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sulkiercupid, I hope you won't mind me saying this - but I don't talk to people on public transport, but if I met you i'd break that rule!
*smiles* you write very interesting posts - and I bet you're a very interesting person to talk too.
I'm glad I wasn't the only one who noticed the "cellery" thing.
It's interesting about there being more Southern Europeans - and how that could have influenced the accent.
Do you come across many British people in Perth - I know there's a fair few who've moved out there.
You're making me blush!
There are many British immigrants here as Trimac said (around 10% of the total population were born in Britain), so you come across British people everyday. I've also noticed a lot more Irish accents in the last few years here, presumably due to the state of the economy over there.
Quote:
Is the ability to differentiate between the australian and kiwi accent purely an australian and nz phenomena? I worked at one time with some kiwis here in canada and to be honest they were mistaken all the time for being australian. We would say it was similar to us canadians being mistaken for americans but standard canadian english is pretty similar indeed to standard american english.
Have any of you encountered people from outside the region who could tell the difference between the two?
If you lived in Australia/NZ for awhile you'd probably start to notice the difference between the accent's, it's a subtle difference but the way certain vowels are pronounced makes it pretty much unmistakable where the speaker is from. Mind you I've lived here all my life, and I didn't even really notice a difference until I was about 10/11 years old.
My mum is from Singapore and she can identify a Kiwi by their accent, though she's been living here for a long time; not sure if many people outside Aus/NZ are familiar enough with the region to notice there's a difference though.
Can't really agree with you, as a Kiwi I do notice Maori's tend to have these traits which are easily spottable as Kiwi's, more middle North Island. The vast majority of Kiwis defiantly don't do the above.
Its a bit like me thinking "all" Poms speak like EastEnders dropping "h" all over the place and not pronouncing anything in full.
They're pretty different if you pay attention. But i think someone unfamiliar with the Kiwi accent might think it was a strange regional variant of the Australian accent.
It many ways it sounds more South African than Australian!
I sometimes have to listen closely to distinguish the two, probably because they both have fairly soft tones and do not talk very loudly.
Kiwi accents are obviously severalfold more frequently heard in Oz than the South African one though.
Aussie accents almost always stand out. The occasional person might have a soft almost neutral accent, but most, whether private school banker types down to hard drinking westies, are easy to pick.
Is the ability to differentiate between the australian and kiwi accent purely an australian and nz phenomena? I worked at one time with some kiwis here in canada and to be honest they were mistaken all the time for being australian. We would say it was similar to us canadians being mistaken for americans but standard canadian english is pretty similar indeed to standard american english.
Have any of you encountered people from outside the region who could tell the difference between the two?
When in doubt, guess NZ, because they'll be chuffed if they are. The Canadian accent is so strong, I'm not surprised you couldn't hear the difference. There are shibboleths which make picking them easier. Fish (feesh/fush), Six (six/sux), New Zealand ( neeo zeeland/nu zillund), Fair (feyre/feer). Australian short vowel sounds are very pure and very short, very proper english, new zealanders make i more of an uh sound. Of course you could always make a crack about the all blacks and see they laugh or punch you.
South Africans tend to have super short clipped vowels, but they do sound more like NZers than Australians. I'll have to google for a shibboleth.
sulkiercupid, I hope you won't mind me saying this - but I don't talk to people on public transport, but if I met you i'd break that rule!
*smiles* you write very interesting posts - and I bet you're a very interesting person to talk too.
I'm glad I wasn't the only one who noticed the "cellery" thing.
It's interesting about there being more Southern Europeans - and how that could have influenced the accent.
Do you come across many British people in Perth - I know there's a fair few who've moved out there.
I have a friend from Perth who gets confused to be English by his accent a lot even though he is Aussie born and bred. According to him, WA seems to have the weakest Aussie accent of any state, at least in the Perth area.
When in doubt, guess NZ, because they'll be chuffed if they are. The Canadian accent is so strong, I'm not surprised you couldn't hear the difference. There are shibboleths which make picking them easier. Fish (feesh/fush), Six (six/sux), New Zealand ( neeo zeeland/nu zillund), Fair (feyre/feer). Australian short vowel sounds are very pure and very short, very proper english, new zealanders make i more of an uh sound. Of course you could always make a crack about the all blacks and see they laugh or punch you.
South Africans tend to have super short clipped vowels, but they do sound more like NZers than Australians. I'll have to google for a shibboleth.
I actually have a lot of trouble with Canadian and American accents, unless they have the scottish huus for house or are from Texas, I'm lost.
canadian accents sound like mid western accents in the usa , difference between an aussie accent and a kiwi one is much greater than between an american and a canadian one , ive relatives in british colombia and they sound completley american to me , obviously not texan or new york but identical to a generic mid western accent
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Derek40
It many ways it sounds more South African than Australian!
I sometimes have to listen closely to distinguish the two, probably because they both have fairly soft tones and do not talk very loudly.
Kiwi accents are obviously severalfold more frequently heard in Oz than the South African one though.
South African accents have some similarities but to me they sound very different to both NZ and Australian. If you listen to Dutch people speaking English you'll notice the similarities too.
Just listen to how they say words like 'fine', 'see', 'hard'. Words like 'go' are said similarly to Aus, as is the broad 'a' in snake. Americans think Australians say snake as 'snike'. Similar to an Appalachian accent.
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