English people mistaken for Aussies?

I've got an English friend who's been working as an English teacher around here in Peru. Sometimes, when we meet other foreigners, they often think we're Australians, especially Canadians and some Americans. No, especially Canadians really. They always do, and my mate says "No, I'm English. And I say, No I'm Peruvian but learnt English in England."
On the other hand, I've met some people, especially from America, Australia and New Zealand, who believed I was from somewhere in England which was quite cool! :)
My friend is from a small town near London, he says. And well most of my teachers were from London and Oxford, having some form of RP English.
So I have some questions for you.

1.- Basically, Why the hell do they mistake us for Aussies?
2.- What accents in England are similar to some Australian variety?
3.- If so, then what features of those accents are shared with a particular Australian accent, and which accent would that be?
4.- Are Aussies also mistaken for English people sometimes, who thends to make this kind of mistake?
5.- Are those ignorant arseholes, or it's perfectly natural to mistake English and Australian accents?
6.- Every person from Oxford I've met had some form of RP English. so here's my last question, do everyone in Oxford use that posh RP-like accent or it's just a myth?

Last week I heard a guy from somewhere in the state of Victoria in Australia and I must confess that when I first heard him saying a couple of words I thought he was from London. However, it was sufficient to hear some more features of his accent to know he was Australian.

Thanks in advance.
Pete

Well Pete, I believe that foreigners that you've met might not be able to make much difference between accents.
When I used to live in Europe about 10 years ago, I couldn't make any different between an American accent and a British one or others because perhaps I wasn't in contact much with other English speaking people.
About Americans now, it depends I guess. Some of them might have been around foreigners a lot and then they might figure out their accent.
I met many Americans who weren'r able to figure out an accent.Besides that to me Aussie accent is close to some of the UK accents.

P.S. arseholes??? You meant asshole?
If yes, I don't believe one should be called an asshole because he/she mistakes people accents.

its off-topic, but arsehole is a spelling variation of "assohole".

<<P.S. arseholes??? You meant asshole?
If yes, I don't believe one should be called an asshole because he/she mistakes people accents.>>

Yes, that's what I mean. Arsehole, asshole, whatever. But it's actually a bit annoying being confused for someone else. My mate doens't like when someone says "I swear you sound Australian". It's like someone confusing a Scot for an English person. It's just annoying.

Anyway, I'm still in doubt about why that happens and how is possible that an English person can be mistaken for Aussies. And I know it's natural for non-native speakers like me, to make that mistake. However native-speakers, I mean, how come?? I could mistake a Colombian accent for a Venezuelan one, they're similar but still copmpletely different.

Well, any answers?

<<I could mistake a Colombian accent for a Venezuelan one>>

I meant: I couldn't mistake...

Well, Pete, you have to understand that if you speak with a rhotic variety of English, most of the non-rhotic ones sound pretty similar. That's because mostly all you're listening for are the R's, and maybe the T's. English and Autralian people do the same things with their R's. The main differences are in the vowels, but rhotic-speakers aren't usually as attuned to those differences.

The other problem is also that while we have heard Australian and English accents, we rarely get to hear them side-by-side, so that we can hear the distinctions.

And finally the third problem, for Americans at least, is that we generally don't make it a point to learn to place accents -- even within the US! They have no real social connotations for us; they are simply geographic variations, and so we consider them of little importance. British people, on the other hand, associate different social aspects with certain accents, so they have more incentive to learn to identify them.

<<Well, Pete, you have to understand that if you speak with a rhotic variety of English, most of the non-rhotic ones sound pretty similar. That's because mostly all you're listening for are the R's, and maybe the T's. English and Autralian people do the same things with their R's. The main differences are in the vowels, but rhotic-speakers aren't usually as attuned to those differences. >>

Also, keep in mind it goes the other way around. Speakers of Commonwealth non-rhotic English are likely to confuse various rhotic North American accents or not be able to tell the difference between them unless they've had enough exposure to them. My friend (an American also from California) who studied abroad in South Africa would get annoyed when the English-speaking people there would try and imitate a "typical American accent" and would end up just sounding like cowboys from the Old West movies.

Even more subtle of a difference for non-North Americans is that between General American and General Canadian. While General Canadian clearly sounds Canadian to the average American, people not from this continent typically cannot distinguish the average American accent from the average Canadian one unless they know what to listen for.

I would usually feel sorry for anyone who would be mistaken for an english person.

