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I have attended courses in English over many years, and as most of my English teachers have an Algerian accent, I have always wondered about the question of accents.

I can distinguish an American accent because of the movies I've seen, but I can't distinguish between British, Australian and South African accents as they sound the same to my ear.

Even on social media I can only get in touch with non-English speakers that have foreign accents.

Q: How can I identify whether my interlocutor has an Australian, English or South African accent?

Kris
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adam
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    Can't you seek out British, Australian, and South African movies and train your ear with those? – Erik Kowal Jan 31 '15 at 11:23
  • I did watch australian and british movies and they seems the same ! except for some few words that are distingue, what im looking for is a more large major sonorous tricks (if i can say so) – adam Jan 31 '15 at 11:39
  • You can always ask a question like, May I ask where you're from? or, Where were you raised? or, What kind of accent is that? – J.R. Jan 31 '15 at 12:08
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    http://accent.gmu.edu/ See also (Related Qs on ELU): http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/39190/how-to-explain-accent-variations-to-students?rq=1 http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/1976/identifying-british-accents?rq=1 http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/38224/how-can-i-learn-to-speak-with-various-accents?rq=1 – Kris Jan 31 '15 at 12:44
  • @Kris, that's a really cool site! Is it already in the language-resources Meta question? If not, get it in there! – Dan Bron Jan 31 '15 at 13:50
  • @Kris The links where useful also the changes you've made, thank you – adam Jan 31 '15 at 13:53
  • Not to be closed; should be migrated to meta. – Kris Jan 31 '15 at 13:54
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    Here's an interesting lecture from a voice coach: http://www.videojug.com/film/how-to-do-a-south-african-accent – Greg Lee Jan 31 '15 at 14:03
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    Since you’re a French speaker, there’s at least one very simple trait that maps to easily identifiable phonemes in your native language and will nearly always tell you if an accent is Antipodean (Australia/New Zealand) or not: if words like hair, where, there, care, spare, etc. are pronounced with a vowel that sounds like the French é, as in été (but longer, of course), then it’s Antipodean. British and South African English both have more open vowels, like the one in être in French. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Jan 31 '15 at 15:30
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    @JanusBahsJacquet this is exactly what i was looking for, i've read that languages in hot places are more likely to be slow howhever in the cold places they may try to keep the air inside as long as possible and make words shorten. http://dialectblog.com/2011/05/31/climate-and-accent/ – adam Jan 31 '15 at 19:13
  • I very much doubt that's in any way true. Ever heard Spanish? Or Finnish? – Janus Bahs Jacquet Jan 31 '15 at 19:14
  • yes, what about them ? @JanusBahsJacquet – adam Jan 31 '15 at 20:14
  • Spanish = hot area, machine-gun rapid speech. Finnish = cold area, quite slow speech. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Jan 31 '15 at 20:15
  • i might have another opinion abt spanish but i'm not well educated about finnish but i get your point that there is a Counterexamples about this theory of languages, and how about accents ? any Counterexample ? like the us example in the previous link – adam Jan 31 '15 at 20:24

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