Quote:
Originally Posted by Acajack
I can tell British from Australian reasonably easily though not 100% of the time. Though I've spent time in Australia.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Proof Sheet
I must admit I find the Australian and NZ accents hard to differentiate but South African is distinctive.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Acajack
I can distinguish OZ-NZ-SA reasonably well but I went to school in English much of my life and spent quite a bit of time in other Commonwealth countries and circles.
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I used to be pretty good at distinguishing Aus/NS/SA (it's a common joke, but fush+chups vs feesh+cheeps really does help
)
However, I've been getting
worse at it I think. I watch a ton of rugby, I encounter all those accents a lot, but it's so commonly mixed company that they all start to blur. Only in certain directions though. A lot of the time, it'll take me a few words or sentences to realize the speaker is Aussie and not English, but I would never mistake English for Aussie.
It's funny that "house" is a word that Canadians get "caught out" on, I've had that exact conversation with my finacee's family. They spent 5 years in Sydney, and now her dad is dating a girl from Melbourne so we talk about it sometimes and "house" was discussed in depth. She thinks we say it too short, I think she's saying about two vowels too many and swallowing at the same time.. "hay-owgh-se".... She laughed at that
I have a pretty good grasp of "northern" vs "southern" English, but not anything more refined than that. If they have hard R's then possibly "west country". I can notice different Irish accents but have no idea on placing them with any area or class, just that they're different. I have a co worker that's from Belfast so if I hear the odd word said exactly like him then I guess Northern.
Apparently I have the Southern Ontario accent that people think sounds American. I've been getting asked that since I was a kid visiting Toronto and a TTC driver asked if I was American. Nope, just watch a lot of PBS?
It sure as hell isn't American though, the second you cross into Buffalo its a whole different thing.