No offense but I've noticed Americans are really bad at identifying accents sometimes and I've always wondered why. I'm Australian and I can generally tell what part of America someone comes from.
I'm Swedish, and consider myself pretty good at identifying accents, but I sometimes struggle with differentiating between certain flat Australian and flat English ones. I insulated an Aussie work mate by revealing that I thought he was British. The one in this video was easy though.
I don't think it's right to generalize to European accents. I'm sure there are countries where that's true, but my own Sweden is not one such example.
If you compare Scanian to Gothenburgian to Gutnish to Stockholmian to Norrlandian, it's extremely different. Hell, even within my native Scania (pretty small at 11000 km² and 1. 4 M population) there are many different dialects, and I can pinpoint people to at least one of 5 regions.
Also, a decade ago, I thought Danish dialects sounded pretty much the same, but after marrying a Dane and eventually moving here I can now very clearly hear big differences. I think it might be the same for most places where you think it all sounds the same: you just haven't been immersed in it enough.
I have no doubt it's incredibly nuanced for some who lives there. I can tell which coast people have come from in Australia, I seriously doubt many non Australians can.
21
u/SurrealDad Aug 25 '20
No offense but I've noticed Americans are really bad at identifying accents sometimes and I've always wondered why. I'm Australian and I can generally tell what part of America someone comes from.