<<Also, keep in mind it goes the other way around. Speakers of Commonwealth non-rhotic English are likely to confuse various rhotic North American accents or not be able to tell the difference between them unless they've had enough exposure to them.>>

Ah, here you go, Pete -- straight from the horse's mouth!

http://www.antimoon.com/forum/t506-30.htm

1-Well, to me I can't really tell the middle and lower class English accents from the Australian accent (I've never heard them side by side.) Unless you had an extremely posh royal sounding RP accent, I would most likely guess Australia or New Zealand first, because over here, the only time we get to hear English accents is through the movies where most of the actors seem to have either the ultra-posh RP accent or the extremely strong Cockney-ish accent--so any English accent in between, I wouldn't be able to tell whether it was an English accent or an Australian or a New Zealand accent. Just recently, I asked some people from Australian, "Where in England are you from?" I'd say that probably the majority of North Americans couldn't distinstinguish these accents, unless they had met someone from one of those places. Like Uriel said, we just listen for the R's and the T's.

2- The middle and lower class accents (except an extremely thick Cockney accent.)

3- The R's and the T's :)

4- yes, most certainly.

5- :)

6- I had a teacher from Oxford, and he had what sounded like an RP accent to me. (although he's in his 70s, and hasn't been back there for a really long time) so maybe thing's have changed since then.

Pete, well its just those people have had minimal exposure to the comparative talk of an Aussie and an English person. They can be forgiven also for the fact that that Peruvian are Spanish speakers and less in tune with English langauge accents than English speakers. I doubt you or I would have the ability to determine the accent differences between Peruvian and Mexican Spanish for example!

I as an Australian have problems distinguishing between a Canadian and an American accent because I have had minimal exposure to both accents. It wasn't until last year when I had a Canadian flatmate that I had no idea of the differences (apart from the Canadian rising feature). Its only now that I have some vague ability to determine the difference but I would still have difficulties at times.

The fact that the majority of the Australian accent comes from Cockney English allows us to be mistaken for you. For example, the "long A" for example that was developed in the Cockney accent and their rhymes has been maintained in Aussie English. Otherwise, other things that we have not picked up on such as glottal stops and "h" dropping, "flat" vowels are somethings that we as Aussie speakers might use to distinguish ourselves from Cockney speakers might simply be not be known by those from areas not familiar with our accents.

I think you are being awfully tough on the poor Peruvians, at least they try. If it was me, I would simply smile and proudly say that I'm an Aussie and not confuse me with an English person :)

I have heard of a guy from the Birmingham area of England who had a very strong Brummie accent...he sounded just like Jasper Carrot's twin brother. Anyway, when he was over in America on holiday he was often mistaken for an Aussie. He felt like wearing a teeshirt with the slogan: 'I'm from Brum not Oz'. Listening to the Brum accent I try to find similarities with the standard Aussie accent but I can't quite pinpoint what they may be, but I suppose I'm blinded by familiarity (blinded not an appropriate word, but deafened would sound silly, but you know what I'm getting at).

I think I can now just about tell the difference between the American and Canadian accents, but even so Canadians living and working here in the UK all feel the need to sport the red maple leaf motif in one form or another for the benefit of us dumb Brits who would assume they were Americans as soon as they speak.

<<He felt like wearing a teeshirt with the slogan: 'I'm from Brum not Oz'.>>

Ooh, tell your friend he was just as well off saving his money on the screenprinting fee: that sentence would have been virtually meaningless to Americans. "Brum" means nothing to us and "Oz" is more likely to conjure up images of Dorothy and Toto than kangaroos and koalas.

So he would have just had to endure two stupid questions instead of one -- "Are you from Australia?" and "What the hell does your shirt mean?"

>>I think I can now just about tell the difference between the American and Canadian accents, but even so Canadians living and working here in the UK all feel the need to sport the red maple leaf motif in one form or another for the benefit of us dumb Brits who would assume they were Americans as soon as they speak.<<

The main thing here that complicates this is that many "Canadian" features are also common to many NAE dialects spoken in the northern US; for example, Canadian Raising (especially for /aI/) and using rounded vowels in words like "sorry" are not actually distinctive of those NAE dialects which are spoken in Canada. Of course, this is a consequence of English dialects forming a dialect continuum with few clear breaks along political lines, the only clear break being between the dialects of Detroit, Michigan and Windsor, Ontario, and as a result it would be expected that it would be difficult to find some easy way of distinguishing dialects that cleanly matches political boundaries.

***"Brum" means nothing to us and "Oz" is more likely to conjure up images of Dorothy and Toto than kangaroos and koalas.***

Hee hee! I love it . To many people here the term "Brum" conjures up an image of stupidity and ridicule in a way......the accent has that affect on people who are not Brummies......much like Scouse.....unfair really, because it's not unknown for peeps with a string of letters after their name to speak pure Brummie and are proud to come from Brum....aka Birmingham or the Black Country (a strictly non racial term in case anyone asks......it was the home of the 18th century industrial revolution).

As for Oz.......a commonly used term here for Down Under.....nothing to do with "I guess we're not in Kansas anymore, Toto".