We speak an entire different language now is that not culturally different? The only countries America is interested in is the next country they are going to bomb. Do Americans actually travel? How many average Americans actually have a passport? Do they actually travel without it involving an army? Do they really not have free health care that’s why there are so many gross people there? Do you really need the guns, that’s why you have mass shootings all the time ? over populated , half your people live in poverty and you are all dramatic 9/11 was an inside job done by your own people, to dumb to realise when your being duped
I see you’ve learned a lot in school, and you’re clearly well traveled.
Eh. I’m a born and bred Cantab, lived in the UK for seven years now. I can no longer easily distinguish an Aussie versus NZ accent when I hear it. They are not as different as you think.
So you live in a small county nobody ever talks about, and you’re complaining? Listen, pal, I live in an even smaller country the rest of the world won’t shut up about. Count your blessings.
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I’m from England and know the difference between the Australian and New Zealand accents (my School regularly has Gap year students from both.)
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I admire the All Blacks and Peter Jackson.
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Your pathetic posts give an awful impression of New Zealand.
P.S. Health Care in New Zealand (like Health Care in the UK is not free. It’s paid for by taxpayers.
Rutherford may have been born in New Zealand, but he did almost all of his work abroad.
Like the UK, beat police don’t carry guns. But there are armed response units.
9/11 was not an inside job.
That’s one hull of a chup on your shoulder you’ve got there Trev.
New Zealand is to Australia as New Mexico is to the US.
I DO have authority here and you will stop that sort of talk immediately.
Both insults and hate speech are not permitted. Doing so again under any circumstances will bring your posting privileges into jeopardy.
Warning issued.
Jonathan Chance
Moderator
Great Debates.
Rarely have a problem distinguishing Aussies from Kiwis, the cork hats help, but what I want to know is why SA and Kiwi accents are more similar than either are to Aussie accents?
Well, prior to this I was going to tell you that I spent a week in NZ as a kid, as part of a cultural exchange program. It was lovely - we got to meet the mayor of rotorua, spend the night in a marae, and generally see the sights. Thankfully, and quite unlike yourself, everyone we met was absolutely lovely. I do find that I can tell the difference between Australian and NZ accents, although not with 100% confidence.
You need to have a word with those teachers.
The man’s name was Richard Pearse. And he was not among those who believed he flew earlier than the Wrights.
FWIW, I’ve spent a decent amount of time in both New Zealand and Australia, and the accents sound substantially different to me. For example, Kiwis like to say “yees” (rhymes with “geese”) for “yes” and “teen” for “ten”, something you don’t hear on the “west island”.
I’ve always thought that New Zealand would be a pleasant place to live with agreeable climate, progressive laws, and friendly people. Unfortunately, we don’t hear much from that part of the world so we don’t get the chance to hear a Kiwi accent. In schools, for the most part it’s the US and Europe taught in history class. Very little is ever said about Australia, New Zealand, Africa, and for the most part South America or Asia.
Even if there was such a thing as an Every Nation In The World survey course in American schools, New Zealand would probably get about 40 seconds worth of lecture time.
That’s a cool fact about the jet boat, but I’m afraid that most Americans (if they recognize the Kiwi concept at all), associate your country with this.
Not that it’s an inferior product mind you, but handling the cans is messy.
About all I knew about New Zealand before meeting some New Zealanders was that it had a lot of sheep. I don’t recall New Zealand coming up at all in any of my education, other than geography. Maybe the Maori were mentioned in some class, as well–I do remember Maori as a language coming up in linguistics class in college.
New Zealanders and Australians definitely have distinct accents, but we hardly have enough experience with them to be able to distinguish the two. And not everyone is good at distinguishing accents, anyway. It’s about as silly as me expecting a New Zealander to know whether I’m from Chicago or New York based on my accent. The two accents are quite different (although with certain similarities, and there’s really more than a single accent for each of those cities) but I have no reason to think you have enough experience with hearing each of our accents to be able to reliably distinguish the two.
There are so many things I could say right now…
…I’ll just leave it at “Welcome to SDMB.”
Oh, and by the way it’s “done by your own people, too dumb to realize when you’re being duped.”
Nice one.
I liked the old Zealand…
This is quite odd. Up until now, all the New Zealanders I have met were remarkably nice people. Somehow I had presumed they all were. I must mention this person to my daughter before she goes to the University of Waikato next semester.
Right, I remember that. But then there was a fire and Paddy died, then Stuie was killed by a wild boar.
Just asking, do New Zealanders believe that five question marks make it more of a question than one question mark?
??? (just in case the previous question wasn’t enough of a question to warrant a response)
Ben, if it’s not too personal… Are you under 16 and/or is English not your first language?