Yeah, isn’t that weird? I wonder why that is. I know someone who is in Europe on her semester abroad right now, and she told me that the kids were advised not to wear clothes with American labels and such, so as not to advertise that they are from the US. It won’t work, though…you can tell they’re American at a glance.
Hell no. I’m a stealth foreigner, and I look just like anyone else. It’s really difficult to pick out Canadians in the US, unless they’re wearing Canadian clothing or you hear them speak with a regional Canadian accent.
I spot Russians no problem. Though I can’t go further than that and tell if they are Ukrainian, Belorussian or from Russia.
New Zealanders tend to blend with the crowd. Seeing as there are many ethnicities among my fellow Kiwis today – nah. Wouldn’t have a hope in heck telling them apart from anyone else.
I can spot Georgians quite well. And it is also pretty easy to pick out Saudis, Bahrainis, Omanis, Sri Lankans and Americans.
With the usual qualifiers (everybody’s an individual!), being a German I can spot Germans abroad most of the time - and I did test that theory when I was a greeter at Disney’s EPCOT. I’ve since tried to put my finger on what it is that tips me off, but it is hard to tell. There are a couple of factors regarding clothing that help:
Sandals and socks at the same time, of course. Though that might just be the “tourist” bit.
Women with short hair sporting “funky” colors (v. popular with German office-workers) - actually, German women tend to not have a very “made-up” hairstyle (e.g. hairspray, perms and such) or are not very well-dressed. It’s really hard to find a dress in a German store.
Younger people wearing Puma Speedcat sneakers (used to be the “well-dressed for every occasion” shoe). When I first came to the USA, as a teen, I was surprised to find that my Levi’s and Speedcats look was not really considered appropriate for going out to clubs.
However, I don’t think it’s only the clothes. Maybe it’s the facial structure? Or the skin type? Or a combination thereof? I’ve been also spotted as a German, so I don’t exclude myself.
I’ve also spotted Americans in Munich, they seem to have a sort of a fresh-faced, pretty and preppy look. And well-coiffed hair.
[ATTENTION STEREOTYPE YAppearanceMV]
The girls often are blonde or a variation thereof, have ponytails and impossible straight teeth (or braces), usually wear a grey hoodie sweatshirt sporting an “U of X” logo, very short shorts and sneakers. The guys have a goatee, wear a baseball cap, XXL khaki shorts going over their knees, and rather large sneakers. Of course, it helps to identify the Americans if they are in a group and/or try to run you over with the rented bike from “Mike’s Bike Tours” 
Sneakers are often a tipoff - “real” sneakers (meaning they look like running shoes) are in my experience rarely worn by Germans if they’re not actually going running.
I can’t tell who’s American, but I can usually tell if someone isn’t Bulgarian. Americans aren’t very common here, but the Western Europeans I see around definitely don’t look like Bulgarians, who are usually dark, and if they’re light, usually look specifically Slavic. Although a lot of the foreigners in my area are Turkish (I’m not talking about the Bulgarian Turks, but actual Turkish Turks) and I can usually tell them apart because the women often wear headscarves. Bulgarian Turks aren’t very religious AFAICT. Mainly it’s a dress thing - Eastern Europeans have their own, um…special style. Let’s just say that mullets are still hip here.
The exception is in Sofia. People in Sofia dress much more like Western Europeans, and whenever I’m there I see people I think are German or British and then when I walk by I am surprised to hear them speaking Bulgarian.
When travelling abroad this summer, people picked up on my being American about half the time. The other half they assumed I was German. Since I speak German, I had a lot of fun keeping up the illusion for as long as possible. Eventually they would ask where I came from, I would tell them, and invariably would get ‘but you speak another language! you can’t be American.’
South Texas is a blend of Caucasians and people with a Mexican heritage.
And yet I can spot someone from Mexico a mile away. We call them “Mexican nationals.” These are usually wealthy people from Mexico who drive up here to shop/vacation etc.; something about the way they dress (very expensive, very label-conscious) just isn’t the way an American with equal amounts of money would dress. Beyond that I can’t put my finger on it, because plenty of locals are wealthy and label-conscious but I can tell before they open their mouths that they are from here. The Mexican folks may not look Hispanic at all; there are lots of blonde and blue eyed folks from Mexico. And yet I recognize them instantly as non-natives.
It may also be body language; different cultures have different ways of carrying themselves.
As for recognizing Americans abroad…when I visited Amsterdam as a teenager, the store clerks would always address me first in Dutch, and then switch effortlessly to English when I spoke.
Does that mean they couldn’t tell I was American? I’ve always been told we stick out like a sore thumb, but that wasn’t the case in Amsterdam.
In England, though, everybody knew right away.
I can also recognize a British male with a pretty low margin of error. No, I don’t know exactly how, but something is distinctively Brit about them. (Oddly, not the case with British women.)
Weird.
It’s kind of cheating here. I know a good chunk of the foreign population personally.
The few unknown Americans that do show up are easy to pick out. We just don’t dress like French people, whose clothes seem pretty fussy and ill-fitting from my perspective. Even when they wear local clothes, they somehow manage to wear them differently.
One time we saw this dude at the Maroua market who just looked American. He had cargo shorts, spiky hair, and one of those heavy steel bead necklaces. No frenchman dresses like that. We can go months without meeting Americans, so we followed him around a bit hoping to figure out what he was doing wandering the markets of Maroua. Finally one of us yelled out “Hey white guy!”
Turns out he was from New Zealand or something. But hey- it’s not France!
