What's that Accent?

---

Ever wondered what your accent sounds like to other people? I have and now I know, Australian! What, I don’t believe it, everyone thinks I’m Australian! I thought it might just be because we have similarities but when one lady mimicked my accent, I was horrified. You know the noise that comes out your mouth when you mimick an Australian accent, well that is what came out of this lady’s mouth, are you serious. They backtrack fast and quickly say sorry, they know its like saying they sound like they are from the USA.

People here love it though, the amount of times I have been told my accent is cool and that they could listen to me talk all day, I have run out of fingers and toes to count on.

We have been asked if we are Australian a million times (yes that’s an exaggeration but it feels that way), a few people think we have a British accent and one thought we were from South Africa. Some people have got it right, but then they tell us they have family in New Zealand, but still they got it right!

The other one is understanding accents, we are in a new place with all these different accents and we can understand them, but they can’t understand us. The other day at work I asked someone if we have “tear repairer” and she looked at me blankly, I could tell by the look on her face straight away, I had said something completely different. She heard “terraperra”. Opps. We have worked out that we talk fast and mix our words together, we don’t say them clearly as separate words like they do here.

Something to think about next time you mock an Aussie accent, to other people its not that different to yours!

---

Comments

[Amy]

Its like when an Australian mocks the NZ accent, you think, man I don't sound like that but after being here for 5.5 years, umm yes actually we do lol :)