Maybe listen to the way the characters in The Sims talk.
Having lived abroad for so long, I can just about hear sometimes what makes English “English.” And by that I mean can for the first time hear a commonality between otherwise hugely varying English accents (Liverpudlian/London/etc) which previously seemed more different between one another than they did from Australian or American English, say.
English (to me) sounds more clipped, and cooler. It’s very hard to describe - think of this as a nuance difference. It also sounds “fresh”.
You have to measure my perspective by the fact that I am a native English English speaker so my recognition of an English English accent is coloured by the fact that it’s probably easier on my ear.
Anyway it sounds cooler and less warm than American and Australian accents. By this I do not mean “cold” as in unfriendly, but “cool” as in a sort of tone.
It’s also interesting hearing non-native English speakers who speak American/English/Canadian-accented English. They act like a sort of “lens” on the language.
Has the answer to this question changed since last June?
What are some of the afformentioned Chinese and Japanese punk bands’ names?
^^ for the last poster.
On to my own post…
Listen to little foreign kids singing Brittany or BSB. Having listened to one of my little in-laws happily singing Spice Girls songs before she could speak english I got a very clear picture. Her pronunciation is eerie, she could mimic any word perfectly when you asked her too, but when singing “her songs” by herself she just sang aproximate sounds. Sing out loud the words “Hivvy ramy unuh tai” to the melody of “hit me baby one more time” for an example. Similar but more bizarre and less relevant to the op is my having witnessed her 10 year old brother and their father trying out his new CD-man on Christmas Day with both of them happily singing “Smack my bitch up, smack my bitch up”.
That’s like the (fake?) Danish commercial for learning English, where a Danish family merrily enjoy an English song with lyrics consisting of “I want to fuck you in the ass.”
**G. Odoreida **
I remember seeing a Japanese cartoon in which (from context was obviously) printed English was featured. It was represented by a lot of vertical lines interspersed with circles ||•|°|0|o|| <-- more or less like that.
Daoloth-- I’ve seen that commercial (on the web)-- I think it’s a real commerical and it’s Dutch. I about broke my speen laughing.
This is a great thread. Whenever I hear comedians impersonating someone with an accent or when I hear non-native speakers use their genuine accent I wonder what an English accent sounds like to foriegners.
Guess it knocked the “L” out of you. 
I know what you mean, I perceive the different accents in terms of flavours. English seems to me kind of flavour-less, but American English has a distinct “salty” flavour.
As strange as it may seem, I was educated in a British school in India, and the english taught in India is British English, however I’ve realised and my fellow people have also beleived that although we learn and speak British english, we comprehend the American accent better. I particularly noticed this while watching a British film (pardon my absent mindedness for I dont recall which film) while on the contrary I usually don’t have a problem with the ‘yankee’ (if you please) accent.