Posted by RichardG on October 20, 2003 at 10:42:30 from 62.173.81.130 user RichardG.
In Reply to: Re: This has got too far from Ransome-so what's new posted by Guy C. on October 19, 2003 at 17:27:10:
"But North American accents in general are not nearly as strongly differentiated as those in the UK. Few Americans would have a hard time understanding any other accent from North America, whereas the first time I heard Geordie I thought I was listening to someone speaking Norwegian or some other foreign tongue!"
Interesting North American viewpoint, Guy. As a native of the English Midlands, the only British accent I can recall having trouble understanding was Glaswegian. However, the first time I met someone from South Carolina (we were in Italy at the time) I had real difficulty making out what was being said - we finally discovered he was saying "I like the way you speak English !!!!!!!"
I was intrigued by the fact that when travelling in the USA, many people thought I was Australian - to British ears Australian sounds quite distinctive (only occasionally to be confused with Kiwi) whereas to Americans the British and Australian accents appear to sound similar.