I atteneded a university for two years that had a lot of international students, many from the southern hemisphere. After the first few months, I had no trouble distinguishing a Kiwi from an Aussie. I could understand the Kiwis; the Aussies I had to ask them to repeat themselves more than once. Of course, that could be because I was friends with several Kiwis and was only aquainted with a couple of Aussies.
LOL! 
Yank, here. I was in NZ 2 years ago and the thing that struck me most about the accent is that their short “e” sounds like a long “e” to my ear. So the sentence
“The weather is better in Wellington” (which someone actually said to me)
sounded to me like
“The wEEther is bEEtter in WEEllington”.
J.
And there is no single Australian accent. When I lived in Oz, I was taught to listen for variation. Eventually I could distinguish among the major regional accents from around the country, similar to what we have here in the USA.
Of course, the Kiwis only have two major accents. North Island and South Island.
Watching Flight of the Conchords has honed my Kiwi accent recognition. It’s very distinct if you listen for the short e sound.
“Yees, yees it is.”
I’m surprised at the number of people who say they can tell the difference between a Canadian and an American accent immediately. I sure as heck can’t, unless it’s a very strong regional accent, and no one has identified me as Canadian based on my accent alone (it’s the vocabulary that gives me away).
When I (an American) was visiting NZ for a while, I could tell the Australian tourists from the New Zealanders - they were both slightly incomprehensible in different ways.
You can’t for most people although there is some validity to the “out and about” thing. The sounds that come out of our mouths are interpreted slightly differently in people’s brains which may be more finely tuned to certain slight differences or completely oblivious to them for other people. If a Canadian from Ontario visits Texas, the people will instantly know that something is up but they probably won’t be able to tell whether the person is from Ottawa or Upstate New York. There are plenty of Canadians in prominent positions in the U.S. media and most Americans have no idea unless they are told.
That is why I say that Canadians are the most dangerous aliens to the U.S. You can just hide among regular people here in plain sight and no one will have any idea. Any inane cover story about being kicked out of Nebraska will do.
What I can’t figure out is (Rush lead singer) Geddy Lee’s accent. I’ve never heard another Canadian with an accent like his (his speaking voice, that is, which is just as weird as his singing voice). His bandmates, to me, sound indistinguishable from Americans, though I haven’t heard either of them speak as often as Geddy. What’s weird is that guitarist Alex Lifeson grew up in the same town as Geddy – they played in bands together as young teenagers – yet has a completely different accent. Both are sons of immigrants; Geddy’s parents are Polish and Alex’s parents are, I believe, Czechoslovakian or Yugoslavian.
The only explanations I can think of are that Geddy perhaps spent more time with his extended Polish family (“Geddy” is his grandmother’s mispronunciation of his actual given name, Gary), and I think Alex spent much of his early childhood living in British Columbia (which borders my home state of Washington), instead of the Toronto area. If Alex developed his "accent’ in BC, that would go a long way toward explaining why I don’t hear an accent when he speaks.
Yeah, it’s really hard to pick a Canadian from an American, eh?
d&r
To my ears it’s fairly easy to tell, I always remember the accents in Peter Jackson’s Bad Taste. “He fill off a cluff” etc.
There was an official website devoted to New Zealander Neil Finn, songwriter and chief member of the band Crowded House, entitled “Nil Fun”.
Yeah, I was thinking that as I watched an episode a few weeks ago. I spent some time in NZ, and while I was there, I was pretty good at distinguishing between NZ and Australian accents. But that ability went away pretty quickly after I got back to the US. FotC was a nice little trip down memory lane, although I think they have some very pronounced accents that might not be typical.
As for Canadians, it depends on where they are from. There isn’t one Canadian accent, and it does blur into American speech for those living in the far north of the US. Someone from Toronto sounds quite different to me compared to someone from, say, Kamloops (in BC). And many of the Francophones speak with a rather heavy French-Canadian accent, itself quite distinct from a French accent.
Today would be a good day to compare Kiwi and Aussie accents while swearing, moping and complaining, anyway.
Most people don’t know where I’m from at all. I like it that way. Being an Albertan, I don’t have the traditional ‘Canadian’ accent; that accent is Ontario.
That’s mainly a North Island thing, I’ve noticed- South Island accents aren’t as “Fresh”, for want of a better term.
Then again, the only way Kiwis here tend to pick my accent is because “I don’t sound like an Aussie”. The Australians don’t tend to notice, or assume I went to some expensive private school (wrong, incidentally). It works well, since I got very sick of sheep jokes after I moved here…
I know Brits, Aussies and Kiwis. It took me years finally to distinguish Brits from Aussies/Kiwis, but I can do it now. I still can’t tell Aussie from Kiwi, though. The wife thinks all three sound alike.
Do New Zealanders think to themselves “time for a profeesional foul, the ref won’t have the guts to sun bun me”?
But you DO sound, at least to my ears, very Canadian. If I met you and knew nothing about you, I would know you’re Canadian immediately.
For the non-North Americans…why not just ask “Where are you from?” if you’re not sure if someone is Canadian or American? I’ve never had anyone ask me if I was Canadian, or what province I was from (and I’m an expat!), but I assue you I would roll my eyes if it happened. The joke is old and tired, give it a break.
The responses to this were very enlightening. I think I just need a bigger sample, and I’d pin it down. (I’m usually quite good with accents.)
Greg Norman lost his Aussie accent years ago, so unfortunately he is not a basis for comparing S.A. to the Oz accent.