Laughing at stupid foreigners.

[Gravity Aided]

Here's what people from my area sound like, in general.
Notice the drawing out of e's and o's, and lengthening of pronunciation of vowels on the end of a sentence
.
View: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lm6fnQ5no0o


View: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgR8NjNw__I

One from each side of the aisle, as it were.

 

[ianrauk]

I went to California for a month many years ago - folks asked me if it was Australia or New Zealand I was from. It didn't seem to enter their heads that I was English.

That's quite widespread throughout the US.

 

[Gravity Aided]

So are Australians.

 

[yello]

I've lived in Texas for almost 12 years and folks still mistake my Cornish accent for anything other than English, usually Australian, sometimes New Zealand.

And as an NZer living and working in Boston, I was asked if I was Irish (well, they would in Boston), then Welsh, then Australian. It went around the houses. I guess they could only figure that I wasn't English.

 

[ianrauk]

Whiles travelling through the US I stopped at a town called Yuma. Went to a steakhouse for something to eat and drink. Server not only asked if we were Australian, she asked why we were in Yuma. 'just passing through' I said. 'Passing through? No one passes through Yuma' she said.

 

[Dayvo]

Whiles travelling through the US I stopped at a town called Yuma. Went to a steakhouse for something to eat and drink. Server not only asked if we were Australian, she asked why we were in Yuma. 'just passing through' I said. 'Passing through? No one passes through Yuma' she said.

Waiting for the ten past three train, no doubt, eh!

 

[ianrauk]

Waiting for the ten past three train, no doubt, eh!

It was the actual reason why did visit

 

[Julia9054]

I had a Belgian teacher stay with me on an exchange visit a few years ago. She had studied in Dublin for four years and her impeccable English was accented with a fantastic mix of Irish and Flemish.
Her job was to teach English to teenage motor mechanics. She told me that one of her main teaching methods was to show subtitled episodes of Top Gear.
I can only imagine how the current crop of Belgian motor mechanics speak English.
" and on that bombshell . . . "

 

[Dayvo]

Two of my old university mates teach English in Sweden.

One is from Northern Ireland, the other hails from Bolton. When I lived in Stockholm, I met them with some of their students for a pub night and it was hilarious hearing a Swede talking good English with pronounced Northern Irish and Bolton, like.

In fact, the mate from Bolton, is/was the language adviser to Prince Daniel, who apparently has a touch of Bolton in his English.

 

[stephec]

Two of my old university mates teach English in Sweden.

One is from Northern Ireland, the other hails from Bolton. When I lived in Stockholm, I met them with some of their students for a pub night and it was hilarious hearing a Swede talking good English with pronounced Northern Irish and Bolton, like.

In fact, the mate from Bolton, is/was the language adviser to Prince Daniel, who apparently has a touch of Bolton in his English.

That's reet champion lad.

 

[Asa Post]

My son, Sheffield bred but resident in Virginia for the last ten years, is often assumed to be Canadian.

 

[vernon]

You lots have it easy with just a two or three nationalities mistakenly conferred upon you.

I am entertained by:
The French are convinced that I am American because I, according to them, speak French with an American accent.
New Zealanders are convinced that I am a maori
Australians are sure that I am an aborigine
Sikhs claim me as one of their own
Rugby fans are convinced that I am from: Fiji, Samoa, or Tonga
At Knockengorroch I had to convince someone that I wasn't a fellow Madagascan
The Dutch embrace me as one of their ex-colonial inhabitants
I've lost count of the African nations that I have been aligned with

I have been astounded when folk have pinned down my place of birth and upbringing, Darlington or current abode, Leeds.

I have been dismayed when I have been accused of being a scouser or a brummie.

 

[Ganymede]

My sister speaks Swedish. When working in Norway she worked up a speech in Norwegian that she delivered to a (stunned) local audience. They said afterwards that she had a German accent.

(The speech began "As you know, British people don't speak Norwegian..." Heh. She's a star.)

 

[threebikesmcginty]

I was working with a Swedish guy in Norway the other week and I asked him about whether Swedish is understood in Norway, he said it is if they want it to.

 

[perplexed]

With the American thing.
I gather being presumed to be Australian in California is quite common, it's happened to me. Slightly more oddly, I was once asked if I was Swiss in Colorado. Apparently, despite the fact I spoke in English and I've never been to Switzerland, I sounded like a friend of hers from those Cantons.

In Arizona, somebody assumed I was from Oregon.