SLOW AHEAD

SPEAK CLEARLY

If you are a native speaker, non-native speakers will find it easier to understand your message if you slow down. If you are a non-native speaker, do not try to be too fluent.  Slow down, and your party, whether native or non-native, will understand your message more easily. By slowing down, you might lose a second or two, but gain the most important thing at sea: SAFETY. A proper speaking rate, as suggested by Dr. Trenkner, can be heard below. Paying due respect to the creator of the SMCP, his recordings come first on the list.

Now a little bit of history of this site. The idea was originally presented in a grant proposal to the International Association of Maritime Universities prepared by N. Takagi and Laurie Stone. Since N. Takagi was attending the 3rd IAMU General Assembly in Egypt together with four students  from his institution, he decided to ask them to collect speech samples from their fellow students from other countries. He also personally recorded several people who attended the Assembly. We'd like to thank these students and those who helped us in Alexandria, Egypt. We'd also like to thank the Nippon Foundation for their financial support to the IAMU, which partially made this project possible.

We would like to make this a continuing project.  If you find your own country or particular dialect is not represented below, please feel free to record the following 7 messages in .wav format (MONO, 16 bit resolution, 11K), and send the 7 files as attachments  to takagi@kaiyodai.ac.jp. we'd be happy to add them to the list below. Thank you very much in advance.

N. Takagi & L. Stone

Further Acknowledgments (October 25, 2010)

Ever since we launched this site, many people have contributed their accents.  We have had recordings from Italy thanks to Mr. Pietro del Rosso, and my dear friend Clive organized recording sessions at WMU, asking students to contribute their accents. We have also made recordings at DMU with the help of Mr. Roy Stall, who was teaching at DMU, and several cadets contributed their time at KMU at IAMU General Assembly 11 held in Busan, Korea.  We now have 28 countries represented in this site. We are looking forward to your contribution if your aacent has not been included in the list below!

The messages recorded are as follows:

1  My flag state is X. My last port of call was Y.  My cargo is crude oil.  (X is the speaker's home country, Y is the nearest port.)

2  Aft station, aft station, this is bridge. Make fast the tug on the starboard quarter.

3  The pilot boat is approaching. Rig the pilot ladder 1 meter above water.

4  My present course is 135 degrees. My speed is 15 knots.

5  The CPA of the vessel 30 degrees on our port bow is 3 nautical miles, the TCPA is 13 minutes.

6  We will use the starboard anchor and put 7 shackles in the water.

7  Mayday, Mayday, Mayday.

    This is motor vessel X, spelling.  (X is the speaker's mother's name, and its spelling Mike Alpha Mike Alpha, etc. follows.)

    Our present position is 090 (zero nine zero) degrees from the Bravo Buoy, distance 5 cables. I am on fire after explosion. I am sinking.