Accents that sound similar ?

[airbolt]

I was puzzled to hear that some Americans hear an English accent and think the speaker is from Australia. It made me think of a conversation with an Australian where he insisted that Australian and New Zealand Accents were ' completely different '. Americans and Canadians say the same. ---- So , the question is are there any foolproof ways for the non local to tell one from another just by listening?

[stoory]

I've travelled through all these countries and apart from simple practice at being in one country then moving to the other it's quite hard!! However there are a few obvious pointers.... New Zealanders have a much more nasal way of speaking and can be a lot sharper and concise whereas there australian counterparts often speak slower and in a more drawn out fashion. American/Canadian diff. is harder to explain without mimicing the accent but the word 'eh' is far more present in canada than america and canadians are simply less hyperactive (exaggeration noted)! hope that helps!!

[andy hughes]

I can tell the difference between Australian and New Zealand speech, and between American and Cabadian, but it is very hard to explain what those differences are. Closer to home, if you tell someone from the Black Country that they have a Birmingham accent, they can be offended, although I cannot hear the difference at all, but there must be nuances that only the locals can pick up.

[katie83]

im from birmingham and it is an offence to tell someone from birmingham that they have a black country accent, it is seen by locals to be broader and more common. i can tell the difference but when i am in another city people have asked me if im from wolverhampton(the black country) london and EVEN australia. so i think locals can tell the difference and outsiders cannot.

[omblod]

I think it was Dame Kiri Te Kanawa who said that you can tell the difference between a New Zealand and an Australian accent by the way they say, "swimming pool." New Zealanders say, "swimming POOL" whereas Australians tend to say, "swimming POO-ELL" with two syllables in the second word. New Zealanders also tend to sound more clipped than Australians.

[gazzawazza]

I'm from Teesside and can tell the difference between people from towns just a few miles apart. However, I've lost count of the number of times I've been called a geordie on holiday. To myself (and anyone else around the North East) it's soooooo like chalk and cheese.

[SteveG]

I have a very distictive West London accent and on a trip to Los Angeles recently was constantly referred to as Australian. This I can only put down to Americans being a tad ignorant.

[Janetex]

Dame Kiri is right if all English accents sound like my s-i-l from MunchEstah.

[honkytonkman]

My trick for differentiating a Canadian from an American is to hear the words with an 'ou' in them. With Canadians 'out and about' sounds like 'oat in a boat' or in extremes and the Maritime Provinces like 'oot and aboot', and of course as Stoory stated, Canadians use the word 'eh?" pretty much like we do... 'Good eh?' With a New Zealand accent words like 'hit' sound like 'hut', 'bit = 'but' etc. When a friend of mine did a tour of the rural Deep South of the USA a short while ago she was asked language they spoke in England................... scary eh?

[Kit]

My most embarrassing moment (I was very young, I hasten to add.) After talking to someone on the train for a while, I asked him which part of America he came from. "Dublin," he replied...