How can you tell the difference between English accents?

Question

I have always been interested in how people can tell the difference (or how they can't) between accents, English especially.

Mainly, I'd like to know the difference between a British, Australian, and American accent when the person is speaking English. What about if someone's accent is from another language and they speak English. What would that be like?

I personally have heard a lot of different accents but I can never tell the difference between them. I don't know why but for example when someone tells me that two particular people are speaking with a British accent, but I can clearly understand one and not the other, I don't get it.

I got interested because my whole life, a lot of people everywhere I go (including people like sales assistants) keep on guessing what my accent is and they always have different opinions. Some said I had a British accent, some said American, some said Australian, etc... even a couple had thought I spoke in a French or Japanese accent.

And etc. The odd thing is I have only met one French person my entire life and I couldn't understand him at all and my accent is not like his. I have never really met any Japanese people unless they are on the street or in an airport.

This strikes me really strange.

Could anymore tell me more about this?

Answer 1

It is very obvious mate. The more you talk to native speakers the more you can tell the difference.
English accent is very clear in pronunciation.
Australian accent is very exaggerated and not very clear.
And people that come from non-english speaking background will have very distinctive accent as well.
Moreover, they usually have very distinctive words that are spoken only by the particular countries.

Answer 2

american accent and the brirtsh is clear to understand and also the austrailian .. and u can easily know the difference between these 3 .. other accents maybe will not be clear cuz they mix their origin accent and some of their expressions with english..
I am egyptian and I am learning amreican english and I can talk the american accent very well .. but when I hear the british english I find a little hard to understand cuz I didn't use to hear it so much .. and what makes me exciting is the other american accents from different places in USA ,, the western cow boy accent is so cool I like it ,, and I can copy the spanish or the french english accent ,, I always do it for fun ..

Answer 3

You just can, if you speak british English, or Australian english we say warta not warter, but if you're the native of Australian english you can just automatically tell where some is from. I australia we usually have like a deeper accent than British people. it is like telling the difference between dialect of a language.

Answer 4

Maybe when you heard the two British people speaking, you could understand one more than the other because they were from different areas of Great Britain. Have you ever seen "My Fair Lady", with Audrey Hepburn? Her accent was considered atrocious because she was from a part of London where they don't enunciate as properly as they could.

Answer 5

the difference between english and american accente is that
american language is called street language example: you say beauriful .
some words can be changed in american language
english is the original english

Answer 6

This is also a passion of mine. I'm usually accurate when I guess a person's upbringing/accent! And, for some odd reason...after I've been around it for a little while; I can imitate it, too.

Answer 7

haha, well.. you see, many people have different opinions actually. it depends on the peroson itself. It is very rare to have an accent like yours..soo..my question is to you NOW is that what do YOU think your accent is? reflect it on yourself..and try to figure it out. Ü