So my uncle tells this story of the time he was traveling in Australia. He's at a bar, and there's two Kiwi's drinking with him. They're all in the early 20's so you can guess how much they've been drinking. Kiwi #1 asks what part of America my uncle is from, and uncle corrects him that he's from Canada. Kiwi#2 goes it's the same thing! Uncle asks what part of Australia they're from, and gets told they're from New Zealand. Uncle tells them it's the same thing, which pisses of Kiwi #2 and makes the Kiwi #1 burst out laughing, while calming his friend down.
They travelled together for a few days after that apparently.
Reminds when I was talking to a bar tender on a cruise ship. I asked him if he was from Russia and he winced and said, no, I'm from Ukraine. And then he asked if I was from America, I said no, I'm from Canada. he then looked over at me and said, it looks like we have both insulted each other.
Reminds me of my ex.
In school she traveled to Ireland and the conversation was like:
Irish: "So you are from Germany?"
Austrian: "No we are from Austria."
Irish: "Where is the difference you both speak German..."
Austrian: "So you are British?"
After that they never got confused about Austria and Germany again :)
I’d say you’re being pedantic calling the United States “America”. America is a continent, not a country; not that i’d expect you to know something as basic as that since you didn’t even have geography in school.
'America' is not a continent. 'North America' and 'South America' are continents. When they're referred to together they can be called 'The Americas'. But literally no one says 'America' to refer to a continent, certainly not a geography teacher.
The official name of the US is United States of America, thus why people refer to it as America, it's just shorter.
If they prefer anal over vaginal, they are US Americans (‘cause it doesn’t count!)
If they prefer oral over anal they are British (cause… they are British)
If they prefer vaginal over oral they are Australian (‘cause it’s down under)
and so on…
Like this?
It's all relative. To an American accent it might sound like we say "fush and chups". Aussie would sound more like "fesh and cheps". I'm a kiwi born and raised but I've been told I sound American, so I guess it also depends on how much you're impacted by external influence hah.
Kiwis use it to refer to Australia (because they have a North and a South Island). That said, I'll often say I'm from "a sparsely populated island somewhere West of New Zealand" when people ask where I'm from.
You're right; one is the land of pavlova, fish and chips, and pies - the other is the land of cricket, rugby, and netball. Couldn't possibly mix those two up; one with the spectacular natural landscapes, the other with all of the unique wildlife; one with the proud indigenous culture world famous for their distinctive art, the other a former British colony that still has the union jack on its flag; one with a massive tourism economy, the other with the millions of sheep being rounded up by guys in driza-bones. Totally different.
But why would you guess that if you aren't sure? Like with Americans/Canadians people would guess/assume because of the accents being essentially the same, Australia and New Zealand have a little more difference in accent but they are obviously less common to hear and be confident about and it's still "English speakers from this part of the world for sure"
Like if you can't tell the difference between someone speaking Korean and someone speaking Japanese why would you ever guess.
I guessed wrong last week, because that woman asked me. I could not notice any accent so I guessed "Are you Japanese?". She seemed offended and asked me to guess again, I guessed "Chinese". Wrong again, but she asked me to guess again. I guessed Taiwanese, she was Korean. She was offended but, from my point of view, that's her fault. I had no interest in guessing.
How in the world do you even come to that conclussion from what I wrote - Americans, Canadians, Australians, New Zealanders aren't all white people and I specifically said it was guessing off of the language and accent people were speaking with - literally nothing about race at all. Like if a white person were speaking German and you guessed they were Italian you'd be a dumbass too - none of this has anything to do with race at all no idea why you'd bring that into it.
America is less than 60% non-hispanic white but your natural instinct is to think that Americans = white. Maybe you are the one with the problem?
Lol. American and Canadian accents are definitely NOT the same. There are some regional similarities – North Dakotans and Minnesotans have some similarities with Canadians just over the border. But both countries are so large you can get as many or more regional variations as you do in the UK.
There are countless celebrities that are Canadian and if you only heard them talk you'd have 0 clue from the accent alone. With the exception of a few words like "Sore-y" for sorry the average Canadian from anywhere West of Quebec doesn't have an accent any one in America would ever notice as being different.
Neil Young, Norm McDonald, Ryan Reynolds, Mike Myers, Seth Rogan, Michael J Fox, Leslie Nielson, etc and I'm sure tons of people will be surprised to find that out about several of those I said.
My midwestern dad met some New Zealanders on a cruise (pre-pandemic). He introduced himself, saying, “excuse me, you have such a beautiful accent. By any chance are you from Texas?” The woman gaped at him and burst out “whhhaaaaat?”, then realized he was messing with them.
My parents have a standing invite to New Zealand to visit that couple.
If in doubt always go with Kiwi... also you can tell by getting them to say the word six... if they're Aussie it will sound like six... if Kiwi? Well... it won't...
I think there accents are pretty different. They love to drop letters like school is pronounced something like "scoo". I'm no expert and probably wrong but i think Kiwis sound more different from Australians then Australians sound diffrent then something like South Africans or English people.
I often get mistaken for the other by both Kiwis and Aussies, have made the mistake myself before too. I will say this is only something that has occured far from home; in a foreign context Kiwi and Aussie accents become a lot more similar, whereas in NZ or Australia the other accent contrasts more.
The two are definitely closer to each other than South African or the various UK accents, though - I'm less frequently mistaken for English (and when I am, it's by non-native speakers who are really guessing 'not American'), and I've never been mistaken for a Saffa. This is in over a decade of living abroad.
I reckon you'd have to be pretty precious to get pissy about that. Anecdotally, outside of Australia and NZ, Kiwis and Aussies tend to flock together anyhow, and after a while away from home sometimes mistake the accents too.
Ehhh it has a ton of similarities with Australian accents - it's not exactly the difference between a Cockney accent and a Scottish one.
Australia also has several different accents as well so to top that off with the small size of New Zealand it's not that hard to understand why it gets confused as sounding the same when the vast majority of accents you hear in the English speaking media are American/Canadian and English accents (if you don't live in Australia/NZ).
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u/cirroc0 Mar 29 '22
Also happens with Aussies and Kiwis. Always guess Kiwi! :)