I lived in Doncaster, in South Yorkshire, for about a year, and after a few months i could actually tell the difference between a Yorkshire and a Lancashire accent. I worked it out by listening to the accents of the people my Yorkshire friends referred to as “Lancashire twats.”
I then moved on to Ullswater, in Cumbria, where i worked with a bunch of locals, as well as folks from the north-east (Middlesbrough, Newcastle, and Durham), a Merseysider, and a Brummie. After a while i had pretty much all the northern accents down pat.
I can still pick them apart if they’re very broad, but most of the subtleties would probably be lost on me.
As for the OP, i can nearly always tell Irish and Scottish apart.
When I visited the US, all I got was ‘Huh?’ every time I opened my mouth. After the first couple of times, I began to clip my words more and more, and speak *very precisely. After which I got ‘Oh, cool - a Brit!’… but at least they mostly understood me. This was a lot more convenient than getting my American friends to translate for me, which is what happened a lot for the first couple of days! By the end of the trip though, I was beginning to sound like I belonged on the BBC.
This isn’t quite so hard for a South Aussie, since we have a slightly more up-market accent** to start with. Folks from the eastern states have quite often picked me as British even when I’m not putting on the jam.
Easy for me, my mum grew up in Glasgow. IMO, Irish is more melodic. I did pick the nationality a rugby referee one time, just hearing him say three words - “No no no.” It sounded faintly like “Nor nor nor” and he was, indeed, Welsh.
I loved the (scots) joke about how you tell the difference between an Irishman and a Scotsman. A Scotsman greets you with; “Hullo” and an Irishman says; “Fiddledeedee, potato!”
D&R (sorry)
I usually can tell them apart, as long as it’s a real accent, not someone affecting one for a role. Irish and Scottish - at least the accents we Americans are likely to hear, anyway - sound less alike than some the gentler English and Australian accents. I know I wasn’t the only one to assume Chase’s character on House was British until it an early episode said otherwise :o
Maybe, although I haven’t been exposed much to accents from either region. I’ve visited Wisconsin, for a day and it seems to my ears to have a less distinct, more “neutral” accent than that of the stereotypic Minnesotan with the Scandanavian influence. However, I’ve never visited Minnesota and as pointed out by you and others basing ones impression of an accent on what Hollywood produces is probably pointless. I’m no linguist but are not these accents more closely related than Irish and Scots ones for the most part?
For example, there are stereotypical “standard” Irish accents, Scottish accents, Australian, and English accents that I would have thought anyone from the Anglophone world would recognise, I’m not sure I’ve ever knowingly heard a Wisconsin accent on tv. I think That '70s Show is set there but their accents all sound fairly generic.
In my experience of America there are definite distinct regional accents but there seems to be a huge amount of homogeneity across vast geographic distances. Let me talk to a college kid (of the same social background) from any of the 50 states and I’m not sure I could meaningfully differentiate between their accents. Older people seemed to have markedly more distinct regional accents in most areas I’ve visited.
I suppose I shouldn’t get too hung up on it, Patrick Stewart plays a Frenchman in his most famous role!
Then again, in general I can tell that two speakers have different accents, but I wouldn’t have been able to tell that my North Carolina coworkers were from Nawth Cahliner without seeing those labels that said “Charlotte factory.” Southern, yeah, but not which Southern. There’s a few accent groups I recognize, but most accents get dumped into “understand” and “don’t understand” bins.
Nava, from Spain, 5 years living in the USA (but not any more)
I’ve had people tell me I “can’t be from Spain” because I don’t sound like Antonio Banderas. I usually ask them to inform the Spanish government, who will be very interested to hear this.
Assuming that’s not a whoosh, I’m from Ireland but have visited various parts of America. I’ve been to that wonderful country 6 times in 8 years and a half years and my girlfriend is from Ohio.
Sean Connery has a Scottish accent in every movie he’s in. He played a Russian submarine captain in The Hunt for Red October and was the only member of the entire Russian navy who had a Scottish accent.
He is a bad example to use since they could make a movie with him and say ‘Sean, you play an African bushman.’ and he would bust out the Scottish accent.
I thought I could, until I mistakenly thought that the actor Gabriel Byrne on In Treatment was Welsh.
For those who don’t know, he’s Irish.
I also didn’t realize that, according to Wikipedia at least, Sean Connery has a Scottish accent which he tends to use in every movie no matter what nationality he’s playing.
I think the question should be “Do you know” rather than “Can you tell”. If I hear an Irishman and a Scot speaking, sure I can tell they are different, but I can’t necessarily tell where each of them is from. Just like trying to fit a name to a face, some people have trouble fitting an accent to a place if they don’t hear it frequently enough. I’d like to think I could figure it out, but I’m not 100% sure.
I haven’t paid attention to the gecko ads in a while, so I will take a listen again. Certainly I haven’t since long before I started working at this job with the Aussie.
Whatever accent Sean Connery has is fine by me, though I don’t go all swoony over him the way a lot of women do. Craig Ferguson, on the other hand…swoon
Ah yeah he is a bad example. He’s part of that broader phenomenon of non-American accents being used to denote foreign.
David O’Hara plays an Irish character in The District, with a strong Glasgow accent. What’s peculiar about that is that he can do a more than passable Irish accent. He’s the crazy Irish character in Braveheart.
That’s 'cause he has a painfully sibilant (whistel-y) “s”* and he mumbles, on top of having a regional accent.
*I’ve heard it called a lisp, but I don’t think it technically is; IANASpeech Pathologist, however.
