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Difference between British and Australian English? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| ruskivyetr Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5480 days ago 769 posts - 962 votes  Speaks: English*, German Studies: Spanish, Russian, Polish, Modern Hebrew | Message 9 of 31 08 January 2010 at 7:54am | IP Logged | ||
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The real difficulty is the difference between Australian and New Zealand accents. I myself can personally tell, but it's just something I know, I don't the characteristics. I think it has something to do with the way they pronounce their i's.
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| fanatic Octoglot Senior Member Australia speedmathematics.com Joined 7145 days ago 1152 posts - 1818 votes Speaks: English*, German, French, Afrikaans, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Dutch Studies: Swedish, Norwegian, Polish, Modern Hebrew, Malay, Mandarin, Esperanto | Message 10 of 31 08 January 2010 at 8:35am | IP Logged | ||
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The I's are a giveaway but all of the vowels are different. Some well spoken Australians can sound British. People in American movies had a rather universal accent and it was difficult to tell their nationality.
I am Australian and I don't particularly like the Australian accent - it surprises me when people in North America and Europe say they like it. When I was working in Germany I did some recordings of Australian texts read with a broad Australian accent. There are regional differences in some expressions. In Melbourne, we call the grass strip between the footpath (sidewalk) and the road a "nature strip". That conjures up strange pictures in the minds of people in Western Australia and New Zealand. In New Zealand they call it a "verge". In Melbourne we eat potato cakes. In Sydney they are scallops. In a fish and chip shop we can also eat flake, which is shark. I don't know if they have a word for it in Northern Australia as I understand they don't eat it. It is a long time since I lived in New Zealand and I forget many of the differences. You get similar differences in America and England. When I lived in Germany I taught English for a while and had to speak with a correct English pronunciation of vowels. My accent changed so that when I returned to Australia my brothers told me "I spoke like a foreigner". 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Quabazaa Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 5608 days ago 414 posts - 543 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, German, French Studies: Japanese, Korean, Maori, Scottish Gaelic, Arabic (Levantine), Arabic (Egyptian), Arabic (Written) | Message 11 of 31 08 January 2010 at 10:18am | IP Logged | ||
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Well I'm a New Zealander and have to say I find both British and Aussie accents quite different. There's the occasional kiwi who has lived in Australia or vice versa that I find difficult to place, but definitely the vowels are the thing to watch for. I know you didn't ask about NZ but hopefully this is interesting anyway!
For example I think when kiwis say "New Zealand" it sounds more like "Niw Zilind" (like a schwa sound) and when Australians say it it's like "New ZeAAlaand", really drawing out the A's compared to how we say it. Sometimes I can even tell which region in NZ people come from, despite it being a small country. It's hard to put my finger on the differences though! In general Aucklanders maybe have a more clipped way of speaking, anyone from rural areas has a kind of drawl, and people from the far south have very strong R's. Wellington is maybe kind of neutral but perhaps I'm just saying that because it's my city ;) Between NZ and Britain it is definitely the E's!! My name is Jenny and whenever I say my name to foreigners they have trouble understanding - the British will ask me "Jinny?" and the Americans "Genie?" XD I have started to learn to say my name more like the British one because I feel silly otherwise :) Some good websites with different English accents University of Edinburgh International Dialects of English Speech Accent Archive Edited by Quabazaa on 08 January 2010 at 4:50pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| delectric Diglot Senior Member China Joined 7180 days ago 608 posts - 733 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin Studies: German | Message 12 of 31 08 January 2010 at 12:55pm | IP Logged | ||
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Australian and British English and very similar. No wonder, about 70% of the
population can trace their roots back to the British Isles. You only need to look at the faces of many Australians, to see they have a distinct 'British' look to them. Australian English sounds like a familiar working class British dialect, but obviously can't be found in any region of the UK. To me it has a quality of Cockney English in some of the vowel sounds with the rhythm of Scots. No wonder the accent is decidedly British and working class, it was first used as a penal colony by the UK. I doubt many Lords and Ladies were sent to Australia. Australian English then, is a mixture of many working class accents mashed together. Much of Australian vocabulary also comes from working class British dialects 'mate' to name just one of many to refer to a good male friend. 'Posh' Australians still use the Queens English. However, if we compare the vast majority of Australian's English to the Queen's English 'standard' then yes one might say the two accents are not so close, but compare Cockney English or Scots to the Queens English then it's obvious there's a comparatively huge difference between these accents too. American English is definitely further away from British English in terms of accent and vocabulary. Edited by delectric on 08 January 2010 at 12:58pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Alvinho Triglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 6233 days ago 828 posts - 832 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, English, Spanish | Message 13 of 31 09 January 2010 at 6:19pm | IP Logged | ||
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I watched films on which the locations chosen were Australia and UK at the same time..."Australia" with Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman....she puts on a British accent and he more naturally of course, an Aussie one, but I bet that the northern territory accent is different from East Coast....also I usually listen to Aussie radios to get informed of the local news....indeed there's a slight difference between both accents.....sometimes I wonder if Aussie accent is a mix involving Irish, American and British.