Yes, it’s the clothing and accessories that initially help me to identify someone’s origins. Especially teenagers. After that, it’s just the way they interact in public. I can’t really specify how, though. In other countries it’s so obvious who’s from the States.
My own nationality? A bit difficult sometimes, but I’ve guessed them right (and once they open their mouth, if they have an accent, yes).
Other Latinamericans? Again, very likely… if not the country, I’ll at least distinguish Central American from South American.
Interestingly, I cannot seem to be placed. Just the other night, a waiter at a sushi place said that he liked to guess the nationality of his clients, and said I was from Eastern Europe, maybe Polish. My date laughed and replied “Wrong hemisphere!”.
I’m Puerto Rican, but I’ve been told I’m everything from Chilean to Jew, Arab, and Russian. I think the only one I don’t “pass” as is either sub-Saharan African or far east Asian.
I tend to have to wait until they open their mouths - young South Africans in London seemed to blend in quite well as waitstaff, as museum guides, on the Tube - until they started talking. Then there was no mistaking. Didn’t matter if they were black or white.Unless, of course, they were wearing team jerseys - that makes them rather easy to spot.
Coloured South Africans, OTOH are relatively easy to spot - they either look KhoiSan or Cape Malay, both of which are relatively distinctive ethnotypes (at least, for me). But I doubt I saw more than a handful in the UK.
I have a sprinkling of people from other countries coming into my court on a pretty regular basis. I confess I have no talent in figuring out where they’re from until they speak, and sometimes not even then. Just not a skill of mine.
I was in Paris one night when a group of American kids approached me and started asking me questions in French. How I knew that they were American, and how they didn’t know that I was American, I’ll never know. But when I looked at them all confused and blurted out the words non and Francais (about the only French I knew at the time), they spoke to me in perfect (American) English.
One clue that I use to spot Americans (obviously not 100% infallible) - they wear athletic shoes everywhere, regardless of age.
American here, lived in Paris for a while.
Hmmm, I pretty good at it, but I don’t know if it’s actually looking at the person, or just from context. Like if I see a larger man wearing shorts in France (outside Paris and other places where Americans go) German is a safe bet, but if I saw the guy in a police lineup, I probably wouldn’t be able to tell him from most Americans.
Tanned skin with a mullet or mullet derivative spotted in Europe? Spanish. Male or female.
Russians have a look about them too. Something about the haircuts for guys and the overly made up look of the girls (with lots of accessories) and they often look serious.
French guys still wear rugby style shirts, and they hold their cigarettes differently than Americans. And they stick their lips out.
I can usually tell Japanese people from other Asians, and African Africans from African Americans; and usually down to West, Southern, or Eastern Africans. So I can tell a Kenyan from a Nigerian, but not a Nigerian from a Cameroonian.
Something about whitish Argentines makes them stand out too, my other Latin American friends say it’s because Argentines act like they are better then everyone else.
Lots of Americans would approach me in Paris and ask directions, they didn’t seem to know I was American at first, but they seemed to pick me out of a number of people to ask something, which I didn’t mind a bit. I think Americans may just look friendlier than the average Parisian, and I’m told by the French that our young men often have “military” hair cuts and that our women are really loud.
After I’d lived in France a while, someone on the train told me “You drop pen,” which I had. I thought, damn, how did he know? I thought I’d gone native. I’d let my hair grow out, and everything I was wearing from watch to sunglasses to shoes was Euro. Only after his friend got on the train did I realize he was American too, and spoke to me in “simplified English” because he thought I spoke French and he didn’t.
Brazilian men are usually kicking around a soccer ball and the women are usually naked. (Just kidding, but wouldn’t it be nice?)
Japanese are by far the easiest to spot. They’re easily identified by the large bus, camera, and fifty other Japanese people they’re with.
Around where I live there are a lot of Chinese and Japanese people who live here. When I go to a grocery that sells both Chinese and Japanese food, I can’t tell which is which until they start speaking – and then it’s easy, because Chinese and Japanese are such diferent languages.
Obviously there’s a heapload of every nationality in London. Tourists are much MUCH easier to spot than the foreign residents who’ve started to dress like the locals.
Impossible to spot Aussies/Kiwis/South Africans who work here - too much shared genetic heritage. But the tourists from these places are easy - shorts and backpacks in December anyone?
Americans stand out A MILE. For one, I’m sorry to stereotype here, but they DO talk louder/are less concerned about others hearing their conversations, dress for comfort rather than style (always comfy jeans and sneakers, sometimes black sneakers to try and blend in - it doesn’t wash), sculpted hair, large body frames. Canadians probably sometimes fall into this category - i couldn’t tell the difference.
Dutch are very easy to spot - bright BRIGHT waterproofs/ski jackets seem to be mandatory, whatever the weather.
‘Latin’ europeans - I’m lumping Spanish/Italian/French together in one stereotyped heap here - stand out for hanging around in packs, invading the legendary British personal space, taking loudly and wearing matching mini backpacks (schoolkids).
I can easily spot Africans from African-British - it’s the clothing (and often skin tone).
Visiting British tourists are also easy to spot - they’ve spent all week trying to strike a balance between appropriately casual touring gear and something ‘trendy’ from the back of their wardrobe. And they talk on the tube, in the rush hour, how ‘they could never put up with this every day’.
Eastern Europeans? Badly cut jeans with weird pocket details and leather jackets. To a man (or woman).
London residents, of whatever nationality, wear a black wool coat and read a novel on the Tube. Myself included.
I get mistaken for French. Everywhere. I think it’s because I don’t have classic pink English skin. Even my mother thinks I look French (there’s something she’s not telling me there).