Welcome to City-Data.com Forum!
U.S. CitiesCity-Data Forum Index
Go Back   City-Data Forum > World Forums > Australia and New Zealand
 [Register]
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
View detailed profile (Advanced) or search
site with Google Custom Search

Search Forums  (Advanced)
Reply Start New Thread
 
Old 05-26-2010, 03:34 AM
 
Location: Sunshine Coast, BC
10,781 posts, read 8,700,068 times
Reputation: 17780

Advertisements

Quote:
Originally Posted by solibs View Post
ahh mistakes with accents . . . Waiting in line at a museum in Northern Ireland (Derry) we were chatting with the canadians in line in front of us. We started talking to them after hearing their canadian accents. The woman at the register asked them what part of the states they were from
That's an easy one to confuse in many cases, depending on what part of either of the two countries a person is from. My husband is Canadian and at least 8 times out of 10 gets asked if he's American or what part of America he's from. I suppose some Canadians might get offended (don't know why) but he doesn't at all. I can tell the difference between the two accents but I did live in Canada for half my life.

Quote:
Originally Posted by solibs View Post
Outside a pub in London (Tottenham?) with a bunch of friends from Philly/New Jersey some local guys started to chat up one of the girls we were with. After a few minutes I heard one of them ask her if she was Australian. They were all shocked to learn that she was from NJ perhaps they were familiar with this urban aussie accent you speak of.
Now, that's a surprise! I wouldn't think you'd confuse those two accents!

But it all depends on what you're exposed to. Living in Perth, I can not only hear who's a Pom (obviously) but I'm able to pick out where they're from in England in a lot of cases - Yorkshire, Leicester, Manchester, Liverpool, London, Devon. When I lived in Canada I could only pick out the obvious ones like Cockney and the plummy BBC announcer type accent. And same for the Scots - I thought they just had one accent til I got to know Glaswegians and noticed they sounded quite different to my friend from Edinburgh. Quite fascinating actually, the UK having so many very different accents in such a small geographical area. Australia is far larger yet the general accent seems a lot more homogenous, with only slight regional differences, to my ear at least.

Last edited by Vichel; 05-26-2010 at 04:17 AM..
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message

 
Old 05-27-2010, 08:43 AM
 
Location: The western periphery of Terra Australis
24,606 posts, read 55,818,026 times
Reputation: 11862
Quote:
Originally Posted by Vichel View Post
That's an easy one to confuse in many cases, depending on what part of either of the two countries a person is from. My husband is Canadian and at least 8 times out of 10 gets asked if he's American or what part of America he's from. I suppose some Canadians might get offended (don't know why) but he doesn't at all. I can tell the difference between the two accents but I did live in Canada for half my life.



Now, that's a surprise! I wouldn't think you'd confuse those two accents!

But it all depends on what you're exposed to. Living in Perth, I can not only hear who's a Pom (obviously) but I'm able to pick out where they're from in England in a lot of cases - Yorkshire, Leicester, Manchester, Liverpool, London, Devon. When I lived in Canada I could only pick out the obvious ones like Cockney and the plummy BBC announcer type accent. And same for the Scots - I thought they just had one accent til I got to know Glaswegians and noticed they sounded quite different to my friend from Edinburgh. Quite fascinating actually, the UK having so many very different accents in such a small geographical area. Australia is far larger yet the general accent seems a lot more homogenous, with only slight regional differences, to my ear at least.
Yes, like shades, alot of people differentiate accents by looking at the contrast between them.

Since reading up about accents I'm able to pinpoint people by their accent pretty successfully: those in the UK, usually within a city or county, and even Australians increasingly. In Australia it's more a few words that tend to be give-aways like 'chance', 'castle' or 'melbourne', or the way place-names are pronounced (like Albany) although this is still a general guide.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 05-27-2010, 11:35 AM
 
Location: Portland, Oregon
1,373 posts, read 3,113,027 times
Reputation: 573
Quote:
Originally Posted by Trimac20 View Post
Yes, like shades, alot of people differentiate accents by looking at the contrast between them.

Since reading up about accents I'm able to pinpoint people by their accent pretty successfully: those in the UK, usually within a city or county, and even Australians increasingly. In Australia it's more a few words that tend to be give-aways like 'chance', 'castle' or 'melbourne', or the way place-names are pronounced (like Albany) although this is still a general guide.
interesting. hey come on msn
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 05-01-2012, 02:47 PM
 
42 posts, read 88,438 times
Reputation: 39
This thread seems to have died out but I absolutely LOVE australian accents!! And surprise...I'm american.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 05-02-2012, 12:38 AM
 
Location: The western periphery of Terra Australis
24,606 posts, read 55,818,026 times
Reputation: 11862
Quote:
Originally Posted by cstoner View Post
This thread seems to have died out but I absolutely LOVE australian accents!! And surprise...I'm american.
I'm more surprised when I meet Yanks who DON'T like our accent.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 05-02-2012, 04:23 AM
 
Location: St. Louis, MO
4,009 posts, read 6,832,383 times
Reputation: 4607
THANKFULLY everyone has always thought I was British (even when I was a child, which was odd), to the extent that when I lived in the UK even the Brits didn't think I was Australian (just a very proper speaking English Girl).

To be honest, I've always been pleased about this... just yesterday I had to call the Commonwealth Bank back in Australia about a matter and I virtually *cringed* at hearing the accent. Ugh. It's so harsh and unbecoming.

As much as Prisoner Cell Block H is my guilty pleasure, accents apart from "Erica Davidson's" grate on me the wrong way.

Some Australian accents are obviously worse than others though. I'm not saying all American accents are perfect (far, far from it), but neutralized American accents (I live in the U.S currently) don't annoy me nearly as much for some reason.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 05-02-2012, 04:37 AM
 
20,948 posts, read 18,982,000 times
Reputation: 10270
I like it.

I feel compelled to buy things when pitched by an Australian.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.

Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.


Reply
Please update this thread with any new information or opinions. This open thread is still read by thousands of people, so we encourage all additional points of view.

Quick Reply
Message:


Over $104,000 in prizes was already given out to active posters on our forum and additional giveaways are planned!

Go Back   City-Data Forum > World Forums > Australia and New Zealand
Similar Threads

All times are GMT -6.

© 2005-2024, Advameg, Inc. · Please obey Forum Rules · Terms of Use and Privacy Policy · Bug Bounty

City-Data.com - Contact Us - Archive 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37 - Top