Nice job, there. But you’re going to have to up your game just a bit more to get to Manhattan levels, and Miller is still the one to beat for second place.
New York State has about the population of Australia, New Zealand has roughly half the population of Massachusetts. I’m guessing few folks outside the eastern US can reliably tell the difference between a Bostonian and New Yorker even though they are like night and day to my ears. Heck, there are at least 4-5 distinct accents I can identify in New England alone.
Dick Van Dyke had an accent all his own!
I have heard all these separate British accents:
- Queen’s English (old style newsreaders)
- posh English
- Welsh
- Scottish
- North London
- South London
- Essex (estuary)
- East Anglian
- West Country
- Birmingham
- Mancunian (Manchester)
- Geordie (North East)
- Scouse (Liverpool)
I’m American. I have a passport. I’ve been to both Australia, and New Zealand. I still can’t tell them apart.
Hal Briston. What do I win with 25 points? Do I get extra points for him now being a Mod?
Do people really think there’s only one British accent? I know there’s a variety, and I can tell some of them apart, but they all have a “British” quality to them. Michael Caine and Daniel Craig don’t sound the same, but they both sound British and therefore somewhat similar. They probably sound wildly different to you since you know the accents better.
I think it’s that way for almost anything comparing insider vs outsider knowledge. A connoisseur of classical music would think there’s a wide variety of different classical music, and might think it’s strange that anyone would confuse Bach with Chopin (just to pick two composers at random). But a non-classical music listener wouldn’t be able to identify either composer after hearing some of their music; the listener would probably only be able to say it was classical music. It’s the same for many subjects: jazz, beer, snakes, airplanes, British accents, any number of other things. If you are familiar with the subject, you think the differences are very obvious. If you’re not familiar with the subject, you just lump everything into one big category. I’m not sure if I’m explaining myself well, but that’s just what I think.
I think this is a big part of it. According to Wikipedia, Australia has a population of 23,313,935, and New Zealand has one of 4,468,200. So the average American has run into the Australian accent more often than the New Zealand accent, whether in person or through movies and TV.
Can’t tell if serious, but if you are, you’re an example of what I was describing.
Dick Van Dyke, in Mary Poppins, is the archetypal example of ‘not recognisable as any kind of English accent’.
Whoooooosh!
There are people (assuming they were serious) who have told me they couldn’t tell the difference between different UK accents - on this very board, but I’m struggling to think how I could find the threads in question.
Daniel Craig and Michael Caine don’t actually sound all that different to me (when they are speaking calmly in their natural voices), but there are accents in this land that are on the borderline of intelligibility for me - for example, broad Yorkshire (which is actually a distinct dialect, not just an accent) and some of the Tyne and Teeside accents, when spoken fast - and by rights I ought to be OK with those, as my mother is from a small mining town north of Newcastle.
Australia is dustier.
I’m not sure. When I’ve encountered South Africans in Ireland they’ve sounded quite like Kiwis to my ears. Some have had what sounded to me like more obviously SA accents but I haven’t been exposed to enough accents to tell the English from the Afrikaans English accents.
Maybe the OP should spend some time at the Derek Zealander Center for Kids Who Can’t Read Good and Wanna Learn to Do Other Stuff Good Too.
New Zealand is fictional, so they can’t have an accent.
Texas has a large variety of accents itself. From Big City Almost Regular Talk (Houston, sometimes Dallas), Southern Coastal Swampy Might as well be a Cajun Almost Talk, East Texas Talks Too Much to Varmints Talk, Texican, Austin Pot Head Musicians Speak? Talk, and West Texas / Panhandler Mangle Every Word Spoken cause of dry mouth Talk.
But, to someone from NY, NY, can they tell them apart with only one person speaking? I doubt many Kiwis could either.
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applause
On behalf of the 4.4m New Zealanders in existence, I’d just like to apologise for this bloke. Clearly he’s a few sheep short of a paddock!
Why would you be offended if your accent is mistaken for Australian, but proud if mistaken for British or South African. That’s so odd.
Sure - it may be that the other past examples I mentioned are the same.
You’re conflating it with The Netherlands - where Peter Pan lives.
New Zealand is an actual, geographic place.
There’s no such thing as a New Zealander though: they all (apart from sandra_nz) live in Australia.