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| MäcØSŸ Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5808 days ago 259 posts - 392 votes Speaks: Italian*, EnglishC2 Studies: German | Message 14 of 31 09 January 2010 at 7:52pm | IP Logged | ||
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My impression as a foreigner is that Australian English is very different from RP, but quite similar to popular south
English accents (especially for the loop, tore and my sounds). Edited by MäcØSŸ on 09 January 2010 at 7:53pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 Hencke Tetraglot Moderator Spain Joined 6893 days ago 2340 posts - 2444 votes Speaks: Swedish*, Finnish, EnglishC2, Spanish Studies: Mandarin Personal Language Map | Message 15 of 31 09 January 2010 at 9:22pm | IP Logged | ||
It's very gratifying for me to read this, as I was once ridiculed for venturing the opinion that I thought I could recognise some Cockney elements in the Aussie accent. I can generally pick out an Aussie accent if it's broad enough, but the one on the youtube video above was not very obviously Australian to me. Knowing beforehand that he was Australian helped me recognise some of the elements, but without that prior knowledge I might not have been able to suss it on my own. That's not to say I think it sounded like the Public-School-Oxbridge-BBC variety, let alone upper-class-royalty speak, aka RP IIUC, just rather similar to how you might hear average people speaking, in a region somewhere in the UK, probably in some southern parts which is what I've had the most exposure to. Since NZ was also mentioned, I am really curious whether Brits can generally tell Aussie and Kiwi accents apart. I certainly can't myself, but I have also not had much exposure to NZ. I suppose if I trained myself in the skill it might be doable. I am wondering if Aussie and Kiwi accents are a parallell to Argentinian and Uruguayan accents in Spanish? According to the locals, especially those on the Uruguayan side of the river, they are very clearly different, but native Spanish speakers from other parts of the world, be it Spain or other parts of Latin America, generally cannot hear the difference. Edited by Hencke on 09 January 2010 at 9:36pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| cordelia0507 Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5837 days ago 1473 posts - 2176 votes Speaks: Swedish* Studies: German, Russian | Message 16 of 31 09 January 2010 at 11:41pm | IP Logged | ||
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Yeah that's what I was trying to say before: There are enormous differences in accents within the UK and it's a rather touchy subject because it's a class thing. I.e. the higher up you are on the social scale (in general) the more you speak like BBC Radio 4 or the Queen. Of course, there are exceptions. Plus accents from different parts of the UK sound very, very different.
But the result of all this is that people living next door to each other and having grown up in the same area can speak differently because one family has a middle class background and sends their kids to the right schools while the other has working class origins. Tony Blair for instance, speaks posh, while Gordon Brown does not. People VOTE based on perceptions from accents and people can get beaten up for it. It's serious business here. I have had tremendous career benefits becaus I happen to speak with the right accent. It was NOT the cream of British society that was sent to Australia, as you know... Hence the accent sounds like a branched off mix of various regional working class / peasant accents from the British Isles (this sounded terribly snobbish, but historically it's the truth.) ============================================================ Day in the life of a scumbag chav http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7RBelz8BgX0 Really rubbish English with "Devvo" an unemployed yob from Kingston on Hull. ===================================and a contrast============ The Queen's Christmas speech to the commonwealth which some people may have watched. Some interesting Commonwealth accents. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oldI0UrizQM ============================================================ Edited by cordelia0507 on 10 January 2010 at 12:55pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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